131 dollars a week

There comes a point in everyone's life where they figure out what's important and what's not. You learn how to prioritize. When you work in my industry, you work on a show or a movie or a commercial, it ends you go to Vegas or something bang a bunch of hookers come back take 2 days off and start on something new...OR SO I THOUGHT.

Recently many of you read all of my exploits about Mardi Gras and blacking out and sucking on boobs and having seizures in the airport while waving a finger at horrified toddlers whispering "don't turn out like me." What you didn't read in that was that during my vacation I had the diligence to follow up with diligence several times on the "job" that I thought I had. That's because it didn't happen because I'm retarded. During said Mardi Gras blackout I thought, if I just keep drinking, turn my phone off and make it back to LA alive, everything will work out.

Well as you might have imagined, it didn't well not yet at least, but that's ok because I have a little bit of money saved up in the bank, the number one song in the nation is about how awesome it is to be poor ("Thirft Shop") and I live in Venice. My lack of current liquidity is basically celebrated in this neighborhood. People around here don't congratulate each other on their successes, but on their failures.

Guy 1: "How'd rehab go?"

Guy 2: "Not well! I'm back on the wagon"

Guy 1: "My man! Let's go under the pier and shoot up.

If you've never been between jobs before, let me tell you a little bit about it.

The first week is AWESOME! You work out every day, you read on the beach, go on 50 mile bike rides, listen to porn with the volume cranked ALL the way up and get so beyond black out every night, you start to think that you'll never work again. You sleep until noon, get Thai massages. The world is your oyster. I mean shit I wrote 2 pilots and squeezed in a vacation and that was just the first week!

And then you realize the following Thursday when you don't get a paycheck...oh. Well that sucks. Then everything that you were doing that seems awesome makes you start to feel like the world's biggest degenerate. Sleeping until noon, beating off and playing 7 year olds in Halo starts to seem pathetic. The calming effect of working out, going to the spa, starts to stress you out because you aren't busy looking for a job, and drinking by yourself just turns plain sad.

BUT it's ok...this is California. My president is black and the liberals won, HANDOUTS FOR DAVE! I mean isn't this just sweet payback. Me, a bleeding Republican my whole life is finally going to benefit from these social programs I have so often denounced. I marched my ass to the unemployment office (somewhere an elephant shed a single tear) and although I was conflicted I took the Romney defense of his tax records. "Hey if it's within the legality of the rules, wouldn't it be insane NOT to use them to my benefit." And basically I decide that this little life loop hole is going to be able to let me write full time, which I warp myself into thinking will actually HELP the government. I'll sell a script faster, I'll get rich faster and then I'll pay them thousands if not millions of dollars in tax revenue.

I'm starting to feel better about all of this.

I get to the guy at the counter all proud, speaking articulately so he knows I'm better than the rest of the schmucks who got fired for smoking crack on their lunch breaks. "Hello, I'm here to claim by benefit."
He takes a look at my driver's license and types a few things into the computer. "131." He replies stoically. Oh, cool...so is that like my ID number or something? "No, that's what you get per week. Next in line." No, no sir...there must be a mistake. I work in TV. "The state's broke son, you're lucky you're getting anything at all."

131 dollars a week...? That won't even cover half my rent! What happened to my life as a full time writer? This is BULLSHIT. This whole red/blue political debate is about $131 a week???

It's ok though, I hold my head high. I am crafty, I can get by on $131 a week...how's that lyric go? "Only got $20 in my pocket?" Well if I were to break down my 131 into a daily allowance, surely I could be holding an Andrew Jackson every day right? Wrong. Only got $18.71 in my pocket...this is fucking awesome! Except it's not. Now all my time that I was going to spend writing awesome coming of age dramedies about college frat guys trying to grow up (has it become obvious yet that every feature I write is some version of me just in a different setting) is going to be spent on Craigslist looking for MTV reality shows that pay audience members $100 a day, sperm banks that prefer blondes and maybe god forbid another tv show to work on.

And it's all good though, because it's all just creative ammunition for me. Such an inspirational story he survived on less than 20 dollars a day! All he could do was ride his bike, surf his board and write in a steno notebook (saying macbook ruins it,) hoping one day he would catch his big break.

You know what though? I'll come out of this on top because I always prevail. Shit I mean, I can take some cash bribes from contestants on "The Roommate" next week, I've got some savings bonds I can cash in, stock I can sell (and not even get taxed on capital gains HOLLA BACK RED) and I'll probably get a job next week. It's only been 10 days.

And the last time I checked 7 11 was selling 2 four lokos for 5 bucks. Shit that's 13 dollars left over 3 trips to Taco Bell a day? See...I always win.