WanderingWilbo: Wilbo Tells How to Find Valkeries and Mule Traders

Dear GB, recent college graduate,
I relate to your plaints, and I give time to reading them. For some reason, you've got me hooked. I see that there's a vigor to your writing and I suggested blogging. You replied to me that you do blog, but it is on MySpace, where no one reads it and there's no way to monetize it. May I suggest you move to Blogger and enable Adsense? It's fun to see counts of people hitting ones site, and people known to us all do derive an income from Blogger. For example, Frank Nemecek has reigned at the top of Google search for Warrendale, an enclave in Detroit: http://warrendale.blogspot.com.

I worked at Homes.com this summer, and it is money in the bank to be number one in any kind of real estate discussion. Realtors pay a lot of money to be number one when a neighborhood or city is mentioned, and I certainly hope Frank cashes in on the wealth he has created with his article a day blog. I'm just wondering who hooked him up with the fancy looking Tylenol sidebar advertisement.

By the way, there is a niche in writing real estate blogs. Dominion Enterprises, owner of Homes.com and Katabat.com, has a floorful of real estate bloggers. People from various departments moonlight as real estate bloggers there. As frustrating as it is to search the numerous listings from the Michigan Works database, somewhere in the piles there's some cool stuff. Looking for needles in a haystack is existentially more honorable than contemplating ones navel, and there's really a needle or two in the haystack of databases when it comes to job hunting.

On the flip side, it might seem to be a waste of time to keep uploading your resume all over the place, but the more it is out there, the greater the chance you'll hear from someone rather interesting. Today, I got a call from a recruiter needing to fill a hot opportunity in the prairie states. He got my resume from a source I had never heard about. My resume is better traveled than I am. Upshot; I've got a phoner-to-hire interview with a hiring manager Thursday, and the hourly is right up my alley. And weird as it might sound, when you send your resume around, you are playing the pennies from heaven lottery. An old friend of mine got a sizable check because a judge decided that his resume, and the resume of others, wasn't handled according to some mystical rule of human resources. Okay, only a meth head will wait around for one of those windfalls, but can you agree with my point. In order to catch fish, you got to throw your hook out into the unknown sea, cast after cast. Even the blind squirrel gets a nut once in a while.

I get a lot of play with my resume because I have a few hot button items on it. I got a break from a guy who is now very wealthy who needed a fellow to pick up a project after another programmer dumped it and went back to EDS. He pitched me on it, and I turned it down at first. He got really angry, pointed at me and demanded, "Take Off That Hat!" And I did, and I rode that wave for eight years, about a half-million dollars of wages and expense reimbursements.

But let's face it. You need to meet a mule trader first. That's correct, I said mule trader. Dave who told me to "take off that hat" was a mule trader. I love it when I'm talking to a mule trader and I know one by the end of sentence. Historically, a mule trader can walk up to a mule, clap his hands loudly, and know from the mule's reaction what grade of mule he's dealing with. I have met in my life three mule traders, and they've always left me better off than before meeting them. One woman placed me with an employer in five minutes flat, without taking off her coat. A mule trader can drop you into a job just because he recommended you. As you go looking for your mule trader, and I'm certain you've already met him or her, here's another tidbit. I was talking to an interesting women sitting on a barstool with her friend at Woodruff's in Royal Oak. She was making great money with her newer job as a designer despite not having attended a design school or a packaging school. How did she land the job with no training? She downloaded free trial software from Macromedia, learned all about it, and got some moxie cooking for herself. I had an email dialog with you because I have a client and friend who needed video editing done, but you claimed no experience on the video editing software. Do I have that right? Well, it's time to get your hand on some trialware or to apprentice yourself to one of your friends who have the software.

With Blogger, there's no supervisor, no cultural obstacle between you and your audience, and I think your biting wit is going to attract a few readers. Okay, I'll admit it. I've made an entire 71 cents since I started http://wanderingwilbo.blogspot.com, but it's the most honest money I've made all year. At least blogging gives you a creative outlet. And it's a free way of playing the "meme" lottery. One of these days I'm going to post something so snarky and so viral, my blog is going to spark. Okay, I'll admit it. I'm as patient and as hopeful as a meth addict. You like Juno, the movie. Well, it's the brainchild of a woman, Diablo Cody, who got a good running start from her quirky blog: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/movies/02carr.html. Here's the blog: http://diablocody.blogspot.com/

I think Jamie's advice is spot on. Find a niche, like eBay, which gets you making money with a minimum of intervention between your market and you. Just met an interesting woman in Caribou Coffee who lives in New York City, grew up in Royal Oak, and she earns her living because the 630 miles between New York City and Detroit produces a nice price differential. She didn't say what it was she was selling, but because she demurred on the question, I'm betting it is fetish wear from Noir Leather. She expressed a rapid need to hire an assistant to keep up with her sparking business. There are more ways to earn money on the Internet and on Earth than is dreamed of in your philosophy.

As for going to California on no money, consider that it isn't outside the realm of possibility. Haven't you ever wanted to hitch-hike like Jack Kerouac and the Beats? Even an middle-aged coot like me can thumb a ride when I need it, from time to time. I live outside of Royal Oak's downtown about two miles and I walk into town and catch a ride home routinely. Here's a sad tale; I was thumbing a ride at the corner of M-52 and Haslett Road, south of Perry, in a miserable storm during one of the coldest Januaries I can remember. A woman stopped right away and took me right to Michigan State. As soon as I got in, she admitted that her son had died in an accident at that street corner a year ago. Count for me the number of people you pass in a single day, and I'll tell you the number of personal reasons why you can get a lift, a meal, a job. Just don't ask me the reasons. I can only give you the count. It's the same as the number of people you pass each day.

When I travel, I cultivate conversations, and I've met a number of Michiganders who have done just that, thumbed or road the rails to California. Okay, suppose that we don't want you to go out there in such an edgy fashion. People driving out to California look for a spare driver to keep the pedal to the metal through the night. Strike up an endless series of conversations, and I'm betting you'll find people planning a westward drive without talking to too many people. It's a darn-sight easier to get to California than it was in the covered wagon days. I'm a big fan of a guy named Vachel Lindsey who made long treks selling his broadsheet, "Poems to be Traded for Bread". Another poet named Rexroth made a cross-country tour with a bunch of friends, and he found transportation and shelter and food by handing out his business card, which essentially said, "Kenneth Rexroth, Great American Crossing". You can demand that I give you the exact lettering on the card. Rexroth includes it in his biography.

One guy from Sebewaing in the Thumb, was housing at a cool hostel out at Ocean Beach, San Diego, 16 dollars a night with danish and free eggs in the morning. Some dudes were living there just by doing painting and cleaning. I have a contact from a house in Venice Beach where you can live for 125 a week, and it's on the bus lines. And somebody has to drive the station-wagon when it's time to pick up internationals from LAX. When I was in Ukiah, a host of guys were homeless and fairly happy, and these guys were in the studio of Mendocino Environmental Radio producing a rap music show.

Thanks for bearing with this long treatise. Never forget that you do have your valkeries, people who lean in to help your art. Keep recruiting them and when you hit that tipping point for valkeries, prepare for victory !