Background…
At the time of this writing, I was one month into my move to New York and living in a shared Airbnb with four roommates. My life consisted of job hunting, food stamps, and running around the city meeting with anyone and everyone who would spare me the time of day. In the moment, it was awful. Looking back, it’s a period of my life I’ll forever cherish.
This piece includes fake names, real people.
I was planning on hitting a run first thing this morning, but last night, my sublet roommate decided it would be fun to tune his guitar until 2 a.m. I could’ve fallen asleep to the constant rhythm of stringing—hoping he’d be halfway to decent—but the occasional pick every five to eight seconds was far worse than any song he could’ve played. You never knew if the show was over or if another ding would come leaking through the wall. When I woke up, I pivoted my plans, moseyed to the shower, enjoyed the sweet kiss of hot water, and spent my morning drinking coffee and writing this.
Yesterday was a welcome-to-New-York smack to the face. My first meeting was with Paul Martinez at noon in SoHo. I woke up early, prepped for the day, and got one more last-minute call scheduled—a Hypebeast interview for 4 p.m. Paul pushed back our chat to 12:15 p.m., but I still wanted to get there early and walk around the area. I left around 11:10 a.m. for my supposedly 30-minute subway ride. As fate would have it, on the day I needed to meet with a creative director in person, all the subways decided to shit out on me. I was on the C line, Manhattan-bound from Bed-Stuy, and we spent over 20 minutes at every stop. By the time noon rolled around, I was still in Brooklyn, waiting at the High Street Brooklyn Bridge stop.
Being an ignorant, new-to-New-York rookie, I still hadn’t set up a Citi Bike account. I told Paul I’d be late and tried my luck on the R line. I rode one stop, and then again: “Ladies and gentlemen, sorry for the delay—there’s a holdup with the subway signals. We’ll try to get up and running as soon as possible.” Time to open a can of man, I thought. I was 1.3 miles away, and it was already 12:30 p. m.—the new time Paul and I had agreed on. I shed my puffer jacket, grabbed my bag with both hands, and broke off running through SoHo. I found my flow and managed to scrape together a runner’s high. It was a true, gritty, shitty, New York do-what-you-gotta-do moment. I kept thinking, if I make it and get a job from this… oh boy, imagine the story.
And I made it, alright. And the first thing he said was, “I’m gonna be honest—I’m looking to leave Grand Army, so I’m not gonna refer you here, but I’ll do whatever I can to help you at other places.” As Sinatra would put it, “That’s lifeee.”
We grabbed coffee from a window vendor and sat under the winter sun. I wasn’t nervous at all—I think I shook all the nerves out on my run. But he was intense in a good way. He shared stories about the grind and hustle of starting as a junior creative in New York, and I could tell he took joyful pride in the worst parts of it. We chatted about life, music, art, work, and everything that’s rich. As we were saying our goodbyes, he assured me I’d passed the “not-a-weirdo-in-person” test, then shook my hand and stared into my soul for 13 seconds. “Anything you need, reach out. And good luck.” He said that good luck like it was the most heartfelt, go-to-war statement he’d ever spoken.
I had just under an hour before my meeting with Steve Pierce, so I decided to stay in SoHo for the rest of my calls. I killed some time in Washington Square Park and watched the pigeon man do his spectacle. Talking with the birds. Holding the birds. Being a bird. Although I still had nothing to my name, I could feel momentum. I was doing the damn thing and making my bones.
I went to an empty coffee shop that Paul recommended and took over the back room. The place was charming and nerdy in a Portlandesque sort of way. Board games and action figures littered the walls.
I was nervous as I waited for my call with Steve. He stayed on for over an hour, and we jumped through all sorts of topics—advertising, job hunting, EP+Co culture, surfing, skating, and all that jazz. He veered into a lot of job-hunting advice I already had heard, which was disappointing, but still, it was a great seed to plant. I was hoping he’d say, “Hell yeah! We have a junior role, come join the ship, surfer boy.” But that wasn’t the case. “No junior roles now, but if something opens up, I’ll be in touch,” he assured me. It was surreal talking with a skateboarding legend about serious topics of work and life. Throughout the whole job hunting process, that call will forever be a memory I cherish.
I stuck around the coffee shop, ordered a cookie, and hopped on my last call with the editor of Hypebeast. It started stale but gradually took shape. I answered his questions with personal passion and character, and he kept saying I’d hit the nail on certain ideas or topics. I walked away feeling good but kept my excitement bottled. I didn’t want to jinx the potential of what could be. The job hunt really is a ruthless numbers game—an equation of timing, talent, and a stroke of luck. But at the end of the day, it only takes one yes.
Mind numb and social battery beaten to a pulp, I walked to the L train through Greenwich Village. I’d been so caught up flying from one meeting to the next that I didn’t have a second to pause and reflect. I was in New York and doing the damn thing. Life was looking up, and I could feel a shift in momentum.
I got home, said hi to my roommate, thought about his guitar strumming, thought about how I’ll have my own apartment soon enough, then went to bed with hope on my side.