The Carcass of Manhattan
July 27, 2010
In 2008 my friends and I flocked to the island of [the outer-boroughs of] Manhattan like vultures to a carcass. We flew there on the hopes and dreams of lucrative careers and rich social lives. To our dismay, 7 million other vultures had beaten us to the dead meat before the economy crashed. It wasn’t long before we realized that college didn’t count as “experience” on a resume. As time passed and mediocre jobs came and went, over-priced Master’s degrees were earned. Apparently, internships don’t count as job “experience” either. The problem with our start was that nobody really explained what the word “experience” meant. Nobody told us that BFA degrees are useless, but most importantly nobody ever explained that you need a job in order to have a social life in New York City. So in one sweeping flight, our hopes and dreams took a big dump on us (and by us I mean me. Although, peer dependency is very satisfying).
I’m going to fast forward to July 2010; today, actually. While sitting on an annoyingly crowded subway, trying not to breathe in the odd, inexplicable odors blowing into my nostrils, and trying not to stare at the PDA couple of the century, I had a revelation. A small cheery woman, with aviators, dragged a shitload of recyclables onto the subway. There were easily two hundred dollars worth of plastic rubies in the clutches of this street wise, baroness. It was then I debated her hourly wage. How? Well, it’s simple. You take the estimated dollar amount of recyclables and divide it by the estimated collection time. The result is: X= more than you. At that moment I discovered the lucrative career of recycling. Plastic redemption IS the answer to the financial woes of BFA degree holders everywhere. It IS the move from Bushwick to Williamsburg. It IS the martini instead of the Keystone Light. Folks, this IS the way in!