James Kloiber

preparing for my ride. I've got a list of all the places & things I need to do: Arrive, DMV, surprise Gramma, goto the shop, goto the shep, goto milwaukee motorcycle salvage, goto stein optical, eye exam, goto fuel. there's people I have to see. what's weirding me out most tho is the weather. that's the large determining factor in this thing. I can't ride if it rains. now weather .com is calling for it to be getting warm & sunny for my trip. 70 & sunny on friday. I ride out saturday. I have 890 miles to ride if google can be trusted. weather better fucking hold. I can't be held up.

http://www.torsopants.com/store/product.php?productid=5091

there's a church across the street from my place and they're playing their bells. they don't have actual bells, but they have a recording of bells and they're blaring it from their loudspeakers atop the roof. I've always hated those things. they sound so ... off. I know what real church bells sound like, those recordings sound like they were done on cheap casio synths. RRRGGG. makes me want to stab the bells with my bell stabbing knife.

I've done a lot of walking in the area now. it's fucking filthy here. it wouldn't be half as bad if people could be bothered to just pick up after themselves in public. it helps less when the trash cans on every corner are overflowing. it helps even less so when people are rolling their ghettocruisers OVER the trashcans and getting stuck. in the middle of the street. with both front wheels off the ground. NYC trashcans do not fuck around. Anyway, we walked 2 miles at least down fulton looking for a walgreens that never materialized. we went to rite aid instead and got our shit. girl at the counter was talking on her handsfree phone as we walked in and 15 minutes later as we walked out and especially as she rang up our shit. now thats service.

I had a plan to take a lot of clothes back to milwaukee & get rid of other stuff. turns out I really dont have much stuff to get rid of. still gotta go through the dress clothes tho. books go too. the load must be lightened.

Mikes XS sent me the wrong parts. or rather, sent the wrong parts to my parents, where bikey is. Frank(older brother & mechanc) told me today & I emailed Mikes XS. they get a phonecall tomorrow at noon to rectify this shit. I got a schedule to keep. 18 days to go

I have just spent three days this week employed at a place that is pretty awesome. I am now the art director and have been referred to as such by my boss at Drumhead Magazine. It's a bi-monthly Mag for by and about rock n roll drummers. this month's issue has Stewart Copeland of the Police on the cover. It's kind of a big deal. the mag is respectable enough. I'm getting back into the swing of magazine design & production. I work with 2 nice people, heather & john. Heather is a super high energy old school rock Chick, and John runs a big recording studio and has played with lots of people (read more about the good man who will be signing my paychecks here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Mover ). and speaking of paychecks, I just got 2 in the mail today. one from SF and one from Chicago. another one is forthcoming from a place called tshirthell.com . they liked one of my drawings enough to throw down the money for it. poverty wages, here I come. and am. 20 days 'til I head home. 20 days. my economic stimulus check cant come soon enough. I'll be in milwaukee for the 22nd and 23rd. any suggestions of what I should do while in town?

I have just made the purchase of a one way ticket to Milwaukee leaving Thurs. May 22 from LaGuardia Airport at 6.45 AM (NYC time) Arriving at 8 AM (MKE time). I will then spend the remainder of Thursday and Friday taking care of business both personal and professional in Milwaukee and preparing Bikey for the long ride back to New York. Currently Bikey needs his forks resealed, a new pair of carb holders and a few other minor things done to make him roadeworthy. See you soon.

jesuschrist what a rollercoaster. a few months ago I put in for a job as art director at a place called Drumhead Magazine. I would have loved it. It would have meant going to work at a recording studio filled with HR Giger original artwork. that alone would have made whatever they paid me worth it. So I had interviews, did a test, it all went well, it was down to me and one other guy, and I was expecting to hear something the next day(friday) or monday at the latest and then.... nothing. this was... 2 months ago? I emailed dude, emailed his assistant, nothing. made me feel stupid all over. then out of the blue the dude emails me 2 days ago. in the meantime he had gone on tour with his band and decided he wanted to learn in design for himself & did the issue himself. That was his perogative and I salute his determination to teach himself indesign and put the results out on a national stage. but DUDE! you could have emailed me at the least! AAA! anyway. I got a meeting monday at noon to discuss work & money for me doing the next one. jesus. about time.

