Passings: Dr Phillip Roy Reeves

One of my best friends, Dr Phil Reeves, passed away early Saturday in a sudden and unexpected complication from dental surgery. He passed peacefully in his sleep and was discovered by his partner in his bed.

Phil was an accomplished cellist, having played on tours with the likes of Johnny Mathis, Frank Sinatra, and various incarnations of the Rat Pack Reunion Tours, as well as occasionally sitting in with the Philadelphia Mandolin Ensemble. He turned to Psychiatry and had been in practice for several years. I first met him when he asked me to be his personal assistant part-time about 6 years ago, and he also helped me with my own mental issues. After I adopted Sophie cat, he adopted a brother and sister pair of kittens, Albert and Victoria. When Phil and his delightful partner Graham would go on one of their frequent trips, I was usually the designated Kitty Sitter.

I am going to miss his dry sense of humor, his love of classical music, the way he doted on his two cats and would put them into hilarious photo montages, and the obvious love for his partner, Graham. But more then anything, I am going to miss a man who was not only an amazing friend, but would go out of his way to help me whenever he could, and in times when I was in very dark places. He stood by me when many would not. I have lost one of my life's few anchors and the world is a sadder place today.

(The photo Of Dr Reeves was taken by me at a co-worker of Phil's baby-shower in January. Albert and Victoria were about 4 at the time of their picture.)

January Sucked. Back to Zero, Again.

As per my post on January 9th, I was offered a job that I thought might finally turn my situation from 2011 around. Unfortunately, things have been miserable since. I'd started the new job as an administrative assistant at a 5 Doctor medical clinic. It was a hectic and fast paced, stressful environment, and I thought I was doing OK. I was supposed to be learning the tasks of a pregnant female staffer before she left for maternity leave. She promptly had her baby boy three weeks early and well before I fully had the routines down. At the end of the 13^th day, I was informed I was not picking up the procedures of the office and was asked to resign. I have to admit, the stress of the place was literally giving me panic attacks. So here we are again, The end of January and I am right back in the same place I was a year ago this time.

The computer class I'd been taking since October is over now, and I did awful in it. I just could not absorb the amount of advanced technical information that was being thrown at me, and ultimately will probably not be able to use anything the course had to offer. Had I been better informed, I would have angled for a more beginners oriented course, but this is the class the grant landed me in. I will put in more effort at picking up the specifics here at home (I have until May to use the test certification scripts to see if I pass or not), but my guess is I won’t be able to master it.

What I really must thank everyone here for, and the brightest point of an otherwise wretched month, was the wonderful outpouring of help concerning Sophie Cat, covering over a third of the bills. She will still need her weekly shots - and as you can see by the picture of her shaved tummy, a trip to the vet warrants me serious "I'm going to poop on your pillow, you know that, don't you?" looks. The vet gave me a little trick; as soon as I get her home, Sophie gets a fresh can of cat food. Works like a charm. The first time I got her home, she made a bee-line to the space behind the sofa. But as soon as she heard the can-pop, she was right by her food dish.

My book selling annual trip to MAL was profitable enough that I was able to pay off the remainder of the bill soon after. Plus an extra special howdy to Cliff Clockner - we finally met! Another good thing about MAL? My table was next to these guys.

There was also a house concert featuring my old friend James Lee Stanely, along with Cliff Eberhardt. They are out promoting their collaborative tribute to The Doors, called "All Wood and Doors." (With surviving members of The Doors contributing.) It was my first time hearing Cliff live, and he's pretty easy on the eyes. James' voice is high and smooth, Cliff's is gruff and bluesy. As a duo, they harmonize beautifully. Having known James Lee since the mid 80's, it's always a pleasure to see him live. 

Education and Politics.

Some good news in this part of the world. I got news from PA Career Link that the College Grant I've been doing paperwork and tests for since April has finally been approved. This money will cover the costs of a course at Delaware County Community College for Network Administration from Microsoft. Then hopefully lead to a job with a career orientation. Class starts September 20th, two nights a week and runs into January of next year.

