The Poverty Jet Set

For some reason, I decided today to Google myself. Or rather, Google ‘Magdalenus’. Most of the top hits were me in various functions, comments on blogs, places where I use that as a username, etc. But then, I find this odd lil’ tidbit I find oddly cool:

DEN FEMTIONDEN FRÄLSAREN (1984) is a historical novel, set in the 18th-century Venice. The narrator, young Ciacco, is a clerk, who meets people from different levels of society. The central character is, however, the strange Magdalenus, a time traveler, who sees a vision of the future. He describes submarines, lifts, and modern toilets. Magdalenus claims, that he is direct descendant of Jesus. SENA SAGOR (1998) was set in the near future. In the playful story a doctor meets representatives of our own time. (from P.C. Jersild, whatever that is)

Then, later on, I was chatting with a pal who commented on my MOG music blog and I read this amazing quote on her profile:

Tom Robbins (from “Joseph Campbell”):
“…a myth is something that never happened but is always happening. Myths are the plots of the psyche.”

Happy Ides of March!

Technorati Tags: magdalenus, povertyjetset, QotD, Random

Subtitled: How Expensive Educations and Lofty Expectations Sometimes Fail to Blossom Mind-Numbing Office Jobs and the People Who Love Them

I feel like it’s time to comment on a predicament I constantly find myself in. I’m not sure if this is just me or if other people feel the same about it. That is, I am insanely busy, days cram-packed with awesome things happening all the time but don’t seem to make any money.

I love to dig into the things. I fill my days with juicy bits of life that interest me, that challenge me, the things that make this whole crapshoot worth a damn and make every day somehow more exciting than the last. Live deep and suck the marrow out of life, a wise teacher once said. Funny how deep livin’ don’t necessarily pay. What’s up with that? How do I cross the lovely yet somewhat mythical bridge to the Land of Living the Dream (that is: of doing what one is passionate about and getting paid a decent livable wage for it)?

Take this blog, for example. Surely fun. Very satisfying. Interesting to the nth degree. And yet, my blinged-out embedded Google Ads have yielded a whopping $11.06 to date. That’s a pretty poor wage for hundreds of hours of work over many months. Oh, and see that Amazon ad over on the sidebar? $0.00. Yup.

Ah, blogging. And how! I have let you take over my life so completely - I’ve even used that deplorable, awkward and ugly word “blogger” (sounds like bugger) when people ask what I do! - and you have yet to make me enough to even buy a friggin’ sandwich and chips at the deli down the street.

And so I think to myself, start this video blogging thing. Also, deeply satisfying, (yes, as some detractors have pointed out, a bit self-indulgent to some degree… though in my defense, the road trip blog is merely the “tester” series to get into the swing of things and learn how to use it as a tool). Hell, my video hosting site even sells ads on my behalf. Payoff to date: $0.

So what’s this game all about people? What are we in it for?

I don’t know. But watch out sucka! cuz I’m gonna be videobloggin’ some crazy s**t at Sundance, and it’ll be one hell of a funny story to tell my kids and grandkids. That’s valuable, right?

[PS - anyone want to hire me to build them a blog or teach them how to video podcast???]

Technorati Tags: blogging, diy, howto, money, povertyjetset, technology, trends, videoblogging, web2.0

Here it is, folks:

Don’t forget, you’ll be able to watch it here, or at Blip.tv. And don’t forget, you’re now able to subscribe (and automate yr whole process) over at iTunes.

Mummers in November

Originally uploaded by magdalenus.

Just standing on the street the other night, a bus pulls up and unloads close to twenty mummers in costume like clowns out of a Beetle. It was the strangest thing…

By the way, this post is kind of a test… I just figured out how to post to my blog via my phone. That’s hot shit, if you ask me. Ah, the 21st Century. Is nothing sacred?

Well, used-to-be our Dorothy. Unfortunately, our lovely contributor has overwhelmed herself with many another project and has officially resigned from The PJS. But you can still keep up with her on her personal blog on MySpace, as I do every week.

Have a read of the interview. Awesome cuz’ Dorothy’s an awesome chick, and of course, she gives us a great shout-out.

