Dan Gulino #24

Random Song on my iTunes research:
“We Didn’t Start The Fire” is an American classic written by Billy Joel. The song debuted in September 1989 on Joel’s album Storm Front, and became Joel’s third number one hit later that year. When asked about the content in the song, Joel was quoted saying “I had turned forty. It was 1989 and I said Okay, what's happened in my life? I wrote down the year 1949. Okay, Harry Truman was president. Popular singer of the day, Doris Day. China went Communist. Another popular singer, Johnnie Ray. Big Broadway show, South Pacific. Journalist, Walter Winchell. Athlete, Joe DiMaggio. Then I went on to 1950. It's one of the worst melodies I've ever written. I kind of like the lyric though. Joel was able to cite major images, personalities and events into a three-minute song, and basically summed up the culture of the world in that time. Critics have interpreted the song as a shot at Joel’s baby boomer generation, and the problems that followed them.

Pouring Coins Textures

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylcy8DPGVUM

I took my coin jar collection and poured it out into another cup. This video was the became the inspiration for another video that I will post soon.

Pink Collared Jobs- Retail

In the last year I’ve held two pink colored jobs, one as a sales associate at Forever21 and one as a cupcake associate at Crumbs. I spent my entire summer last year working at the new Forever21 at Times Square. I hated it. I dread going to work. The hierarchy of workers was not effective. Sales associates had to listen to visuals, assistant managers, co-managers, managers of the floor, and then there was the manager of the store at the highest. In simpler terms, sales associates were the “bitches” of everyone else. There was no room to move up unless you have worked there for years…I worked for three months and I was more than happy to leave for school.

Adding on to the messy hierarchy, there were the nasty customers. The store was opened from 8am to 2am last summer and the busiest times were when people got off work and on weekends. After fixing a rack of clothes, a customer can easily mess it up in 10 seconds. The job was routine after routine. You come into work, stood in your section and run back clothes from runners. I worked mostly in the fitting room and at the end of the day the fitting room would have a stench of body odor. I hated it when European tweens came into the fitting room with 20 pieces of clothing and left with nothing but a pile of worn clothes on the floor. I don’t know if I would have survived if I worked more than 3 months. Lunch break was half an hour and that summer my diet was mainly McDonalds and shish kebobs. I didn’t touch McDonalds for half a year after that.

Sakura Matsuri

Went home this weekend, went to the sakura matsuri, dyed my hair, and osama bin laden has been confirmed dead. What a productive weekend! I took some pictures of some of the things I saw in the brooklyn botanical garden where the sakura matsuri is being held. It's nice to see the public trying to embrace the japanese culture and give us even more reason to help them after such a catastrophe.

Here are some photos that my friend took and I borrowed:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59556673@N02/sets/72157626506796133/