Wednesday, July 30, 2008

The strangest cover letter ever

So I recently applied to a web copywriting job for a start-up in San Francisco. They want to see that you can string some words together, so they ask you a few questions, the responses to which should make up the bulk of your cover letter when applying for this position. I thought this was a great way for their HR person to get a look at the candidates. I've pasted the questions and my responses below. I wonder if I'll get the job?

1) What is your favorite color?
Red. It is scientifically proven to evoke compulsive behavior, which is why most carpets in casinos are red and the neon lights tend to follow this motif. I cannot remember why I chose it to be my favorite color as a child; perhaps it was just a compulsive decision? Since then, I've always just gone with my original answer. Although, one day I'm going to invest the time and find out what the heck chartreuse, puce, and periwinkle look like so I can stop idly wondering, "What if...?"

2) How long have you lived in San Francisco?
I moved here from New York in March. Though this may not sound like a long time, I am a quick study. I am a go-getter when I move somewhere new, actively throwing myself into situations and places I have to hike, bike, or dance my way out of. The über-helpful SFstation.com has already become my homepage so that I can add to the list of dozens of restaurants, bars, and club venues I've attended in my short tenure here. I am committed to expanding my horizons in this city, and I lose a respectable amount of sleep doing it.

3) What are your top 3 favorite neighborhoods in San Francisco?
I like taking dates to Chinatown, because it quickly separates adventurous women from whiny girls. In addition, dim sum is probably the best Sunday brunch in the city to help soak up the night before. I also love dirt-cheap massages and heaping bowls of pho, which this neighborhood has in abundance.

Next comes the Mission, because it helps me feel creative and artsy fartsy. Plus I enjoy the feeling of maturity and accomplishment I receive when I see all those loafs my age shopping for the next item of discarded clothing and drinking Pabst like they invented it. But it's not all fear and loathing in the Mission District, because who doesn't love unwrapping a burrito like it's Christmas at one of the Mission's 2000 Mexican restaurants?

Lastly, but not leastly, I'd have to put North Beach among my top three. Because when the Marina is just way too chi-chi and frat!, but the Mission is stinking of qool, North Beach walks the line. It is perhaps the city's best melting pot: not quite as seedy as the Tenderloin, but close (just look at the B'way burlesque clubs); not quite as ethnocentric as Chinatown, but close ("Fo-getta-boutit"); neither as touristy as Fisherman's Wharf nor sedated like the Richmond. I think it provides the best slice of San Francisco, and I would recommend it to anyone who has only one night to get the "Frisco experience"...but then I would also recommend that person never say "Frisco."

4) If you could completely blow up one particular thing in San Francisco, what would it be and why? (bar, area, statue, event, law, person?)
The fog. 'Nuff said. Ok fine, I'll go into a little detail. It keeps every Tom, Dick, and Harry sitting at home watching TV instead of getting them outside to enjoy the best city in the world. It also is the ONLY thing for which the celebutants south of the Grapevine can look down on us. You wake up and see it gloomy in June and it just kills you to know that over in the East Bay they actually get to have a summer. And cheap crack. It just kills me.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

River's loyal gratitude

I spoke to a stripper the other night at the Garden of Eden strip club in San Francisco. Her name was River--although I'm not convinced--and she was the only girl in the club who I would describe as "cute" in that girl-next-door, unfortunately-platonic-friend way. There was no way I was going to shell out the $$$ for a dance, but since there were no other chum in the sea, she let me chat her up and ask her a few questions about her life. It's my experience that strippers are unabashedly forthcoming with personal details and life stories. Perhaps this misguided trust in men helped them into their current careers in the first place? Anyway, sometime after telling me the chronology of different cities she'd lived in over the past few years, River looked at me with great big eyes like my childhood cocker spaniel and continued, "...Plus, I don't mind working here. I mean, at least it's warm inside."

If you could have reached into my ribcage and palmed my heart, you would have felt every heartstring of mine tense and snap in that one moment I heard those last words and saw her fearful puppy-dog eyes. I mired in a mini-depression like a petit mal seizure while she went backstage to prepare for the final stageshow of the evening.

When the time came, I had no choice: I sidled up to the pocked leather of the front-row chairs and forked out every dollar bill I had, which also happened to be every green note in my wallet. This was not a time to be selfish. River needed me, dammit!