Bidding the B-Boys Goodbye & Beginning the Job Hunt

From cougars back to bboys…

Living with breakdancers was a cultural learning experience, to say the least.

Highlights of my unintentional “study abroad” (in the ghetto) program in which I was fully immersed in hip-hop culture include the following:

- I learned how to tie bandanas and wore skull caps and beanies in an attempt to blend in. Not wanting to be a complete poser, I practiced the six-step and some basic threads and freezes.

- I attended bboy jams and integrated new lingo into my vocabulary (i.e. “dat’s whack yo,” “sup son,” “throw the cack,” etc. – for some reason you don’t pick up such vivid phrases in suburbia or any freshman year class).

- Okay, I’ll admit it. I ogled my fair share of abs. You’ve gotta have some serious core muscles to pull off windmills, turtles and hollowbacks.

…aaaaand back to the highlights.

- I had a custom-made name belt made with my bgirl name “DEZIGN” on it.

- I got kicked out of Owen Wilson’s reserved VIP table at club on New Years Eve after sitting there for a few minutes with the bboys who had been hired to perform onstage that night. For the record, Owen Wilson is a total douche-and-a-half, but that’s a story for another blog entry.

Hi, I'm Owen Wilson and I'm a Douche

At one point, it stopped being all fun and freezes and attempting to take over B-list actors’ tables in clubs. One unusually stormy afternoon in Montebello (a.k.a. Monte-ghetto), I found myself huddled on the staircase holding one of the bboy’s little 6-year-old brothers, hyperventilating in fear and dialing 911 as his older brother’s crystal meth dealer pounded on the door yelling “YOU GONNA PAY ME FOR MY GLASS NOW?” It was then that I realized it was time to move out and move on.

At that point my savings had dwindled to less than hundred dollars which wasn’t going to cover any security deposit outside of Compton. Before I could find a new place to live, I had to find a job.

Top 10 Job-Hunting Websites Recommended By Miss 30kinLA:

1. Indeed: “One search. All jobs.”

2. Craigslist: Find work ranging from a personal assistant to a nanny to a forensic scientist to a fluffer.

3. Hound: “Sniffs out” unadvertised jobs on employer websites.

4. Yahoo! Hot Jobs: Browse by job category and location while keeping up on the latest job news, career advice and networking tools.

5. Snag A Job: Looking for a job that pays by the hour? Look no further.

6. Simply Hired: User-friendly interface, fun and easy to use.

7. Beyond: A collection of thousands of jobs searchable by city.

8. Career Builder: Find a job, post your resume, find career fairs and more.

9. Employment Guide: Find hourly and skilled positions, from entry-level to mid-management jobs.

10. Facebook: Spread word of your job search in your status and on friends’ walls, make the most of your connections!

What kind of job can a recent grad with a B.A. in Psychology from a liberal arts college qualify for? With visions of living in a cardboard box on the side of the 405 freeway and begging for leftovers from passerby flashing in my brain, I began a fervent online search. I ended up finding my first full-time paying position in Los Angeles via craigslist – not in the jobs or gigs section, but an entirely unexpected one. The first of many craigslist adventures to be divulged. To be continued…

How To Find Housing In Los Angeles (Amongst Packs of Cub-Hunting Cougars)

Okay, seriously. Slight deviation from the autobiographical format to address the following commercial that has been running non-stop:

Cougars were a rare species in the midwest where I grew up, visible only when caught by the media for pouncing on an underage high school student. When I first moved to LA, they were everywhere. Women old enough to be my mother could be seen prowling in packs at clubs, slinking around in swanky bars, tanning on the beach in tiny bikinis and hunting for cute baby cubs to sink their claws into.

And what’s up with the phenomenon of cougars giving their cubs parting gifts post-playdate? I know a few cubs who have been given a pat on the butt plus a token of remembrance ranging from a juicer to a pyrex dish to a tall glass bottle of spices. Perhaps instead of peeing to mark their territory, the cougar marks the cub’s kitchen with a useful appliance or decorative gift to commemorate her conquest by.

Which brings me to my next money-saving tip. If you are a young, adventurous male, it is highly likely you will be able to find a caring cougar (or chickenhawk) to take in you, bathe you, nurse you, and shelter you from the streets of LA. To find one, I suppose you could try the site above, Date A Cougar, Urban Cougar, Cougared or any good old-fashioned Hollywood bar or club.

