words by matt m.

Just move here with a fresh face and a college diploma? Get fired from your shitty retail job by the only one there who takes it seriously? Finally decide to tell your boss at the café what you really think of her paintings, or your boss at the bar what you really think of his goatee-rock band? Well, whichever way, your ass is out of a job and this is the guide for you.

First though, a couple ground rules:
• Never, ever, under any circumstances, use the phrase “funemployment.” Not even ironically. Unless you’re really serious about letting people know the real you…in which case you might just want to go the extra mile and get “dickhead” tattooed on your forehead.
• Don’t talk to people about how miserable it is to be unemployed. Everyone already knows. Talk about something interesting, like the weather. Or Sports!
• Don’t mention a job interview you have coming up, especially if you’re “totally sure you’re in already.” This is a sure-fire way to embarrass yourself and ruin any momentum you might have. Plus it leads to at least a week of the following interaction:

Concerned friend: Oh hey man, whatever happened with that interview at _______?
You: I don’t know dude, I thought it was in the bucket.
CF: shit, that sucks man….
You: yeah…well something’ll turn up soon (forced smile followed by looking down into empty pint glass followed by silence).
CF: yeah…yeah of course man. Oh, hey I gotta get going, I have, you know, work tomorrow.

Anyway, your first goal is probably a new job. Good for you! Well that’s smart, and honestly, I don’t have much else to say about it. If I knew how to get you a job, I’d be reclining in my chair of baby seal leather, lighting cigars with thousand dollar bills instead of putting up “blog posts.” The only advice I have is to lie and Lie and LIE and never look back. The old “fake it ‘til you make it” maxim has never been truer than it is for those of us in our 20s and out of a job. And, If you do end up getting found out and fired, it’s only ’cause you sucked at doing your job and you shouldn’t have been there anyway. Blam- order is restored.

Now that we have the basics out of the way, here’s a quick guide to enjoying your Oakland Funemployment!

Things To Do & Places To Go

Big Long’s: Nestled unassumingly in the back corner of the Rockridge shopping center is the Cadillac of drugstores. Lose your favorite Egyptian Sun God incense holder? You’re covered. Same goes for fishing gear, sparkly twine, fake owls, dollar cologne and Dickies jumpsuits. They’re open 24 hours and if you’ve got a quarter from before 1965, the Topdog in the front has a 25¢ dog for you.

Move To San Francisco: just kidding!

Become a Renaissance Man: This can take many forms, and it’s up to you. Find something you’ve always wanted to do. Maybe that’s unicycling or becoming a graphic designer, maybe its impersonating police officers or toilet-training a cat. Doesn’t matter. The important thing is to take this time away from the rat race to grow as a person.

Build a dark room: The materials are easy enough to come by and your roommates will be pleasantly surprised by your ingenuity when they come home from their “job” to find that the apartment’s only bathroom is full of red light, chemicals and, um, black and white photos of barbwire fences (shallow depth of field, obvi) and close-ups of your grandma’s knuckles. Everyone loves surprises.

Join a muay-thai gym: Sitting around all day responding to various craigslist ads with variations of “my interest in the growing data-entry field is perhaps matched only by my professionalism, reliability and punctuality” is disheartening. It’s emasculating and what’s more, it destroys your interpersonal skills. In this poverty, isolation, and Ancient Age fugue, you forget the all social niceties which allow you to interact like a decent, fun human being. In two weeks time, you’ve become Kasper Hauser, making fun of blind women, ruining friendships and almost getting stomped out by five dudes for smacking a tinted Mercedes Benz because it almost ran you over, because you were turning illegally onto 14th from Broadway on your bike, because instead of dinner, you were drinking brass monkeys and watching Allen Iverson highlight reels. Hypothetically. Anyway, have you ever seen Ong Bak? Yeah dude. That could be you in, like, a week.

Start A Blog: Just don’t try to explain it to your parents. In fact, don’t even mention it to them. That particular avenue dead-ends with you yelling “fuck” a bunch of times, your old man misquoting some Tom Brokaw bullshit about the “Greatest Generation” and your mom pouring another large glass of white wine in the kitchen. Just tell them you’re back in school taking phlebotomy classes or something; meanwhile, you’re editing pictures of cats into 90s movie posters.

Start A Band: What’s that? You don’t play an instrument? You’re tone-deaf? Did that stop Yeats from writing poetry?! Or Ulysses S. Grant from winning the Civil War?? Or somethingsomethingSexPistolssomething?! Next to grad school, having a band is one of the most time-honored and American ways to put off adulthood.

Better Living Through Photoshop: You don’t have a job to go, you might as well learn how to use a computer. Like Algebra II or a foreign language, the trick to picking up Photoshop is to find a way to make it relevant to your daily life. For me, that was making parking permits and fake “free sandwich cards” for a Berkeley deli run by pony-tailed jocks who always overcharged me on breakfast burritos. Just think of all the press passes, prescriptions and more now at your fingertips. EXTRA PLUS: one day you will be able to get an office job with these very skills.

Learn to Live Off the Land: No, I don’t mean “urban gardening.” I have no beef with that, it’s just that having a garden requires initiative, responsibility and a can-do attitude. If you had any those things, you wouldn’t be in this spot in the first place. No, what I mean is free pizza. What’s that, dad? Pizza doesn’t grow on trees? Thanks! Like The Truth, though, The Pizza Is Out There. In the dumpsters, at your local Lanesplitter at closing time (used to be, anyway), and in your friends’ living rooms.

Hustle: Remember that part in the Pimp The System video where he’s holding up the money AND the pizza?! Get off facebook and get yours. A month of getting turned down by progressively shittier jobs is bad for your ego. You begin to embrace the fact, internalize it even. “I’m gonna live on ketchup and shitty beer,” you tell yourself while copy-pasting the same typo-filled cover letter into another email. Cut that shit out. Do some jumping jacks or get laid or go down to Mosswood and hustle the dudes on the court. If you need a Woody Harrelson to your Wesley Snipes, gimme a call. Warning: the last part is an awful idea.

Ancient Age: The best thing to happen to “going to a bar” since “having a job and disposable income.”

Elve’s: This lil place at MLK and 32nd is the kind of place where you can eat your weight in ribs for less than the cost of a bottle of Tums. Oh, and dollar burgers.

Develop a Crippling Drug Problem: You’ll be amazed at how your appetite disappears, and consequentially, your need for a food budget.

Bakesale Betty’s: Look at this sandwich! Before I moved here, I was planning on joining the merchant marines or becoming an astronaut. That’s how good this sandwich is- it made me give up space travel. Yeah, yeah, it’s expensive, but if you wink at the girls behind the counter the right way, you can get a free strawberry shortcake.

Your Friend Who Works at a Pizza Place: Duh. Just remember to Avoid The Noid.

Golden Gate Fields Dollar Day: Dollar Entry. Dollar Beer. Dollar Hotdogs. Placing a bet here is more complicated than the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, so you don’t have to worry about losing all your money on the horsies. Last time I was here, I sat between diplomats from the Raiders Nation pouring beer on each other (he called the horse “blud”) and downtown secretaries in cowboy hats doing poppers in the stands. On the off chance you figure out how to place a bet, it’s a short drive to the Hotsy Totsy, where you can continue your losing streak with free shuffleboard.

Uncle Dougie’s: Uncle Dougie is a badass. I can’t speak to the actual restaurant because I’ve only been to his cart. Once, Uncle Dougie gave me a plastic bag of fried chicken for free. He has pink hair. Go eat there. Oh, and sometimes he gets grabby…

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