1. Graffiti Artist. When I was a sophomore at Calvert High, around 1993, a bunch of us thought we'd become taggers. I'm not talking about metadata, this was before del.icio.us, we used markers. We tried to get up as many spots in the school as possible. My tag was "SLACK", inspired by the Church of the Subgenius. It looked like this:
My M.O. was to get a hall pass and walk around hitting lockers. I was ubiquitous like computing - until one member of our crew got caught and rolled over on the rest of us. We had to come in on a saturday and clean everything up with solvent.
2. Music Video Director. I think a lot of people that are in architecture had daydreams about doing this at one point. Anyone who's in their late twenties now grew up in the Golden Age of MTV. All of the directors we saw everyday in the mid nineties, Gondry, Romanek, Cunningham, Hype Williams, all have DVD collections out now. Me and my friends used to drive around with video cameras taping stuff all of the time, I've got 10 VHS's worth in my file cabinet falling to dust that should just get straight uploaded onto Google Video someday.
3. Jungle DJ. With 17th-birthday money, around 1994, I bought a pair of very used Technics 1200s from the guy who played records at the seafood restuarant where I dishwashed. Being a budding Rave Casualty, I spent all of my work money on records, and all of my free time practicing. My mom used to come downstairs and say: "Why don't you just listen to your music on your headphones, Fred?" She was incapable of grasping the concept.
Career highlights include Superphat IV: Back to Basics, by Sinister Productions, which was basically me and all my same friends who had been pinched for tagging the year before. We threw the party at the local community center. The cops came. I have it on videotape somewhere. I also played jungle records at Calvert High's Homecoming Dance in 1996, that one's on my real resume, too.
4. Screenwriter. My buddy Brian has written, probably, four or five movies, (he also made this short), he and I started work on a project called "TransEuroExpress" back in 2002, but we lost momentum on it. It's about trains, numbers stations, addiction, and personal identity. Think "The Day of the Jackal" meets "Lost", in Belgium, with a really great soundtrack. I decided I was better at creating atmosphere than narrative.
5. Science Fiction Author. See Above. Can't do narrative. It gives me a lot more respect for writers like Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, and Phil K. Dick, who can do great stories to go along with their cool ideas.
6. Breakdancer. I'm including this just for completeness' sake. At one point I wanted to embody all Four Elements of Hip Hop.
7. Programmer. If I went into a different field, it might be computer science. I've messed around in processing a little, but only enough to realize two things: real skill is a fun thing to have at your disposal when writing code, and I didn't have it.
8. Painter. Again, something I've had fun doing, but it requires patience and time that aren't available lately. When I was working in an office it was a good outlet.
9. Musician. How much of these attempted creative outlets are really just about switching programs on a computer? Writing: TextEdit. Coding: Processing. Web: Dreamweaver. Architecture: AutoIlluNoceratorShop. I've got Protools and some synths and drum machines somewhere in my Applications folder, but I haven't used them since 2002, when I collabo'd with my brother (the famous drummer Mikey Alcatrazz) on a techno track called "Test 1, Check 1". My favorite thing about it is the title. I'd post it online, but heads definitely aren't ready for that.
... and the 10th thing I've tried and so far been unsuccesful at:
10. Regular Weblogger. I've given up on keeping this space confined to any consistent topic or schedule, which is one reason I'm passing this along to GeeDeeBee at The Holocene, even though I believe he's in Spain right now: he's apparently penance blogging and might be in need of some good inspiration.
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