and speaking of jesus, il papa, le pope, el popo, is in towne to visit. I saw him yesterday, riding in his limo down the wrong side of Park place. not that he was driving, but they blocked off the street & everything & his limo drove down the opposite side of the split boulevard, probably for security reasons. i waited for 30 fucking minutes in the hot sun to see the man drive by(late i might add), and as he was he was waving to the shrubbery in the middle of the boulevard. ha. The police state is in full effect for this one. I haven't seen the cops with full automatic machine guns myself yet, but I have seen them on the news in places I was shortly beforehand. and the cops are everywhere. they don't do this for the president. every tv station here has gone papal. next week: business as usual.

so here I am. 4 and a half months into this thing. unem-fucking-ployed. getting bitter. trying not to be. I moved here at the worst time ever. there's work here. I know it. I just have yet to get it. what the fuck. is it my resume? my cover letter? my website? please: look at my website & give me some feedback. I'd appreciate it. what the fuck am i doing wrong that I cant get any goddamned work. so we're in a recession. big fucking deal! employ me already! christ. maybe i need to just get a regular job type job. bartending would be nice. i need my motorcycle too. it's so nice out today. and all these motherfuckers are riding about on their crotch rockets & harleys. fuck. bikey would make it better. maybe. bought ram monday, paid bills tuesday, groceries today, desperation tomorrow. now would be the time to start a smack habit and a band. things can't get much worse. they just cant.

wednesday night i went to a mediabistro drinking event in the lower east side rather than going to drink & draw in brooklyn, which I would have rather done. anyway, whilw walking to teh small lower level bar i see this tall lanky guy with long hair and scruffy beard walk past me. he looks familiar. kinda like my buddy spook. like I've seen him online or something. we pass him. then natalie portman runs past calling after him. yeah. queen amidala. girl is short. i mean fucking SHORT. TINY. which makes me wonder, is all of hollywood short? anyway. so that's 2 celebs seen so far in NYC: conan o brien @ whole foods with his family on a sunday morning(fucking tall that guy) and not ms. portman. part of me is somewhat excited & interested by this trivial passing. but the more i think abou tit it really doesn't matter. I need money & food more than celebrity sighting. but it gives one hope. kinda. i'm occupying the same timespace & breathing the same air. i could be that successful. probably. best drop it & get back to work.

ok, I live above a convenience store called "Queenies" run by a couple guys from bangladesh, one of whom could be nicer. anyway, i had a gig to do today, making t-shirts for miller. so I bought a sixer of miller lite to help the creative process. and one of em, the 5th one, is half frozen. serious. it's half ice. for no good reason. ICE. (#4 went to the lady.) I still have one left & it's not ice. anyway, ice beer is not great. nor is ice in beer. meh.

1 • got osx 10.5, leopard. it's not bad. the new finder is cute enough, and it came with plenty of interestign stuff I'll never use. I need more ram tho, thats for sure. it's definitely not playing friendly with Xjournal.

2 • working on illustrations for the next shep cover

3 • got an interview with creative circle Wednesday. yay. possible work coming possibly. yay.

4 • in alcohol news: austrailian shirazes are ass. at least the one I been drinkin' lately anyway. poor flavour and a total bad alcoholic aftertaste you could really taste. but at least it was free, so I can't complain that much. but what can you really expect from an island of convicts, pouched mammals and tiny deadly octopi? (elle macpherson notwithstanding). Also to be avoided: Coors. never had it before. serious. never. not that I can remember anyway. I will not be drinking it ever again. good lord coors it foul. no wonder they pour so much money into their advertising and make it so clever and slanted toward the less intelligent american football enthusiast. jesus. where do I begin? budeweiser is better than that shit and cheaper too. Coors is getting a leter from me about their foulness, and as someone from Milwaukee I'm more than entitled to make that call. golden colorado? more like golden shower colorado. I coulda bought a can of sapporro instead. i would have felt much more worldly. and it wold have gone better with the anime I watched and not given me the heart-burning all along my esophagus. coors: you are dead to me now. I wouldn't pour one out on the grave of my enemies. that's how poor coors is. I bought my can thinking I would try something new, expand my horizons. didn't happen. better luck next time. i miss my 2 dollar 40's of PBR from Koppas.

