Long Island Railroad Career Advice
The gems of unsolicited old school advice continue as we wait for the 5:33am train into the city
Twenty-second in a series of conversations I had with Tom da Lung Eyelund Carpenta on the train platform before our early morning commute…
“Everbody’s got some kinda a racket, Son! A buddy a mine plays guitar, makes weird music in his bedroom, ended up writin da jingle for Crazy Eight. He’s been livin off dat shit fer years now, after he spent five minutes thinkin it up. Da world’s a circus, lemme tell you.
Anudda guy I know works fer a guy who cornert da movie teatre promo market, by way a dem big life-sized cardboard cutouts. He gets twenny bucks a stop to make sure dey’re in good shape, not wrinkled or vandalized or nuttin, and he gets hundert, hundert-fitty per new installation.
So he drives in a van all over New Yawk City an da burroughs, makin bank hand over fist just puttin up gigantic cutouts a Adam Sandler an Bat Man. Den he flies wid his boss ta Thailand twice a year ta buy more cardboard. What a dream gig, da guy has a eighty-foot yacht — an who knows what’s inside it!
Sometimes I wake up in da middle a da night shudderin an wonderin why an how people end up doin what dey’re doin. An den I wonder what I do, if tings could be easier, or if I got a good racket goin, too, hey I’m not starvin.
By da way, I been tawkin to you fer months and don’t have da slightest clue: What is it dat youse do?
What I’m doin is kind a new, tanks fer askin, is dey made me head a bookkeepin on da line. Wittin seconds dey took it upon demselfs ta trow me ridiculous an unnecessary requests fer infamayshin, a course at random fucken times troughout da day an night.
Fer eggzample, at approximatedly two-turdy-tree pee-em onna Turdsday affernoon I gets a caw from da douchebag dispatcha in Port Warshington, askin me fer file numba six-tree-niner-dash-oh. Fuck youse! But mindful a my loomin pension, I heft my arsehole high and mighty inta da straterspheres an take it like a man, complyin wid dis pointless an moronic request — only ta find an empty manila folda wid green marka scrawls all over it like some ten-year-old cranked on Mountain Dew an CALL A DUTY went ay-dee-dee apeshit all overs it from caffeine an video game widdrawals.
Anyways, took me tree more weeks an a dozen more idiotic requests ta realize dey was jus testin me, but youse knows what? I passed wid flyin colors, an guess who’s now in charge a payroll!
Have a fucken nice day, son, before we all succumb ta Ebola or da Rona, cause a millions a crazy antivaxx mudderfuckuhs skimpin out on deir health insurance deductibles, seriously.”
More Tom for youse…
