You've got to get up to get down: Resume writing

In anticipation of getting back in the Pittsburgh job market, I've crafted a resume that highlights my diverse and mind-blowing skill set. Prepare for a surreal experience.

Daniel L. Hilliard
hilliard649@yahoo.com
412-378-3822
Carnegie, PA 15106

Objective: To apply my professional writing and advertising expertise to a progressive Pittsburgh media outlet, with the ultimate goal of buying a blue Porsche Roadster with vintage leather motorcycle helmet and blast goggles. Also interested in acquiring a small dog to ride in the passenger seat (also with helmet and goggles).

Summary: More than six years of professional experience in newspapers as a writer and advertising manager for the Beaufort Gazette, Valley News Dispatch and the Advocate; invented the concept of 0 (null set); interest in continuing my education in graphic and Web design; worshiped by several major Mesopotamian cultures as En Shabbuh Nur, God of Office Task Management; Briefly fronted 90s hair metal band "Wycked Thyngs"; Once successfully argued the cultural value of David Lee Roth at a law enforcement banquet.

Conclusion: I don't want to draw parallels between my return to Pittsburgh and the Second Coming, but I do own a pair of well-worn sandals, if you catch my drift.

Though my phone number is posted above, the tyrants at T-Mobile charge me by the minute...so, please, keep all job offers to under 200 words. Thank you.

You don't scare me, Route 28

I know this blog is supposed to be a showcase for potential employers/business partners -- but I'd like to take a moment to recognize Pennsylvania drivers as some of the most capable people on America's roads.

Sure, there's the occasional guy who wanders across three lanes at 75 mph or stops dead right before an acceleration ramp. But, having worked dozens of traffic accidents in a state with totally flat, straight roads and beautiful weather year-round, I can safely say that driver competence is the single biggest thing I've noticed since returning to the 'Burgh.

For some reason I can't explain, your typical South Carolina driver believes his rusty El Camino is a 24-foot package truck. Turns are long and leisurely, requiring a complete stop. Lane changes are more of a strategic maneuver than a simple glance-and-go. And yet, South Carolina hosts some of the most gruesome car wrecks imaginable. At this moment, 1 out of every 10 vehicles registered in South Carolina is flipped over in a muddy ditch. See here for the full set of statistics.

Pennsylvania drivers, on the other hand, have to deal with paved horse paths through the Allegheny foothills; a ludicrous collection of bridges and tunnels; PennDOT; and weather perfectly aligned to create crater-size pot holes. Throw in the random horror of mine subsidence and sink holes, and you've got a survival-of-the-fittest situation on Pennsylvania's highways. Yet - I've been back home nearly a week, and I've seen one minor fender bender. After a week in South Carolina, I didn't feel very confident in my neighbors' walking, let alone their driving.

So, congrats, yinz guys. I'm impressed. Now back to the job search...still trying to find the job I will be happy to drive to every morning.

Help me help you sell out

Now that I'm back in the 'Burgh, I can begin my job search for real.

Small confession -- I'm a sucker for good advertising. Given the choice between two identical brands of cereal, I will buy the more expensive cereal in the flashy box rather than the unmarked bag on the bottom shelf.

I consider the sponge monkeys from the Quiznos ads and that bird on old public service announcements that first told me, "Trees are terrific!" to be some of my oldest friends.

I've been a cop and a professional journalist, but I'm slowly but surely realizing that I love advertising. I want to be the guy with the Comcast Slowskys commercials on my resume. I want people to get all huffy when they can't get my ad line out of their heads. I want to be a company psy ops man, working out new and novel ways to drive the American consumer culture I love so much.

There's no reason I can't do this. I'm creative, hard-working and highly adaptable. I've got superior writing experience and an eye toward continuing my education in Web design, programming and media editing. We might be in a recession, but I don't think there's ever been a time when ideas and the drive to make them concrete was worthless.

So - c'mon, Pittsburgh. I survived two years in the Deep South and drove 800 miles to get back to you. Put me to work.

CLASSIC POST

Well, I went down to the military entrance processing station the other day for the Marines. I was poked, prodded, deprived of sleep and made to eat something masquerading as sausage gravy. But it was a good time, overall.

As you can imagine, that's shaking up the homefront a little, but, overall, everything benefits from a little creative stress. Just ask a lab monkey.

Speaking of which, I'm sick and tired of striving for this honorary "literary" title with my writing. Let me explain - you are either a genre writer, or you are a literary writer.

If you are a genre writer, you are doomed to popular appeal, movie deals, huge bonus checks and worldwide admiration. If you are a literary writer, you are guaranteed critical rejection, meals made entirely of sausage gravy, grinding poverty and a heinously early death involving your favorite firearm(s). I cite Stephen King and Ernest Hemingway as illustrative examples.

Not to mention, literary fiction requires your work to be both painful to write and painful to read. If it's entertaining and uplifting, it's obviously hack work. And don't bother writing in any genre other than "mainstream," a gray word if I've ever seen one. After all, Slaughterhouse 5, Stranger in a Strange Land and Frankenstein didn't need some campy sci-fi crutch to succeed...oh wait...yeah they did.

So, I've made a pact with my roommate to make my next story as non-literary as possible. We're talking fun, genre-oriented and lacking in any moral or message whatsoever. My roommate - let's call him "Ben," because it's shorter than "my roommate" - is thinking about banging out an RPG-style fantasy story. I think I'm going to try my hand at a Western.

My hope is that someday, some hack critic at Princeton or Yale sits down to craft a thesis on the "Johnstownian literary sub-genre," and he explores the "overly macho or, perhaps, desperately critical and subversive male characters, as well as the cleverly used misogyny and over-the-top villains with psychological parameters reflecting the authors' troubled interpersonal relations and unique world outlook."

Not to mention the heavy parallels to Star Wars. I guess those will be the student papers.

CLASSIC POST

Well, here we go. I didn't think I'd ever post to one of these things, but it looked too convenient (free) not to give it a try. Now I just have to remind myself that there's no such thing as writer's block - only the absence of the realization that one can write about anything (I stole that quote from somewhere - I apologize).

Speaking of which, I'm on the lookout for a 2006 summer internship. Ideally at the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat or, hope above hope, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It must be paying, as I am also looking to finance a home move-out. I don't expect to find anything above minimum wage, though. It'll be a rough drop from my $13/hr. Reliant Energy job, but I'll be perfecting my life's work as opposed to scanning AutoCAD drawings.

While the scanner whines, I'm thumbing through Morris' Theodore Rex, a biography of Theodore Roosevelt beginning with McKinley's death. It's got a grand old gentleman feel. It makes me want to order an L.L. Bean catalog and apply to Harvard - after a polo match, of course. A historian wrote it, however, so the sentences are like logs floating down a slow, comma-choked river.

I'm tempted to end this by saying I want to get back to school, but that's all I've been capable of for a month and a half. The University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown might be undersized, understaffed and underappreciated with bad food and worse weather, but I miss the place. I wonder if frogs feel this way when they're away from their murky little mudholes.