the aqua teen movie is online at adultswim.com . I have just watched it as I scanned images for a play in san francisco. and it is awesome. very surreal. the end credits music rocks.

no job today. will find one tomorrow. freelancing again rocks more than sitting in an office doin work that's not right for you.

well, it's over. I'm no longer working at studio 65. here's the deal: i worked there 3 & 1/2 weeks at $100 a day as a trial period. that's intern pay. $26K a year. And I worked 10-12 hours a day every day. that's bullshit. the deal was we were to then discuss my future at the company at the end of last week. didn't happen. the boss was out of the country. so finally on Monday, I sit down with the office manager, and he comes at me with that they love my attitude, they like the work I do, they like having me there, but they don't think I'm the 100% fit they need for the company and they don't want to bring me on full time. but they would like me to come in on a freelance basis for $15 bucks an hour when they need me. that's $31K a year if I worked every day. they even wanted me to come in today. I thought about it for a minute. then I decided no. I can do better than that. I can't afford to work for those people. I made more freelancing for real in less time. and the more i think about it, the work there was shit. it was boring. there was no creativity asked of me. no illustration, no photography, no real design, just layout and ordering things for the boss to look at and see if he likes, and even if he does he's gonna reorder it and render your work null & void anyway. I wouldn't be able to use anything for my portfolio from there anyway. it was a lame production job and I'm better than that. so back to looking for work today. back to looking for work. and getting my life back. I couldn't do shit working at that place. i got up at 7, left the house at 9, got in at 10, left work at 9, got home at 10, made dinner and at at 11, crash out at midnight. fuck that. I deserve better.

oh wow. I had a day. a day... of employment! that's right. last night GB65 called me. asked if I could come in today. and they threw the proverbial kitchen sink at me. I walked in with no idea of what to expect. and they have me do nuts & bolts production work on a project for one of THE biggest entertainers in the world. I am not joking. I am so not joking that I cannot tell you who said entertainer is or what they do or what we're doing. I've signed a legally binding non disclosure agreement. all I can tell you is I'm doing it. i will make my contribution known once the project is done, as I must for all projects I work on so long as I'm with GB65. So I worked on big entertainment project for much of the day. then I worked on big fashion project for a little of the day. again, this was nuts & bolts work. specifically, scanning. so much scanning. I got in at 1030. I got out at 9.10. and it was worth it. every moment. it was Rockstar design times one billion. every high aspiration i could have had for Rockstar has been realized by this place on a global scale. and it's run by a bunch of nice italian people. or at least they seemed nice enough and put up with me on my 1st day. I'm not 100% employed. they're doing a trial run for this week & next week and then they decide if they want to take me full time or what. sigh. it's a big gig tho. I want it. I don't want to be doing nuts & bolts production tho- I wanna be designing shit. patience I tell myself. I need to prove myself reliable.

well, it's been a week, and I haven't heard from drumhead magazine, not even to say wether I got the job or not. I'm assuming it's a "not." oh well, whatever, keep moving forward. Also didn't get a gig working on a powerpoint job for Target which would have come through my cousin's firm. things got to be too late in the cycle for gettin' it done and they couldn't use me in the end because there wasn't time. oh well, they'll hit me up next time. In the meantime I did show my portfolio to a design firm and they're interested in using me in upcoming projects. I got a rush job from Latin Factory for a pitch for the good folks at Imperia Vodka. 400 bucks for finished nightclub drawings by tomorrow. sweet. also got a gig doing backdrops for a play in SF if all goes right. 35 drawings at $20 a pop of SF landmarks in a whimsical, playful style for a Follies revue play. ok. cool. still need a real job type job. tho. meh. back to work.