Our local Republican Congressmen in the House, Patrick Meehan, held a town meeting here in Springfield last night. Being a pissed-off unemployed constituent, I get there early enough to plop my butt down in the front row. When Representative Meehan arrived, I smiled, shook his hand along with the rest of the first line of attendees, and applauded at the appropriate talking points. Then, as soon as he went to the "Ask a Question" period, I shot my hand up. Since I was being so polite in the opening portion and nicely visible, I was probably the third or fourth person called on. His handler held the mic up to me, and I let him have it with both barrels.

"Representative Meehan, I am one of those 80% of the country frustrated with Congress. I've been laid of from my job and unemployed since January. When you and your fellow freshman Republicans ran for The House last year, it was all about 'jobs, jobs, jobs.' But since you came into office, not a single jobs bill has been introduced in The House. Bills about abortion, gay rights have, but not jobs. I want to know what, when you return to Washington, you, Speaker Boehner, Eric Cantor, who today is saying he won't approve help for hurricane victims without more cuts, are going to do about job creation!"

Cue wild applause.

Pro that he is, Mr Meehan went right to "we must work on bringing down the debt in order to make more jobs...." to which the room began to boo. Also, as soon as your question is done, the handlers race away with the mics so you can't reply. But that was pretty much the point where Mr Meehan began to sweat. I'd say that 70% of the room was not on his team, and the questions where pretty pointed, if at least civil. Only one real wacko, a right-wing nut-job who insisted President Obama was secretly opening sub-prime mortgages to high risk home buyers (IE: the blacks!), to which Mr Meehan was cognizant enough to tell her that he had heard nothing of the sort and did not think this was genuine. He also had his share of supporters in attendence, who lobbed softballs his way and he would smile, give the pat answer, and look for another sympathetic attendee.

However, this was not a coming out party for the guy. At 8 PM he stopped solid and I jumped from my chair, grabbed his hand in a firm handshake and thanked him for taking my question. I also repeated that I fully expected him to do more than what was going on and to see some work done. I got the feeling he was sincere if uncomfortable, and was taken aback by the forcefulness of the crowd (my guess about 100 people).

In storm news, my Mom finally got her power on yesterday afternoon after downed trees took out there electric in Northern Lebanon, and my Dad's electric came on yesterday morning. I want to find George Will, who whined that Hurricane Irene was overhyped, and lock him in a house with no electric and water for four days, then let him and his awful toupee come out and give an update. Same with Eric Cantor, whom I am beginning to suspect is a sociopath when it comes to helping the American Public vs GOP.

Six Months Later

Hit the six month unemployed marker this week. It's not something I am at all pleased with. Despite countless applications, I've had exactly two interviews since January. One was to sell cars at the local Ford Dealership. They never even bothered to call back afterwards. The second was last week, for a Security Company that specializes in - to be kind - rent-a-cops.

The Phone Interview went well enough, as did the in person one. Next up was the Pee test; passed that. Then I had to submit all sorts of info for a background check. While all this was going on, we discussed a potential full-time position, between $11/13 per hour, but three 12 hour shifts. Not thrilling, but got the usual lines about potential for advancement, benefits, etc. Then comes the acceptance call. Can you show up for orientation? Sure, but what are the specifics for the job?

Well, we can offer you weekends, part time, two twelve hour shifts at $10 an hour.

As you can see, nothing remotely similar to the original discussion other than the hideous 12 hour shifts. I asked them why the offer was so radically different from the earlier version, and was told that the part-time was all that was available. I kindly declined the offer but asked them to call should a full-time position open up.

So it's back to the drawing board. As well as counting down to Delta.

My Amazon DVD Reviews: "The Company Men"

The New Normal 
3 Out of 5 Stars

Bobby (Ben Affleck) is your typical white collar success story. He has a great job at a conglomerate company, a pretty neat boss, Gene (Tommy Lee Jones), a good wife and two kids in a fabulous New England home. Then the crash of 2008 occurs and Bobby's job, despite twelve years at GTX (a transportation company of some sort), wasn't so valuable after all. Soon he has to figure out what his measure of a man truly is, and it's not pretty. "The Comapny Men" focuses mostly on Bobby's struggle, but it is an ensemble film with strong support from Chris Cooper, who struggles with the realization that a man pushing 60 in this job market is paddling upstream against younger and cheaper help, Kevin Costner, a contractor who is (IMHO) written into a cliched part, Craig T Nelson, the CEO making 22 million as he downsized left and right, and Mario Bello as the HR director who begins to doubt her ethics.

