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	Part 3 of 3: HAPPILY CAUGHT IN THE WEB by Gabrielle Mullem Published March 31, 1997 My experiment in New York living was fast approaching the one-year mark. I wasn't quite satisfied with my time spent working in the film business, but I knew all my struggles were happening for a reason. So I determined to stay put and go out in search of the next step. It was the summer of '96, less than a year since Manhattan had been officially dubbed a Cyber Boom Town by New York magazine. Occasionally I would stop and smile thoughtfully at being involved with such a momentous period. On some future day, schools would teach eager students about the economy of the 1990s, about the so-called Cyber Boom and subsequent influx of people from the plains into the urban centers for cash and excitement — and I would be able to say, "NYC? In the '90s? Oh, I was there." And I was — in a small, dingy, windowless office near 47th & Broadway, next to the abandoned Circus Porn Theater with its optimistic marquee that instructed passers-by to "be on the lookout for grand re-opening soon." It wasn't like I'd planned to be a part of this techno-movement. I was just looking for a job in entertainment that was somehow, someway... entertaining. I found Black Rock Entertainment and its slightly seedy midtown headquarters. Once I agreed to work for a pittance, it was a done deal. Hired on as the director of advertising sales and public relations for their Internet site, I had no experience and basically no idea of what I was doing. Since my boss didn't seem to know what he was doing either, it all equaled out. And I learned something important from him: If you speak in a strong, clear, confident voice, you can compensate for many things. Black Rock's biggest property was an Internet serial, a thinking geek's soap opera. The main characters were three intelligent, computer-savvy women, albeit scantily clad and pawns of a ruthless cyberterrorist. Unconventional in its style, the "cybersoap" was something of a wonder in that it was written, shot, and programmed by one man — "Ted" — every week, and that a deal had been struck to develop the series into a television program. For the first time I sensed the potential opportunities the Internet could provide for people outside the established entertainment system. One day Ted called me over to his laptop, where he sat staring at a photo of woman in full-on Melrose Place boudoir gear. "Can you say, 'Can't you stay a little longer... please' into this microphone?" he asked, and then looked up to add with grave import, "Only really sexy." I sat down awkwardly next to the computer and made an attempt at sounding breathy, but I wound up sounding like a 12-year-old with a head cold. I could tell Ted was a little let down, but I was amused and only so proud to inform my mother that, although I wasn't making any money in NY, I was doing a great job of creating good fodder for family gossip. "Cousin Brian is doing well at Columbia Medical and Gabby just completed a voice cameo as a cyberslut."
NYC Language Schools These can be a great source of a second income while you're paying those proverbial dues: The Language Center Requires English as a Second Language teaching certification. Contact: Diane Paravazian at (212) 435-4074 Berlitz Doesn't require ESL certification. Telephone: (212) 765-1000 or (212) 425-3866 You must appear in person and fill out application. Center For English Studies Doesn't require ESL certification. Contact: Bonita Vander Telephone: (212) 629-7300 Fax: (212) 594- 7415	The reality of a lot of entry-level Internet jobs is that they don't pay well. Black Rock hardly proved the exception to this rule, so I took up a second job teaching English to make ends meet. Of course I had no previous teaching experience, but it seemed simple enough: Hold up the object, say the object's name three times, and then have the student repeat. Things got tricky when it was revealed that, in accordance with my school's policy, lesson plans were to be given out randomly, just minutes before a scheduled class. Naturally, I wasn't quite prepared when handed the English for Business Teachers' Manual and told that my vocab lesson for the day included such phrases as "cash report" and "industrial park." I glanced around my classroom for some help, but found a disappointing lack of useful props. Most of my students were Japanese businessmen, and by nine o'clock in the evening I found that they were much more interested in discussing the problems their wives were having adapting to the states (or giggling over slang that wasn't in the book) than in having me try to create some kind of connection between the classroom waste basket and the idea of an industrial park. So was I, and my "career" as an English teacher proved short-lived. Things were getting rough at Black Rock as well. My boss had noticed that, for a salesperson, I had an unwelcome aversion to using the telephone. One day, I was surfing the Internet while waiting to be summoned for my weekly discussion with the boss (the usual lecture was entitled "Just Because Someone Expresses No Interest In Our Company, That Doesn't Mean You Should Stop Calling Him Every Day"). It was right then, as I was reading all the interesting stuff on other people's sites, that I remembered myself. I was the one who came to New York to check out filmmaking but got frustrated on movie sets because I wanted to write. To write! At no point had I said to myself, "My dream is to woo advertisers and leave messages on the voice mail of every media rep in the Tri-State Area." And here I was reading article after article by regular people, people who were writing. PING! One of the benefits of my time spent as a PR person was that I became acquainted with a lot of new resources. For example, I had never picked up an Inc. magazine before — and it was there that I learned about Tripod and its Web site. Considering the fact that my last piece of accomplished writing was my final exam essay for Masterpieces of English Lit during my sophomore year in college, I knew that my getting a writing job was a long shot at best. So I looked for a position that would give me entrée into writing for money. A careful search of Tripod led me to a part-time gig at Urban Desires, one of premiere e-zines on the Web. In preparing my Urban Desires interview, I decided to ignore the conservative urgings of my lawyer brother and make my résumé as unique and professionally questionable as possible. For example: Die Gang, Hamburg Produktions (Dir. various), New Orleans, LA - Nov. 1995 Production Assistant for television series Shining Moment: Diplomatically deflecting advances of denim-clad German producer. I presented a strong, clear, confident voice that was unmistakably my own, and it worked. Before I knew it, my future boss was saying, "I can pay you fifty dollars a day, more if we publish any of your articles." Whoopee! Of course, actually writing something worthy of publication is easier dreamed than done, but it was good to be entering an environment that encouraged me to try. And there was finally a computer I could use at any time of day, free of charge.