Technorati Tags: povertyjetset, philebrity, magdalenus, interview, Philly, blogging, dorothyrobinson

I took this random photo out of my window this morning:

What do you make of it?

This week has had its ups and downs.

I was reminded why I always seem to want to leave Finland and never return. There’s nothing wrong with the country itself and most people are lovely… But they’re just not my kind of people. I seem to stand out here too much and if I’m not careful enough with my bubbly and flirty personality, I get into a lot of trouble (trouble that I would never get into anywhere else in the world).

I hate walking on egg shells. That’s no life for me, being careful and watching every single word I’m using… I enjoy my freedom elsewhere, where I’m not a freak of nature and things I might say or do are not taken as seriously as they are taken here. Cultural differences, that’s all. For a Hemisphere Hopper it’s difficult to adjust to the local ways again.

Anyhoo, I refuse to change my ways just to blend in better. Let’s see how much of chaos I create this time I’m visiting this wonderful country of mine.

In the middle of the week I was hit by a train (caught a cold) and was swallowed up by my own bed. Today I’ve felt as if it’s ready to spit me out again…. fingers crossed!

Well, here it is, the brand-spanking-new site design. What d’ya think? Comments?

My buddy and blog contributor Ms. Milk and her Minty Breath is finally, finally famous. She’s wanted it all her life. She’s been waiting for the day. And now… she has this:

Technorati Tags: blogging, povertyjetset, art

I begin my day every morning by reading newspapers online while sipping my regular “6 shots of espresso and a dash of lactose free milk”-drink. Religiously I check out what’s been written in UK, USA and Australia.

This morning I read an article “Fat is the new black. It’s everywhere“.

Well bite my arse and call me a biscuit. I had no idea I was so damn fashionable.

The end-of-summer celebration, the Secret Island Party… happened. We had a big bonfire on the beach, lots of craziness and crazies (including some guy dressed up as Jason and running around with a chain saw!?). The good news is no one got hurt, other than some serious brain cell damage and some nasty sunburn.

Personally, I would advise all you people out there who want to throw a next-to-no-budget party in an exotic wilderness location that requires some kind of extensive water transportation, gear set-up and drunk people safety patrol… uh, maybe you shouldn’t. Or at least ask me how next year’s is going to be much, much different. Maybe the next Secret Island Party is going to be at someone’s house and we’ll all just wear leis and drink rum, wear grass skirts and listen to cheesy Hawaiian music. As the late, great George Harrison put it, “the farther one travels, the less one really knows.”

More photos here.

Technorati Tags: psychedelic, magdalenus, secretislandparty, island, povertyjetset

Let’s see now.

I got to say goodbye to Melbourne in a drunken yet orderly manner.

Then I was saying goodbye to Melbourne the following day, feeling very hung over and disorderly. It was the most glorious spring day and my head was hurting. I had to sit down and take a breather and wait for the lovely Metlink Tram to take my sorry ass back home.

Then came Saturday.

30 hour flight.

I was forgiven a lot of overweight. I sat next to a nice young Aussie lad called Ben. I cut my hand with a plastic knife (!) and this impressed Ben so much it sparked off a 10 hour giggleathon.

Bangkok was hot, sticky and humid.

Next flight was full of tired and tanned Swedes with mullets and blonde hair.

I drooled on the woman sitting next to me. She was blonde and her husband had a mullet.

There was a baby crying.

There was turbulence.

Stockholm was cold and rainy.

Helsinki wasn’t as cold and rainy.

After sleeping 9 hours I am very disoriented, my body’s aching and my nose is runny. Some kid just tried to pick me up at the supermarket.

Welcome back home.

(again, from the New York Times, which I should just quit reading because all it does really is depress me)

An article today about “Fame Motivation,” the strong desire of a person that motivates their actions with the hope of becoming famous. What the hell is it with us humans? Why are so many of us obsessed with fame? Me, I’m guilty. Of course I want to be famous. For the recognition, the rationalization, the realization. That I matter. That my life means something. That what I slave away at day after day has some bearing on the state of the universe.

