Sheltering in Place

[Drunk Monk]

Day 49: going to head to the office, meet with Jonny and start collecting my things, then bring them back to my mom’s to store. Hopefully I can get most of it but it’ll probably take more trips. I got a shit ton of stuff there. Plus I want to grab contacts out of my work email.

[Greg]

I'm having a sad for you.

[Drunk Monk]

I’m steadying myself for it. Moving the office last year was a bitch. I had just got it to a place where it felt right again. I surround my space with knick knacks to help push through writers block. It’s something I’ve done for my last two jobs, somewhat fallout from the afs days, even though there wasn’t writers block issues there. My home office in fremont was so but I don’t have the space for one in the Cruz. Now I’m wondering it I’ll ever have such a space again.

[Greg]

Oddly, I haven't held a steady job since I left Domino's Pizza back in the late 1980s. Sure, I was in a Union but I was never on a movie for longer than 6 months at a time. It's a very weird mindset to have. But the loss of a job just meant it was time to find a new one rather than a calamity. And I've always found another job. Although at this late stage of the game, those are getting scarce. It's more up to me to find my own opportunities.

[Drunk Monk]

I feel ya. Such was your trade for sure. 

I was gig-2-gig after I got out of UCSC. I was fulltime at AFS for a bit, then part time there and part time at Lam Kwoon, with a lot of side gigs inbetween like Dead tour, teaching. freelance writing, etc. then fulltime at Lam Kwoon for a while until I landed KFTC. 

A major frustration is medical. We literally just got Stacy onto my KFTC medical (deducted from my paycheck - the rollover to add was May 1 and we'd been waiting all year) which cut her medical in half. Now we'll both have to pay out of pocket again, which might be more than our rent.

[Drunk Monk]

Day 50: Still grappling with anxiety issues which will probably continue until I've found some stability again. The constant adrenaline dump has been tearing me up physically and mentally. I got another sleep cycle in last night but just one. The brain circus is louder than ever. I was also able to eat a little - although I'm hungry, I'm only able to eat small mild foods right now. My body went from that crippling allergy attack on Monday directly into the layoff. This week has been sheer hell and I'm struggling to find my footing again.

Today I'm working on my resume and begining to shore up my social media particularly my LinkedIn and looking into a blog site. I'm not making any big moves until the public announcement next Tuesday. I'm also working on that announcement, as well as working out other closure objectives for KTFC and sorting KungFuMagazine.com and Tiger Claw social media. That should keep me occupied, which is good I think. I also need to go through our storage shed here. Stacy did an amazing spring cleaning job - what's left are my tools, many of which have rusted due to the sea air. There's a few other tasks related to that which I'll look into today. Better to keep busy and not wallow.

[Drunk Monk]

Okay, maybe a bit of wallowing. 

Got up. Ate. Went straight back to bed. Tried to sleep again but everytime I was on the verge, I'd pop awake with the brain circus. My mind was doing some really strange things in that half sleep just prior to waking. I'm just going to lie out for a while. My body feels weird with all the strain, and my mind keeps thinking 'covid'?

[cranefly]

A question that I'll preface with an anecdote.  Many years ago a science fiction artist friend of considerable success took a job at a video game company and worked for years on something akin to Myst.  He did some of his best work there, but then the company went belly up before the game's release.  He was horrified to learn that all of his art would never see the light of day.  Because the now-defunct company owned his work, he wasn't at liberty to try to resurrect it on his own.  So he lost several years of artistic output.  He warned other artists not to get themselves into this situation.

So my question is, what TC Media materials can you walk away with?  Can you take the magazine subscription list?  Are there articles not yet printed or that were in-progress that have ownership restrictions?  I suspect there's all kinds of things I can't even imagine.  It sounds like this shutdown, devastating though it be, is happening on good terms for all involved.  But still I wonder whether little gotchas will pop up regarding company/employee proprietary rights.

I suspect your following on social media is intact and yours to keep, and of great value, if you decide to try translating it into a job that involves having a following.

I suppose I should have put this on the TC Media thread.  But it relates to what you just mentioned here.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Subscription list: CF that is a very practical idea. The other intellectual properties, too.

[Drunk Monk]

I can't get the subscription list. Not sure what I'd do with it anyway. 

There are some outstanding articles - that whole Summer issue that got stopped in its tracks back in March. I'm formulating a plan to get that out through a GoFundMe - the final issue. Jonny is open to this. 

I have a few pieces I was working on that I'll collect. Mostly, I'm looking to get my old articles, just as a research cache. I have everything in print of course, but the web concerns me, which is one of many reasons why I'm working to keep that alive. If that goes dead, years of work disappears. Again, Jonny understands it is a resource and fairly inexpensive to maintain, and could work out for me as a freelance gig. 

cf, do you have copies of everything you edited?

[cranefly]

cf, do you have copies of everything you edited?

Yes and no.

I have never deleted anything I worked on, and I kept the originals as well.
But a couple years ago a windows update hung at 99%, necessitating a hard restart, and ... yeah, there be monsters.  Even lost the last group photo with Sifu (though admittedly it wasn't a good photo).

Anyway, I could catalog what I likely have, and what's probably lost.  If it sounds useful, I'll send it your way however.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Subscription list is handy if you want to promote your new book, magazine, Drunk Monk Wine, etc. At some point you might want to promote something. I have a couple of mailing lists from some different organizations “just in case”.

[Drunk Monk]

Anyway, I could catalog what I likely have, and what's probably lost.  If it sounds useful, I'll send it your way however.

Perhaps. Let me look into what I have. I'm really only interested in articles that I have written. Thanks for the offer but please don't start on this until I've figured out what I can just get from my files at TC. I should be able to do that. I just need a storage device.

Subscription list is handy if you want to promote your new book, magazine, Drunk Monk Wine, etc. At some point you might want to promote something. 

Unfortunately I've never had access to the subscription list and that's too propriety for me to venture to ask, knowing TC. And I understand their position on this. I already had that talk with Jonny. He's actually okay with me reselling my work for the company if I can (same as with Patrick) even though they technically own the rights, but I can't see that happening. It's old research. Maybe I can parlay it into something new down the line, which is why I'll get it. Otherwise, it just disappears. 

There's no way I'd go back into magazine publishing. Not only is that non-essential, it's an obsolete medium. I foresee this crisis as the death blow for many of us niche mags. We are all just hanging on by our fingernails. And the dream of another book is so far away now. That's such a long term investment with miniscule payout and my financial needs are more dire. 

Working on my resume. It's weird.

Thanks for the input guys. It's encouraging.

[Greg]

The dogs grooming clippers arrived. Yes, I tested them on me first. God , knows what the back of my head looks like. Well, TQ probably knows, too.

[Drunk Monk]

God , knows what the back of my head looks like. Well, TQ probably knows, too.

As long as we can tape a pic of Charlize Theron to the back of your head, we're good.