Finally…
Been laid up with a nasty cold, but this morning it was clear it had lifted. I’m not at 100 percent, but I’ve achieved functional, which is enough. Now, if I had a full-time job, I would have most likely worked the whole time, because there’s nothing worse than wasting sick days on illness, but gearing up for the Oasis relaunch, it was better to just lay around and let my body heal itself.
Yesterday, I got a surprise call from a PR firm that I sent a resume to quite some time ago. They caught me off-guard, and it is hard to turn away possible jobs right now, but I do feel that Oasis is my best shot at not hating a job. So, I’m sad to say that when the phone rings tomorrow at 2 p.m., for my initial phone interview… I won’t be here. Also, I can’t start a job right now, because I just booked an absurdly long trip back home for the holidays (almost a month, based on a really cheap fare), so I took the closest day before christmas I could arrive, and the first day afterward I could leave, and its just over three weeks.
But that will give me some time to hit NYC and visit people. I’m not sure how many shows I can see, since I’m still… broke. Certainly enough people to see, though. The plan is to use the trip home/NYC as a test run, though.
Part of the Oasis thing is that it’s a job I can do from anywhere. I’m getting a Skype phone. So wherever I am, I can read books, watch movies, interview people, write up columns, etc. And, if the money part pans out (like all my expenses are paid by it), then by early 2007, I will probably do a test run and go visit some foreign city for a month.
The plan is to give Oasis until about February and see where things are. Maybe I’ll be surprised in the first month and it will all be good. One thing I need to impress upon the readers is that advertising is the way the site will be as fabulous as it is about to be. That doesn’t mean you have to buy anything. But, when you’re leaving the site, click an ad on your way out.
If the site goes as planned, though. I think the ads will start shifting and actually be site-specific, whereas people will pay specifically to have ads on Oasis. We shall see…
Right now, I’m getting a few interviews in the queue so I can push them out in December. A lot of what I’m after are rather new-driven stories, to show the magazine is on top of current stuff, but there are a lot of evergreen things that are also worth the time. Need to get some of those in the bag.
What else… it’s voting day today. Not too much going on there. The Bay Area really gets into politics, but it’s sort of a spectator sport here. I mean, I don’t have the chance to oust any Republicans except Arnold, and given the option, I wasn’t feeling the need. If anything, my representative may be the first female majority leader tomorrow, so that’s good.
I was hoping to see the Pet Shop Boys tonight, as one of the first interviews/concert reviews in the bag for Oasis, but jumped on that a bit too late. No time for an interview, and a slight misunderstanding in wordage messed up the concert tickets. In a list of possible PSB-related things, I said I was also "fine to review the show," which I meant to mean that I was available, and the PR guy thought that meant I already had tickets.
No big deal. If it weren’t a seated show, I would head down there and hope my favorite corrupt security guy opened the back door to bribes again, but harder to do at a seated show. Once you got inside, you’d have to find an empty seat or keep bouncing around. $90+ for good seats is well out of the price range. I mean, it isn’t Chorus Line…
About to post two of my three signed Stephen King books on eBay, which will help pay this month’s rent. He signed less than 500 at five national book events, so they are going for way too much money each. Thankfully, I knew that beforehand, and got in line as many times as possible. I almost got four.
And, to bring it full circle, meeting Stephen King is also what I attribute to my getting a cold, since he looked pretty pale and sick, and his publicist did say he wasn’t feeling well. Two days later, I was on my sofa all day watching movies.
The next time I am not interested in leaving the house because of Stephen King, I hope it is because of one of his books…