I went to the W hotel off times square sunday. not the best experience. I give you first, my letter of complaint:

Good day sir or madam, whichever the case may be. I wish to register a complaint. Early this eveining, the 24th of February 2008, I took my girlfriend and her mother, who is in town on a visit from Seattle, to the Living Room lounge at the W Hotel in Times Square. While the ambience was spectacular, I cannot say your staff made for a pleasant experience. We came in and took a seat on the couches at the far end of the bar, and we sat for nearly 10 minutes while the wait staff, a blonde and a brunette, stood no more than 10 feet away from us at the end of the bar and chatted between themselves. They ignored us. After waiting several minutes, I went up and asked them for a drink list. Their reaction was one of complete and utter annoyance, that I had interrupted their conversation, which was clearly more important to them than the customers they should have been attending to. I was handed a drink menu brusquely. To add insult to injury, neither of them came over to take our order. This is poor customer service, and that you would employ such improperly trained people, however attractive, reflects badly upon your bar, your hotel, and your brand. So we went to the bar and ordered our drinks, a pear martini, the ultimate mojito, and your absinthe drink, whose name escapes me, but I ordered it specifically because the menu said it would be prepared in the proper way. It's bad enough the pear slice in my girlfriend's martini was dry, aging, and going brown about the edges, but your bartender on staff did not know how to prepare the absinthe. She poured a good amount of the alcohol in a rocks glass, and then dropped in a sugar cube. And that's it. I asked for water with the drink and she gave me a glass of water on the side. Do you see where I'm going with this? Your bartender on staff did not know how to prepare what is a simple, classic, and elegant drink. For the price you charge, which is a fair price, considering the cost of the real estate and the work that has been invested into the ambience, your bartender should know how to prepare absinthe properly. But she doesn't, and that's a problem. It makes your bar look bad. You have failed to live up to your press. You have serious problems with your staff and should I hope you will take the simple steps necessary to correct them. I have every intention of returning to the Living Room lounge with clients in the future, and when I do, I should hope the service will not be as poor as I found it today.

Sincerely,

James Kloiber

That got sent Sunday after I got home and had another drink. Good absinthe tho, i must say. But I've had better. then I got this tonight:

Good Evening Mr. Kloiber -

I am writing to apologize for the service you received during your visit to The Living Room on Sunday night. I assure you that this is not reflective of our standards. Further, I admit that your absinthe cocktail was prepared incorrectly. I am truly sorry for that and hope that we can make it up to you on your next visit. Please feel free to contact me or Lindsay Risk, our Lead Manager in The Living Room, prior to your next visit so that we can be sure you are well accommodated. We can both be reached at the office number below.

Thank you and please accept my sincerest apologies.


JOHN BRACCIANTE
GENERAL MANAGER

W Hotel owes me a drink. And they know it. The squeaky wheel gets the free Absinthe.

good movie. well worth it to see. if you haven't, rent it.

somewhere someone somehow in the cosmos heard my self pitying pleas and said, hey, lets give that james chap a shot. so now here i am all late and awake working on what could be my new job for Drumhead magazine, laying out story as part of a test to see if I have what it takes to do it. but that' snot what i'm on about. no, what has caught my fancy at the moment, is roaches. not the delightfully clipped cheech n chong variety, I'm talking their real life namesakes. we have roaches, it's new york. at least we don't have rats but I got to see a big dead one in the subway when I walked closer to the edge of the platform to look for live ones on a tipsy late night whim. back to the roaches. mostly we have the little ones, no bigger than a keyboard key at best, the little bastards, rarely I see one bigger, i guess the traps are working, either that or they've wised up to the fact all the food is in the fridge where they can't get at it, so all that's to be found in apartment 8 for them is boredom and biochemical genocide. but the other day I got to see my first real real big one. it was at least 2 inches long(roughly 3 computer keys) and that's not including the antennae. and it was on the stairs right around the corner from our door on its back apparently dead. Christine saw it on her way out and came right back into show it to me. I took a look, sent her on her way, got a napkin, placed it over the body and then smashed it with the heel of my boot, which I was not wearing. there was a crunch. I took the body and gave it a proper burial at sea. I suspect things are only going to get roachier as I live on the second floor of a building directly above a restaurant. welcome to new york.