This is not an easy movie to watch, as it probably cuts a bit too close to the bone in a country facing 9% unemployment. Bobby and Phil (Cooper) soon finding that there are sacrifices both intentional and unintentional that have to be made for the sake of survival. There's also underlying messages about being prepared for the future and just how much we've thrown away for "kids working for a dollar a day" (as Costner's character unsubtly jibes Bobby incessantly). People are losing their cars, homes, families and lives in reality; "The Company Men" holds up an unflinching camera to this world. It's a good movie, just don't expect a feel-good wrap at the end.

 

Getting Up to Speed and Losing It On an American Idiot

It's been 3 weeks since I started the new job and the training period is over. I have been getting the knack of where all the paths lead as far as the multiple computer systems and redundancies are in the commercial making process. It takes about 15 minutes to make a commercial, according to the expected production schedule (as in: you're expected to produce 3 or 4 an hour). Get the client info, find the client's data, write script with given info. Open pro-tools, record script. Lay in music track, mix to mp3 and put into client folder. Send to video production. Close client file, go to next client. Repeat.

As you can guess, the creativity level is pretty low. This is a factory style production studio and you're expected to get up to speed pretty fast. So far, so good. But I've already given up on working part time at TLA on weekends. After the second week (and almost three weeks with no time off), the sudden realization that my (almost) 50 year old body doesn't have the stamina that my 20-something one had. I gave notice and last Sunday was my final day of selling smut to the masses. After almost 8 years and never getting out of the mail room. Plughfhfh.

I don't know if it was the fatigue of working so many days in a row, the knowledge that I was not going to be doing that phone jockey work for much longer or a combination of the two, but for only the second time in my 8 years at TLA, I lost it on a caller. The first time was several years ago when a woman who objected to getting a gay oriented catalog told me she thought all gay people should be shot. I called her a few choice names and hung up. I was told to be a good boy and - since that day - had been. But then came Max.

A quick explanation. Like most mail order companies, TLA buys mailing lists from companies that broker such things. I consider these brokers to be unscrupulous whores that sell their clients off to the lowest bidders, and pad those customer lists with dead people, the ignorant and those who would otherwise have no interest in your products no matter what. TLA once used a swimming suit company's list as a gay mailer address source, and the Customer Service Crew paid dearly for that in terms of abuse. But if you gave to HRC, subscribed to any number of magazines, or bought something through the web, chances are you're in one of TLA's brokers' lists.

Which somehow happened to Max. It was only about one hour into Saturday Morning's shift and I answered a call that started with "You Mother-f---ing Cock-s----ing child molester." I was stunned into momentary silence and then asked "what can I do for you please." He then let loose with a whole combination of profanity laden homophobic insults and finally led to the fact that he got a gay catalog. I responded calmly with "You're a moron but I'll help you anyway." I was then told that I was going the Hell and worked for a bunch of sick bastards and that I would soon have to look God in the eye for what I was doing.

At that point, I not only went militant homo on Max, I went militant atheist homo on him. I told him God was a fairy tale, he was an ignorant hick and if he wanted child molesters, he should go to his closest Catholic Church. Among other things. All while I was still trying to get him to give me his address, which he was parsing out to me between curses, insults and Fox News Bullet Points and the ongoing Child Molestor name calling. I finally got to what state he lived in and he let me know it was Oklahoma. "Figures," I muttered. That really set Max into a whirl.

"It's the likes of you that made the Twin Towers fall" he blurted amongst more Southern insults against us northerners, redneckery and general stupidity. I finally exploded, cursing him out for being a useless idiot in state that should just secede already and take Timothy McVey and his non-Yankee ghost along with him, and please stop using his itty bitty penis as an excuse for not admitting he was a big old cowboy queen in midst of dumphukistan.

At this point, Max hung up. My supervisor was all but screaming in agony over my outburst and figured it was a good idea for me to clock out and go on home. I was happy to, in fact I felt pretty good about giving Max a dose of pissed-off-queer. Although I did enter him into the "Do Not Mail" file. At least if he's going to have an aneurysm, it won't be because he got another TLA catalog. It will be more likely he gets it from exerting himself behind the porta-johns with some rent-boy at a Tea Party Rally.

