Nick Holmberg's Blog, page 2

One-year anniversary giveaway for The Emergent

Goodreads Book Giveaway The Emergentby Nick Holmberg

Giveaway ends March 31, 2023.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Job #6: pizza pizza and the fall of Rome

Returning to Modesto from my first year at SJSU, I would’ve preferred to go back to Tony Roma’s. But the coveted waiter role was unavailable; the fame, money, and women I sought would have to wait. So I snagged a job at Little Caesars.

Contrary to popular belief, the fall of Rome was not brought about by ransacking Visigoths in the 4th century. No. It was brought about that summer of 1996 by my inability to take effective orders. Try as I did to keep the vandals appeased, the four phones rang incessantly. When not rescuing pies from the furnace oven to hack them apart and slide them into boxes, I answered the phones and tried to follow the script. “Square or round?” “Do you have a coupon?” “Would you like Crazy Bread with that?” Smelling of flour and burnt cheese, I’d often get an unclaimed pie at the end of a shift. I’d get in my buddy’s car and we’d head off to Concert in the Park. Smoking cigarettes and mingling with old high school friends, I’d furtively swig a 40-ounce Mickey’s to numb the pain of my seared fingers.

buy my book

job #0.40 – Paperboy’s assistant

Let’s blame this job for me not getting into Naval Academy or becoming a pitcher in the majors. Sleep deprivation is a real thing for me. I bet it stems from my time as a paperboy’s assistant.

I was about ten years old. Somehow, my brother cajoled me into helping him with his paper route. Up before the dawn, we would fold the ad inserts into seventy or so bundles and secure them with rubber bands. And we would curse the world if it were raining because we would also have to put the bundles in plastic bags. Rain or not, we would ride a mile or so to deliver the news to a sprawling apartment complex.

The picture is of me around that time. It’s the first one of me playing the blues due to all the lost sleep in my life.

Click here to buy my book

Job #0.10: Christmas & the Baby Cheeses

This job was not even quarter time. It was the job of many tweens and teens: babysitter. Nothing better than getting paid to watch tv and eat all the ice cream I wanted while I sat on Ben and Ryan.

And it the job was a cultural awakening. The clients were from Wisconsin.

Through learning from my in-laws and Charlie Berens, I have slowly begun to unpack that experience all these years later. The dad would say things like “Oooh, I tell ya. That Don Majkowski isn’t going to cut it.” And Ryan (~4 years old), was already indoctrinated. I know this because one Christmas, he said, “It’s almost time for Baby Cheeses’ birthday!”

The picture is of me celebrating 8th-grade graduation. I would never have made it to that mountaintop if I hadn’t been able to pay for my own Funyuns and chocolate malteds with the cash from my Midwest clients.

endorsements for The Emergent

“A woman’s bold reckoning with memory, and pursuit of all its drifting pieces. The Emergent is just that – an aching recognition of how family narratives persist, holding us in their loving embrace, or imprisonment.” –Marc Palmieri, author of She Danced with Lightning

“The Emergent is a tale of blood, loss, family, and departures that orbits a continent, its casualties, and its letdowns. It is a story for those of us who will never be sure if we only imagined that hand at the shoreline reaching for us.” –Salar Abdoh, author of Out of Mesopotamia

“For a novel that moves so swiftly from one American coast to the other, and back again, interestingly it is the obscure neighborhoods of San José that inform the soul of Holmberg’s polyphony of a novel, The Emergent. As a Californian I love this book. I love it because it’s the California I know but almost never read about. In this way, I see it on the bookshelf between Helena María Viramontes’ little masterpiece Under the Feet of Jesus, and Leonard Gardner’s beautiful Fat City. It’s that good.” –George McCormick, author of Inland Empire

“The Emergent is a haunting first-person narrative about young Kat’s shattered family and their complex histories. The title of this sensitive, evocative novel says it all: life is about our emergent selves and the stories we tell and hear along the way.” –Susan Shillinglaw, author of A Journey Into Steinbeck’s California

“Holmberg has created a compelling and thoughtful novel that is a beautifully crafted and complex narrative. The Emergent causes one to wonder if they will be bystanders in life, or if they’ll jump in–allowing the mysterious mosaic of life to create something fascinating.” –Emily Keefer, author of The Stars on Vita Felice