Internships on the Web In NYC: Feed Contact: Stephanie Syman Fax: (212) 742-1151 New York Now Contact: Gene Liebel Fax: (212) 965-1303 SonicNet Contact: Nicholas Butterworth Fax: (212) 677-1519 Total New York Contact: Fred Meyer Tel: (212) 620-6100 Fax: (212) 620-6224 [email protected] Urban Desires Not currently hiring interns, but looking for short fiction and articles of relevence to particular sections. Please look over the site and send submissions to [email protected]. Word Contact: Lisa Webster, Assistant Editor Fax: (212) 459-1741 In San Francisco: HotWired (contact and job info at link) hotjobs@ hotwired.com Salon (contact and job info at link) jobs@ salonmagazine.com Yahoo! Fax: (408) 731-3301 [email protected] In Washington State StarWave Fax: (206) 957-2009 [email protected] In Bucolic New England: Tripod Contact: David Stewart [email protected] Resource for More Leads: The eZines Database Research electronic zines by category — most provide contact links.	That internship blossomed into a full-time job with UD. My employers saw that I was willing to work hard and think on my feet, and it was not long before I was promoted — and thrust headlong into the hurly-burly of editing an online magazine. I got to run around and take photos of people "having their energy realigned," do a write-up of special holiday gift books, and — in one particularly great case — plan, execute, and eat my way through a travel feature on New Orleans. I had landed a cool job, but my writing was stalled. It had been such a long time since I'd written anything I was really proud of, and I felt quite self-conscious about my "voice." Fate intervened in the unlikely form of a weekend-long convention called IndieNet. The promoters took to calling this event "The Sundance of the Internet — Well, Kinda." What this meant was that a large plot of linoleum inside the New York Coliseum had been covered with stalls so that thirty of the most popular independent Web sites could strut their stuff for the public. Included were the likes of Firefly, Suck, SonicNet, and, of course, Tripod. Urban Desires was a co-sponsor of the event, and I had been sent to the convention floor to serve as the welcoming "committee." On my rounds, I passed by the Tripod table and took the opportunity to express thanks to a friendly group of Tripod representatives for my employment "happy ending." After very little prodding, I started telling them about my wacky New York work misadventures. And it just so happened that one of the people laughing the hardest was Randy, the Work & Money editor. He may have claimed to be in NYC for the convention, but anyone who knows the big lug will tell you that he's always on the lookout for two things: the perfect chocolate egg cream and true-life stories of career traumas and triumphs that can inspire readers of his section. By the time I returned to work the next week, I had an e-mail message from Randy waiting for me: "If you can type those stories as well as you tell them, you have a real future as a writer." One month later, at a diner in Brooklyn, I signed my first-ever writing contract, for an internship series with Tripod. As I watched Randy tuck the signed papers back into his satchel, I involuntarily let out a squeal of joy (fortunately this was not construed as unprofessional behavior and we resumed eating). Now the series draws to a close, but the newfound confidence this experience has given me has inspired me to dive into other projects, including a piece on graffiti art that is in the works for the May/June issue of Urban Desires. If you've read the first two parts of this series, you already know about my struggles to settle in NYC and my bizarre experiences in the "glamorous" world of indie films. Now you also know that all the hard work and random weirdness paid off. No two people have the same chances for opportunity and blind stupid luck, but my adventures would seem to have some good, universal messages about staying true to yourself, keeping a sense of humor while you pay your dues, and hanging onto the hope that your dreams will come true. So we have the moral of the story — but I was stuck for a perfect ending until one unexpectedly presented itself. Last night I found myself at a party, surrounded by denizens of the Cyber Boom. My neighbor in the buffet line, upon discovering that I worked for an e-zine, asked me if I was a writer. I replied that I was trying to be. "Do you write now?" Yes. "Have you been published?" Yes. "And you'll be writing more soon?" Yes. "Sounds to me like you're a writer." Yes! Now check out part one of this series to learn how Gabrielle settled in NYC with a bad case of Bright Lights, Big City, Empty Wallet — or jump to part two for a funky taste of The "Glamorous" World of Indie Films. Gabrielle Mullem is a freelance writer who currently works as an editor at Urban Desires in New York City. © 1997 Gabrielle Mullem, all rights reserved.