New Work Update

As I mentioned in a prior posting, I was in the process of trying to land a new job. They called a week after and made an offer, which I was really, and I do mean really, happy to accept. I am now officially a ‘voice over specialist,” working for the internet division of certain directory company that they ask us not to talk too much about. I am excited about this for several reasons, not the least if this is the serous pay increase the new position will incur. But for the first time in many years, I will be working what I consider to be a job within my profession, something the TLA gig never offered. My position is writing scripts for 30 second mini-advertisements that will appear on internet client websites. As well as adding the vocal track. 

I am not thinking that this will be a creative job; the expectation is that you’re knocking out 3 spots an hour. The recording booths are tiny. They’re not much bigger than a pair of phone booths set together, so there’s no way to do a two person spot….and no sound effects or anything like that. Kick ‘em out, clean and quick, move on to the next. But it is a professional job, and more to the point I will no longer be trying to coax dummies on the telephone into telling me their zip codes when they can’t remember their own addresses. Add that TLA is the first company in my adult working life where I have not been either promoted or given a titled job, (but my previous supervisor was a high school drop out with serious temper issues) and you can understand my glee in getting out of that dump. 

 

There’s good news on the Joel front, too. Soon to be celebrated will be the arrival of our second grandchild, as his older daughter Nomi is due for her second baby any day now. I am holding hope that the birthday will be May 26, so we can have shared parties. I think that would be AWESOME. Not as awesome? Getting my AARP card in the mail this week. How did I make it through a half century?

New Job, New Devo

In the past few weeks, I interviewed for a job to commercial voice overs. They called this week to offer me the position and I accepted. It is a significant increase in pay for me, plus benefits. I will be adding my vocal talents to a staff that creates online advertisements for YellAds (the Internet division of Yellowbook) at their King Of Prussia location (actually, Gulph Mills). I start a week from Monday.

The only drawback? It's an overnight (11:30 PM to 7:30 AM) shift.

Joel finished his Penn State classes tonight and is officially a grad-ee-ate! He officially joins the segment of the family clan as a Nittany Lion with a brand new Masters degree. We will be going out Saturday for an official New Job/New Degree ribs dinner.

Even more exciting? There's a new Devo single in advance of their coming album "Something for Everyone." As a dedicated Devo-tee, I can't wait for the whole thing.

Tough Week

This has been a rough week.

Work has been pretty unstable. With the economy the way it is, sales have been on a steady decline for over a year. People quitting the Customer Service dept have not been replaced, and in the company management, layoffs have been a steady drumbeat for the last 18 months. Another of the buyers was let go Thursday. The tension there is pretty intimidating; both my supervisors where given a pay cut and everyone else is looking for the axe to come at their necks. My part time job has been pretty much dropped to zero since before Christmas. I've only put in two full days (it's a one day a week job) so far this year.

Then my Uncle Rick (in VA) was informed his cancer, which we all thought was beaten back last November, has come back with a vengeance. His doctors have told him to get his affairs in order, quickly. Care has been shifted to palliative. My family is a free wheeling and loving bunch, and my Aunt and cousin are taking this really hard (as would be expected). It's also given me cause to assess; there are four male relatives in my family (two from either side of the linage) who have contracted cancer. Is there a ticking time-bomb cell lurking somewhere in my flesh, counting down?

Our family has been fortunate in that - other than my grandparents/Mom's parents - my mother's family has remained intact all these years. Only one of my Uncles and I have lost a spouse, and my family was not really connected to Peter when I lost him. I have never been sure they understood just how horrible an experience I had, although in the case of my Uncle, when his wife passed in 2000, it was easier for them to comprehend. After all, he has 3 beautiful daughters and the marriage took place 20 plus years prior. All of us in the family knew that he and my Aunt had a loving relationship, and came to his side in the moments he and the girls needed us. (And it should be noted, the Gallagher family has been completely taken by my partner Joel.)  So getting the news of my Uncle's resurgent cancer has shaken us all.

There are letters to write and notes to be passed. He has given my Aunt and his son a very, very good life and provided for them well. My job and financial fears pale in comparison

Sign of the Times and a Workplace Bummer

TLA Video closes rental location open for almost a quarter century.