Conversely, if you are a young female, it is also very likely you will be able to find a sugar daddy in this city. You can accomplish this by walking around and breathing. One of my girlfriends was put up in The Standard Hotel on Sunset Blvd for a few months by a very recognizable but barely B-list married actor when she bumped into him on the street as he was walking his dog. When he realized she wasn’t going to sleep with him he stopped paying the hotel tab but apparently it was fun while it lasted.

Another girl I know met a 52-year-old surgeon when she was 23 via SugarDaddie.com. He bought her purses that cost more than most people’s mortgages but was also the biggest jerk so in my opinion, it wasn’t worth it. When I first moved to LA, I dated nice but broke-ass struggling artist types. No LV purses for me, but then again flashing brand names has never made much sense to me anyway.

If you’re looking for a place to live in Los Angeles and want to find non-cougar/bboy housing, I’d recommend these sites/techniques.

Miss 30kinLA’s Top 5 Apartment-Hunting Resources in L.A.:

1. Craigslist: 100% free! Check out the housing section for apartments, shared housing and sublets. I’ve found that most sites cross-post with cl including my next recommendation…

2. WestsideRentals: Membership is $60 for 60 days. I’d recommend finding someone to split it and share a password with if possible. Check it every day because the best-priced places get snapped up fast!

3. Apartments.com: Mostly property management firms but there are some places listed here not on other sites. If you contact a management company directly with your criteria, you may be able to get a rental list or at the very least some insight as to what sort of landlord they will be.

4. Recycler: Free and easy to use with plenty of search options.

5. Drive, walk, or bike around a neighborhood that you’d like to live in. Scout around for “FOR RENT” signs, collect a bunch of numbers from places you like and call away. If you fall in love with certain buildings in an area, see if there is an on-site manager, determine if rent is affordable and ask to be put on the waiting list. Most good managers of good locations have a short list of potential renters and you could be one of them.

Bonus: You can also pick up a copy of The Argonaut which is the local paper for the westside with rental listings. The Beach Reporter has rental listings for the Southbay (both have better listings than the LA Times).

Happy home/cougar/cub-hunting!

From Sipping Sunday Tea to Battling with B-Boys

Do you know what the 4 elements of hip-hop are?

I didn’t. And you can be sure that question was quickly pushed out of my brain by all the other thoughts screaming, panicking and running around in my head: You’re homeless! Where are you going to go? You only have $500! What are you going to do? You’ve never slept on the street before! When are you going to eat? I’m hungry! (and so on and so forth)

Although I strayed away from organized religion after taking an “Understanding World Religions” class as a freshman (what is this you call a “Torah” and “Quran”? You mean the Bible isn’t the only religious text in existence?), I remembered a mantra pounded into my head by many years of 4 hour-long Sunday school classes: We are here to help.

With my basic survival skills struggling to shake off the atrophy from several years at a private college that served tea and homemade mini-cakes on Sundays, I waved down a cab. “Can you take me to a church?”

The cabbie responded with a raised brow. “What church?”

“Any one that can help me find a place to sleep tonight.”

To this day I’m not sure why he picked the church he did (maybe he thought it’d be funny to drop off a sheltered 22-year-old Asian girl from the midwest in the proverbial “hood”). I looked at the dingy white church, paid my fare (down to $475 and change) and lugged my suitcases out of the trunk. I heard sounds coming from a side building attached the main structure and headed towards the noise. Excitedly, I walked into the entrance expecting a congregation singing in pews, a pastor preaching from the pulpit and maybe a stained glass window or two.

What I found: boys in doo-rags spinning on their heads and hands. Girls in bandannas contorting into strange shapes. People “dance battling” each other (I’d later learn this was called “uprock”) and hip hop blasting from boomboxes set up along a makeshift stage. Apparently the door of the church was a time warp back to the late 80′s. I heard a car reverse noise in my brain and began to back out. Beep… beep… beep…

I didn’t make it very far before I was spotted. “Hey, are you a bgirl?”

A what?

“A bgirl. Do you break?”

Do I what?

“You don’t look like you’re from around here.”