this has been... an interesting week. Sunday I met up with my cousin Jim(Kloiber) and my uncle Jim(also Kloiber) and his wife stephanie for brunch at the stanton social in soho. nice place. small bits of food. known for celebrities to show up. whatever. so christine & I went & we had brunch & talked about how we couldn't get any fucking jobs after a goddamned month of being here and we're triyng to stay positive and applying for work all over every day. wheee. ok. so the next day we start hearing from people. seriously. I heard from 2 places in one day. first was GB65 ( http://www.giovannibianco.com/ ). high end high end design shit. awesome. then I hear from Drumhead magazine hours later. sweet. 2 job interviews to set up in one day. awesome. the GB65 interview went pretty well. NICE design studio. very clean. they had me come in and interview and sign a confidentiality agreement and do a photoshop test. and it went well. easy work for me. I sent a email the next day thanking them for seeing me and they sent an nice email back saying they would followup on my application. awesome. sounded & felt promising. i could see myself working there and enjoying it. that was ... tuesday? yeah, tuesday. great. haven't heard anything else from them yet. went to another job interview today, for an art director position for Drumhead magazine. i think the interview went ok, could have gone better. walked away from it with no good feeling. got home depressed. can't afford to do that. I need ot just pick myself up & shrug it off and keep applying for jobs. keep applying for jobs. keep applying for jobs. keep. applying. for. jobs.

christ.

this wasn't supposed to be happening like this. I was supposed to be able to get work right away. keep applying for jobs. I've got the talent and the resume and the portfolio and the skills. keep applying for jobs. don't get bitter over it. keep applying for jobs. there's no one to blame for this but the economy. cant blame myself. keep applying for jobs. push all the bitterness and frustration deep down into a tiny little ball and forget about it. keep applying for jobs. keep applying for jobs.

keep applying for jobs.

I live in new york now.

I also have a coroflot site now: http://www.coroflot.com/James_Kloiber

and I'm updating the hell out of my flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jameskloiber/

watch for more up here too

Bikey had been down for the last week & a half or so. oh shit, i haven't updated in a while. ok, 1st of all, i have my motorcycle and I have it working. i call it "Bikey." anyway, bikey had been running well enough for a while, but he'd not been gettign up to speed as I would have liked. my 1st time trying to run the Hoan bridge I didn't even get up past 45 mph. that was a problem. th ebiike just couldnt output the power necessary to climb. a week or 2 later we (older brother frank & I) did some tuning & we got some things fixed. then week & a half ago I'm coming home on a tuesday night after the paper was sent to the printer & the bike dies on me. I'd been having trouble starting it all day & now it dies. I figure it's out of gas so I push that son of a bitch a mile up hill the whole way to the nearest gas station. I fuel up & bikey starts. we ride another half mile to an atm. I get off, get money, and bikey will not restart. I call frank & he comes over & we're out on farwell & brady tearing the bike apart & we can't find anything wrong untill we take the take off the tank & the left ignition coil is snapped. we push the bike the next 2 blocks home & there he sits untill saturday. frank comes by with new ignition coils & we tear bikey apart & put on the new coils and adjust the floaters in the carbs and tighten this & that & here's the deal: bikey is now fast. the motherfucker wants to go fast. the change is night and day with those new coils in place. bikey now idles at about 2000 rpm which means he starts fast. I can pull him up to 50 mph in 3rd without breaking 5000 rpms. it's scary fast. I made another go at the hoan bridge and got it up to 75 and I could have pushed it farther but I didn't. a few more hoan runs & I figure I'll be ready for real freeway riding.