Which of course is ridiculous. My life doesn’t matter or mean anything. None of our lives REALLY mean anything. That’s only our egoic mind (thanks, Eckhart Tolle). I should really tell my ego to shut up now again. Care less about who “knows me”, or how important my artwork is in the realm of society’s mythology at large.

And yet, here I am, writing a blog. To be heard. To be seen. To matter. Making a film so that my voice will rise up and participate. But what good is a film that’s never seen? A blog that’s never read? Conversely, what good are they that DO get seen?

I would love nothing more than to let this feeling go and be totally and utterly content with being just and average Joe, living an interesting albeit vanishing life. Merely a speck of existence in one, humungous broiling MOMENT. An ever-changing ocean of “now” existence.

Yet, I hold out some hope. This NPR special talks about people’s built-in mechanism to STOP yearning for change, newness or anything fresh. To settle into a groove. Maybe that’s what I want. Just rut it out for the rest of my life.

Nah. Just kidding

Technorati Tags: eckharttolle, magdalenus, puppy, identity, fame, povertyjetset

I don’t know if it’s good or bad but I now seem to be known as Straddle. Oddly enough my beloved Milk wasn’t hip enough here in Melbourne so now I’m simply known as “Straddle”. Why? Because not many can say my real name and in the first week I started working here I told my boss a story about this bar in Ballarat (where he has lived 13 years) Rattle’n'Hum is now called Straddle’n'Cum among the Uni students. Since I had just started working, I was associated with this story and from then on, after them trying many other nicknames like Miss Finland and Lara Croft, Straddle seem to be the one that stuck. Even some of the clients call me that now.

Straddle.

For crying out loud. Then again we have a saying in Finland… Loved child has many names.

….So I must be well loved, then…..

It’s funny how you forget how much some people make you feel loved.

I took a trip down the memory lane during the weekend as I took the train to Ballarat (I lived there last year).

Surely enough, living back on campus meant I’d have no privacy and the motto for the the night would be “let the good times roll” and I’d probably get blind drunk and end up singing staraoke out of tune but it still surprised me off guard how much love I received. Truly, these people embraced me last year and this year not only the people I lived with but new faces also were making me feel so loved and welcomed it was truly moving.

And it was worth it. Even though I wrecked my contact lenses, lost my antique earring, got vomited on, did indeed end up singing staraoke, didn’t get much sleep and received a couple of interesting hormone driven offers, it was all worth it and I’ll take good memories from this weekend back home with me.

This is a surreal art project conceived of, at least in part, by Mark Frauenfelder of BoingBoing fame… Very cool. We’re diggin’ the hoboes, baby.

Technorati Tags: povertyjetset, vagabonding, art, concept, hoboes, 700hoboes

While spending the last seven years traveling around the world, living this Poverty Jet Set lifestyle, I have often been heard saying that I was “only traveling for a few years until I eventually go to graduate school.” For a long time I took myself seriously. But then slowly, I began to believe in that statement less and less with every passing ski season. Finally, I rationalized it as: “graduate school is for lazy suckaz who aren’t creative enough to manifest their own career destiny.”

Well, guess who just registered to take the GRE… exactly 7 years and 2 months since I graduated from my lovely years at Penn State? Yours truly, of course.

I’ve been in the midst of a vital rejuvenation in my belief that I might fit into a career in higher education (or, as the more cynical side of me croons wickedly, I’ve been in the midst of weakness, giving up on my creative convictions and making an attempt to satiate the Man by generating a safety net for the moment I believe myself a failure as an independent filmmaker and musician). Does is have to be one or the other? Methinks not. Therefore I have concluded I may as well make an honest attempt to get into school again.

In any case, that wasn’t even why I wanted to write this post… *sheesh* I really wanted to rant about how unbelievably CRAPPY the GRE website is. How utterly un-user friendly, how ugly, how poorly designed, how labyrinthian their whole network is! My goodness! It takes 10 click-throughs just to find out where the testing center is in Philadelphia! I could have Googled it faster. Good grief.

Technorati Tags: gradschool, GRE, povertyjetset, school, decisions, usability

Dorothy and I just met at the kick-ass-tic coffee bar, The Last Drop, to discuss our world domination plans with this blog… and now that she’s up to speed with everything, look out world! Yeeeeee HAAA!