“The Emergent is not to be rushed through, if you can help it. Each paragraph is lovingly crafted, and I deeply enjoyed Kat’s Holden Caulfield-like alienation. As I read, I began wondering how real any of our ideas about our personal histories are.” –Tim Gerstmar, author of The Gunfighters

“The Emergent is a modern The Outsiders, a gritty look look into the subcultures of America.” –Wally Jones, author of Sam the Chosen

Click here to buy my book

job #5: intro to tedium

A buddy of mine, Colin, got me this little side gig one summer during high school. His dad was a divorce lawyer and was involved in a case in which some old apparently rich dude was in a fight over how he spent his money. As a part of the discovery process, the old man was compelled to let Colin’s dad have access to all this financial records. And the old dude kept all his cancelled checks. Mind you, this was before internet banking was a normal thing, so this guy voluntarily kept thousands and thousands of checks. And it was my, Colin’s, and Colin’s sister’s job to make photo copies of all these checks and somehow log them in some antiquated way.

The picture of me (c. 1993) kind of sums up the stupidity of this job, if not its mind-numbing qualities.

Click here to buy my book

jobs #3 & #4: for fame and women

In Spring 1993, I got a job at Chevys (yes, that’s without an apostrophe) Fresh Mex. I wanted to be a busser–for the fame, the money, but most importantly, the women. But first, I had to do my time as a dishwasher. Okay, no problem, right? Well, mornings and afternoons I spent at swim practice. And I grudgingly attended classes during the day. But I was expected to work until midnight; my boss didn’t give two crusty ramekins that this was in clear violation of labor laws. So, after two shifts, I quit.

Lest you think I was unwilling to wash dishes in order to reach the coveted bussing position, I landed my 4th job after a few months of pestering the owner at Tony Roma’s. On lunch shifts, I was janitor, dishwasher, and busser. I worked there until I graduated high school in ’95.

Up next, it gets a little weird. An old man and thousands of cancelled checks. Stay tuned.

Click here to follow my job journey, starting in 1991. Share your thoughts on your own jobs in the comments.

Click here to buy my book

Job #2 (Summer ’92): landscape assistant

This was not an allowance job (more like a smart way for my parents to reduce the cost of the landscaper. Isn’t that why people have kids?). I had health benefits, room, and board which, like taxes, were not deducted from my $4.50 an hour (yet I still found a way to rib my parents about the low wages until a shamefully recent time. Isn’t that why people have kids? So they can grow up to be assholes?).

I typed up, printed, and submitted invoices to itemize the time it took to jackhammer a 14×10 slab of concrete, cut down and chop up a couple plum trees (I have a shin scar as proof of my first wrestling match with a chainsaw), tear out dead crab grass (which never really dies and clings to your rake when you’re trying to clear it out), dig trenches for cement stripping and a sprinkler system, level dirt, and lay sod.

Radio hits like Annie Lennox’s “Walking On Broken Glass” and Guns N’ Roses “November Rain” accompanied my labor in the sweltering Modesto heat.

Click here to follow my job journey. Share your thoughts on your own jobs in the comments.

Click here to buy my book

Déjà Vu (Restaurant) all over again

As you read through these over the coming weeks, the name of the restaurant at my first job seems oddly appropriate, given all the jobs I had in the service industry.

In the summer of 1991, I bussed tables at a restaurant called Déjà Vu in Roseburg Square in my hometown of Modesto, CA. My mom frequented this restaurant and helped me land the job shlepping dirty dishes and setting tables. The job must have been under the table, because I was fourteen and a half years old at the time.

NOTE: Since I don’t have pictures from every job I’ve ever had, I will often give a nod to the music of the time. Up first: Jesus Jones (“Right Here, Right Now).

How many jobs have you had? Share in the comments. Rules are listed here.

screenshot from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MznHdJReoeo

~24 jobs (and counting??)

In honor of just starting my ~24th job in 32 years, I’m posting this pic from my favorite teaching gig. I’m drawing a blank on my Korean student in the back, but he, Naif, Juan, and I volunteered to direct traffic and support Osama at a charity 5K in Malta, IL (June 2013).

Over the coming months, I’ll be documenting each of those jobs with ~50 words each. Stay tuned for some (comedic?) tales of the chronically re-employed.

How many jobs have you had?