Unemployment: An American Pastime

I've been in a British funk for weeks. And it's serious. I'm talking thinking in a British accent, serious. Like, I've been repressing the urge to spout "Wanker!" and "Bollocks!" at random people. I've even had to make sure I'm not driving on the left side of the road by accident. It's odd, considering I've never spent any time in England.

There's also been a strange confluence of movies on TV or in my Netflix queue (queue!) about unemployed miners and steel workers in Northern England (Billy Elliot, Brassed Off, and The Full Monty), and I've been lapping them up like a fine cup of Earl Grey. So I'm not sure if it's a cause or symptom of my recent onset of British Fever, all these movies, but either way, I don't want it to stop.

It might be the unemployment aspect that I'm connecting to, and not necessarily the British thing, because I've just created a playlist of songs for The Unemployed. Yes, we have a title now, with capitals and everything, because if we can't have a legitimate occupation with business cards, we're damn well going to call ourselves something (though I imagine that, the day I get a real business card of my own, I will stare at it with the same intensity as Patrick Bateman.)

For anyone in the same boat (or you sympathizers out there, you might get a kick out of this, too), here is the wound-licking playlist I've come up with to get me through the long, lonely days. There's a progression, you see: it goes from "Sleep is my job now..." to "Ok, I should look for a job now" to "I can has job now?" to "Where the #@$% are all the jobs now???" to the projected outcome of "I can't, I have a job now." Needless to say, most of the artists are British.

1) Sitting on the Dock of the Bay -- Otis Redding
2) Rudie Can't Fail -- The Clash
3) I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself -- The White Stripes
4) I Want You To Want Me -- Cheap Trick
5) Paperback Writer -- The Beatles
6) I'm Not Down -- The Clash
7) Help! -- The Beatles
8) Money -- Pink Floyd
9) Career Opportunities -- The Clash
10) Cream and Bastards Rise -- Harvey Danger
11) Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar) -- The Doors
12) Under Pressure -- Queen
13) Take a Chance On Me -- ABBA
14) Clampdown -- The Clash

Huh. After counting a few times, I have come to the very brilliant conclusion that there are actually more American artists than British. That makes sense--unemployment has become the theme song of America anyway. I suddenly have a craving for apple pie...