Our conversation continued from there and I learned some fascinating facts about breakdancing a.k.a. “breaking” a.k.a. “bboying/bgirling” which did not die off in the 90′s and was in fact very much alive in LA and around the world. Apparently in the hip hop community, it’s common practice to accept complete strangers into your home as long as they’re in the scene. Bboys and bgirls from Japan to Australia to Spain to Argentina take care of each other, look out for each other and take turns housing each other during events (bboy jams).

And so I was adopted by kind-hearted breakdancers in Los Angeles. I owe the first several weeks of my survival in LA to “Kujo” who made me awesome cappuccinos and taught me how to do cool things like this plank:

Which brings us to my first housing tip (this is, after all, supposed to be a deal blog). If you ever find yourself homeless in Los Angeles, you can always try going to a church, a temple/synagogue, a mosque, or a breakdancing practice in an attempt to find temporary housing. (FYI the 4 elements of hip-hop are: Breaking/B-Boying, DJ-ing, MC-ing and Graffiti. Now you, and I, know.)

Next blog: How to find non-bboy housing.

P.S. Thanks for everything, Jacob.

The Beginning: Homeless in LA

How the heck did I end up in Los Angeles anyway?

Good question. I grew up in the midwest (born in Kokomo, Indiana, home of corn and soybeans), was raised in Michigan (the bottom mitten, not the upper rabbit) and went to college out East. In my mind, California was a distant place filled with swaying palm trees, tan muscled surfers saying “dude,” silicone-filled body parts and celebrities hobnobbing along the stars of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I imagined one day saving up for a week-long vacation to SoCal but living there? No way José (little did I know that the 4 years of Spanish I took in high school would be more helpful than I ever imagined).

After graduating from a liberal arts college with a degree in psychology (yeah yeah, I know I know), I returned to the safe, free, cozy comforts of home. Once back, my mother would alternatively pamper and feed me (“I’m so happy you’re home! It’s so nice to have you here.”) and yell and nag at me (“Why are you still living at home after graduating from college? What’s wrong with you?!”). I love you too, Mom.

After a couple weeks of eating, sleeping, and catching up on Real World episodes, I decided to take the plunge into the “Real” Real World and began searching around online for a job. Here’s a summary of how that process went:

Responsible Me: Job, job, must find job.
Procrastinator Me: This is boring. I’m bored. Why don’t you see if there are any Christian Louboutin heels for under $50 on eBay?

Responsible Me: Shut up! I have to find a job so I can make money and move out.
Procrastinator Me: Hmph. At least open up another window so I can do something fun.

Responsible Me: FINE. (opens up a separate window) Amuse yourself. (continues job hunt)
Procrastinator Me: (goes to priceline.com) Can I put in some insanely low bids to different places to keep things interesting?

Responsible Me: FINE. Whatever. Just leave me alone! (continues job hunt)
Procrastinator Me: (types in an offer of $120 for a roundtrip flight to NYC – rejected, $110 to BOS – rejected, $150 to MIA – rejected)

Responsible Me: Hey! I think I found a couple companies to send my résumé to, they…
Procrastinator Me: OOPS.

Responsible Me: What do you  mean, “OOPS?”
Procrastinator Me: Um. I think I just accidentally won, and apparently paid for, a round-trip ticket to Los Angeles.

Responsible Me: WHAT??????????
Procrastinator Me: ($160 to LAX – accepted!) Wow, what a great deal! Looks like we’re going to LA!
Responsible Me: Oh. My. God.

Procrastinator Me: Yay, I’m not bored anymore!
Responsible Me: Shut up, I need to think.

I decided to use the ticket since a) it was paid for and non-refundable and b) it was a roundtrip ticket so if things didn’t work out, I could always fly back home. My mother freaked out (“There aren’t any normal people out there! You could die!”) and nagged a little more (“When you come back you have to find a job!”) before grudgingly driving me to the airport and making sure I caught my flight to the faraway land of Southern California.

I touched down in Los Angeles for the first time in 2002 with two suitcases, $500 cash (which I had made from selling most of my personal belongings on eBay a few weeks before the trip), no job, no friends, no family, no place to live, and no real plan.

I remember standing at the airport curb. Alone. The sun was warm, the palm trees were swaying, and I was terrified. Suck it up and make it or give up or go home. I decided at that moment that I was going to make it, one way or another.

First step: Finding a place to live (with a total of $500 cash to my name).