A Pretty Cool Artist Named Juliet

by John Schoenkopf

I’ve been doing all sorts of dating lately. Been dating all sorts of chicks. Tall chicks, small chicks, pretty much anyone who is within my age range and is at all interesting to be around. This isn’t a function of desperation; actually it’s the opposite.

I’m having a renaissance of sorts, this being the first time in my ten years of adulthood that I’m truly uncommitted to anyone romantically, and I love it. For the first time, I’m truly happy with life. There’s nobody else’s schedule I have to eat to. And if I want to smoke another cigarette, I don’t have to get grief from it.

That’s the lesson I’ve learned: relationships will ultimately devolve until one person has become a full-time critic of the other. They do this out of contempt, and in my experience it is an unavoidable fate.

Naturally, after a while, the other person will bore of the constant berating, and may even one day lose their cool. This is called being baited, and it signals victory for the berater.

I want nothing at all to do with this. EVER again.

After the reality of how lame my recent history’s been, the last few weeks since I flew back to Los Angeles have been quite possibly the best I can remember. It’s like I got released from jail after some DNA thing proved I didn’t do whatever. The air is fresher, the sun is stronger, and I no longer hear all day what my faults are, in a loop.

I’m making up in happiness for the decade spent with women who hated the very fibers of my being. Enough with the torture of being with someone who just happens to be in the next room over, actively seeking your demise: I openly encourage everybody to be single with me forever. It’s fantastic, not having to explain where you were last night.

I was at Curtis’s, by the way. Not like the ex would’ve believed that, and I think you all get the picture.

Compounding the greatness and every bit as great a factor in my awesome mood lately is the fact that I have an extremely cool job that I’m super-proud of. One that—get this—gets me in for free to any concert in L.A. as long as it’s Goldenvoice or Live Nation (and if it’s in this county, then it most likely is). In fact, that last little morsel of fringe benefits is what’s keeping this massive “Date the Region” campaign, now in its third week of existence, alive.

You see, I’m totally flat-ass broke.

People not from Los Angeles seem to think that L.A. is a gold-digging town, and while I’m sure there may be some of that going on somewhere, there are 15 million people here, enough of whom are willing to hang as long as we’re doing something fun. And with my concert golden Wonka ticket (plus one), I think I may have cornered the market on rad for under twenty bucks a day.

So what could have especially made my day, fuck, MONTH on my way to the train station today?

If you know my dad, you know he is bound to be offered some kind of mansion at least once a year by well-meaning people hoping to get into the rehab game. And you know what? 2010 is no different. After a good three weeks at the Sober Living in North Hollywood, it appears as though one of my dad’s more famous clients is planning a charity concert to raise $25,000 for my dad to start a Sober Living up from scratch.

I know—what if this nameless dude doesn’t get $25k from a superfluous concert in a historic depression? Well, then I have no idea. But for now I’m not going there.

So after what seemed like a real long winter of financial woe, there are some clear signs that the ice is beginning to thaw. For the first time since my relegation to the minor leagues (a short stint in Oklahoma at my mom’s house, thanks again, mom), there are signs of financial promise on the horizon to match my million dollar disposition. It’s certainly welcome. It kinda blows being broke.

So as yet another house falls into our laps (affordable housing much?), I take this moment to say what I should have in the car today, which is, Dad, thank you for your entrepreneurial spirit which was transferred to me. It beats a business degree any day of the week and without it I’d be doomed to a life of mediocrity.

This week I sold ads to the USC Music Festival and a pretty cool artist named Juliet. Both were new clients who prepaid and are just overall pumped on their experience advertising with L.A. Record, the music publication at which I run shit. And we have plans for a big relaunch coming up which will, amongst a ton of other things, quadruple our page count and add a fancy new cover to what I think is an already awesome product. On the work front, for the first time in a long time, things feel like they’re really getting there. And that makes me happy like you wouldn’t believe.

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