Post-Journalism Career #627: Subway Musician
What are laid-off journalists doing these days, besides growing ever angrier? One of them is going to play his guitar in the subway! Which we guarantee is a more fun job:
Steve McGookin was a journalist for 25 years—FT, Forbes, and many more. He’s been laid off. He’s going down to play in the subways.
June 8th is the one year anniversary of the day I quit my job, and 14th Street is the station I used to ride to every morning to go to work.
A hundred feet above my head, people will be going about their daily lives, but I’ll be starting a new musical journey underground.
I’m planning to play on the platform for a while to get a sense of what the city’s buskers face every day and be able to tell their stories a little better. Then, for the price of a Metrocard, I’ll go wherever the music leads me; I’ll talk to the musicians it leads me to and I’ll introduce them to you.
I’ll do the same thing at a different station around the MTA map, at different times of the day, for forty-eight days.
We, for one, will definitely break off some change for Steve. And for that jammin one-legge guitarist at Union Square! This may be the wave of the future! Contemplate this quote from David Carr:
I think one thing that people do not understand is, as recently as four or five years ago, to be a member of Manhattan media, you weren’t rich, but you lived as a rich person might. You went to the parties that a rich person would go to, you ate the food that a rich person would eat, you drank the vodka that a rich person would drink, and you’d end up in black cars, and you’d end up sometimes on boats and in helicopters. We lived as kings, and it convinced us, I think, that there was a significant underlying value to what we did. And I think we’re finding out now that the real, actual value of journalism in the current economy is not that high… I feel as if media has become a kind of reverse roach motel, in that once you’re out, you’re probably not coming back in.
Better to have never known the good times at all. Uh, right?
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
@abettertomorrow: You thought journalism was something else?
Ssscorpion
David Carr makes journalism sound like a PR expense that's been cut.
@NormaPabsy:
80k for school??
Dude, u should have gotten scholarships
@NormaPabsy:
As if it's less depressing for me, a female with the same degree, to be doing the same job?
addywisbef
"Strolling Musician With the MTA": that sounds like a good WPA-type job to promote culture in the big city. Go for it.
SultanaEleusis
Why don't they just get a job with the MTA. Good benefits and you don't really have to work much.
@bjonston: You say why. I say, why not?
OrneryBabe
@OrneryBabe: Why so ornery?
Here's my problem with subway musicians. I have an iPod, onto which I have loaded music that I want to hear. It pisses me off when I enter the subway and a musician's guitar/drums/whatever drowns out my selections.
Look, I get that people need to do whatever they need to do to get by nowadays. But this seriously annoys me.
OrneryBabe
@NormaPabsy: you know what, fuck you. you have a job and have an education - what is the shame? i am sick of your (sexist) attitude. i know you must be in debt but damn...
HurricaneEyes
@Botswana Meat Commission FC: Sorry to hear that. Here's hoping your chicken restaurant is seriously kick-ass.
OrneryBabe
@Svengali_Jones: this is my new favorite comment of all time
youreabigjessie
It may be funny to you guys, but I spent 80 thousand dollars on my journalism degree and I'm current a *male* administrative assistant. Doing what I currently do, I'm ashamed to admit I actually went to college!
NormaPabsy
@Svengali_Jones: LOL
in the 80's everyone wanted to be coke dealers like in Miami Vice, in the 90's everyone wanted to be in Friends. Now everyone wants to be an insufferable twat from "This American Life".
he's going to get arrested or a ticket if he doesn't have a permit. watch out for the po! be on the move.
555k555
I think it's a shame that unemployed journalists should have to learn to play music. Couldn't they just sit in subway stations and write--with their creative process so impressing people that they would leave tips? Or rob them?
SultanaEleusis
I got laid off last month from a small business magazine and now I'm hatching a plan to open a chicken restuarant. Seriously.
I'll send you photos (and possibly some thighs) once it's underway, HamNo.
ugh that one-legged guy is single-handedly (or..leggedly?) responsible for the misery that is my Union Square transfer home. if Staind were a one-man jam band, they'd be that guy- his music is like the "chill" anthem for every state school frat boy who ever spent a lazy afternoon of beer pong on his front lawn.
@abettertomorrow: Well put. My first thought was, he's thinking of the glossy magazines that are advertorials.
daveyjonesisdead
"..It's hard out there for a (print) pimp.."
snugbug
"What are laid-off journalists doing these days, besides growing ever angrier?"
"June 8th is the one year anniversary of the day I quit my job...."
Wait, what?
LHO
@OrneryBabe:
You betcher sweet ass it will be!
@NormaPabsy:
I spent 1600 a year going to technical school in Tacoma, now I have a daytime emmy and the mandatory hot asian girlfriend. Plus they taught me about existential dread in technical school. I totally scored bro-ham. Enjoy your loan.