My First Encounter with the LB Union Weekly

This was originally published in the Long Beach Union Weekly in 2015

I was on my usual Friday afternoon walk from the dorms to 7-11 to get scratchers and starbursts (as you can see I am a man of vice), and on my way I grab a Union Weekly to read as I walk. Within the classifieds I encounter this advertisement:

Freelance Journalists Needed

Aspiring and experienced freelance writers needed for upstart

publication. Strong social media preferred but not required.

Starting $2 per word.

Now here is the thing that got me, two dollars per word. I’ll sit down and write every damn word I know for that rate. To be clear two dollars per word means this piece is already worth two hundred and seventy four dollars.

So needless to say I new it was bullshit, but I couldn’t help but feel I had possibly hit the lottery. There was a serious inkling of me that thought I could make some money. After all I was aspiring to be a journalist, also an astronaut, and a professional bocce ball player. As for experience, I have read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Old Hunter S. Thompson would be my spirit guide. In fact my words would probably be considered worthy of $3.92 a piece because of my experience and my ostensibly rich vocabulary.

I now understood what I didn’t before, that ad had been placed by some rich child from Orange County with a love for Rolling Stone Magazine and a wish to start their own zine, despite both the nineties and print media being dead. Obviously at the supposed word rate Daddy’s start up money would soon be gone, but I harbored the idea that I could write up five hundred words on Bernie Sanders or whatever Money Bags was into and make the first edition. Cash in that one thousand dollar check and call it good. I wouldn’t even shed a tear for the bankrupt zine.

I called the number with such confidence in my newly found financial success that I was hardly ready for anybody to actually answer. When the person did pick up I went straight to business “Hello! My name is Gus Krider and I am calling about your ad in the Long Beach Union Weekly.” The person on the other ends response was perfect. “Uhhhh what ad?” I was so instantly annoyed, rich kids were a pet peeve of mine that I had forgotten. So with infinite and inexcusable sass I said “Freelance Journalists Needed.” “Oh… I didn’t know they had put my number on that.” Her response threw me for a loop. They implied multiple people. There existed this many people so bad at math in the world? Where is America’s economy headed? The next line is the real kicker however. The girl receiving my phone call very politely says, “Just so you know we cannot pay you, we just wanted to see who would call.” This was not shocking but very disheartening. The rest was just a polite sales pitch about working for the Union Weekly for free.

Which just shows that our school paper is almost an excellent troll. They had me for a few moments. However their form at the end was weak, they tried to make a sales pitch after what was essentially a practical joke. They girl who answered was too polite and laughed nervously while receiving my call. And that friends, is why I will attempt to write for them, not because I want to give them my words for free, but because I want to be the guy who answers that phone call from now on. Rest assured that I would finish the ruse with proper grace and form. YES WE ARE GOING TO PAY YOU 2 DOLLARS A WORD, AND WHILE WE ARE ON THE SUBJECT OF MONEY I HAVE SOME PENIS ENLARGING PILLS TO SELL YOU; DUMBSHIT. DON’T YOU KNOW THAT PRING MEDIA IS DEAD?