Over-educated and underemployed: THESE ARE MY RESUMES!

I officially quit my job on Saturday so that I can go out at night.

Now I can:
a. Go see your show.
b. Do your show.
c. PARTY ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT LONG
d. Get hired by you.

It was extremely difficult for me to be at work at 6:00 am to bake after trying to do comedy at night and I felt like a poser.

I gave my boss one-week-notice, but then I guess she flipped out and decided to have the last word and told me not to come in at all and that she was going to post a bulletin on myspace about it, and then she took herself and my old job's profile off my myspace friend list, even though she's too old to be on myspace anyway. So I'm out of a job sooner than I thought. She also tore my calendar off the wall.

If you are hiring, I would like either a job with hours something like 10-6 or a well-paying bartending job where I'll make like $1000 a night and only have to work one night a week. I'll show boobs and knees.

This is my restaurant resume followed by my writing resume. I think I forgot to say on it that I used to proofread the Yellow Pages. IT'S TRUE! Clips are available upon request.

This is my headshot. It is also my Shot Girl/Sports Bar Bartender picture.



MELISSA SURACH
BARTENDER, SERVER

¨ Experienced in bar, food, management, and serving
¨ Fast, reliable server with computer skills
¨ Friendly, polite and attentive
¨ Fluent in English, proficient in Japanese, conversational French and Spanish

EDUCATION

New York University, 2005
Professional Film Certificate
New York, New York

McGill University, 2003
B.A. Mathematics and Statistics
Montreal, Quebec, Canada

EXPERIENCE

Sweet Priscilla’s, Jersey City, NJ, 2006-2007 – Manager, Assistant Chef, Barista
¨ Managed staff and food quality
¨ Created new and original baked goods
¨ Made delicious coffee and espresso drinks

LITM, Jersey City, NJ, 2006 – Bartender, Barback, Cocktail server
¨ Made martinis and art cocktails with wide range of ingredients for upscale bar
¨ Stocked beer, wine, syrups, fruit, etc. for busy bar

Maxwell’s, Hoboken, NJ, 2005-2006 – Server, Hostess
¨ Hosted, greeted, seated, and maintained order
¨ Ran food, drinks, added checks and tax without a calculator
¨ Booked, promoted and managed comedy shows
¨ Managed full section with high turnover from sold out shows

The Liberty Bar and Grill, Hoboken, NJ, 2005 – Server
¨ Greeted and seated guests for extremely busy upscale sports bar with high turnover
¨ Served inside and outside, ran orders and drinks
¨ Won awards for sales

The Hamilton Park Ale House, Jersey City, NJ, 2004 – Server
¨ Served both inside and outside, ran orders, food, drinks, bussed tables
¨ Set up and broke down tables inside and out
¨ Greeted and seated guests

Hoboken All Star Comedy, Hoboken, NJ, 2003 – Cocktail Server
¨ Sole cocktail waitress for 22 tables in only comedy club in Hoboken
¨ Prepared stage for performers and room for guests
¨ Set up bar and made drinks
¨ Ran drinks from multiple bars
.................................................................................

MELISSA SURACH
WRITER, COMEDIAN

SKILLS

>> Knowledge of AP and MLA style, Avid Xpress, Adobe Photoshop, Quark Xpress, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe PageMaker, Final Draft, Microsoft Office on both Macintosh and PC
>>Work well under pressure with excellent writing skills
>>Self-motivated perfectionist, meticulous

EXPERIENCE

>>PRODUCER 2006-Present
BlackHole Comedy Shows
Started Melissa Surach’s BlackHole, the best alternative comedy show in New Jersey.
Ran at Maxwell’s and The Goldhawk, currently running at the premier Jersey City Gallery, fifty8.
Booked acts, promoted shows, hosted, managed entire multi-media production

>> COMEDIAN 2004-Present
Stand up, GynoCult, Jersey City, NJ
Founding member of all female comedy troupe/webzine (gynocult.com) based in Jersey City
Managed content and contributors, wrote articles, designed graphics
Directed, wrote and edited short films, photo essays, and live sketches
As a stand up, I perform around Jersey and New York City.

>> EDITORIAL ASSISTANT 2004 - 2005
BUST, New York, NY
Reviewed manuscripts and organized submissions for women’s magazine
Contributed reviews
Proofread and fact checked articles for final print
Assisted the editors in every step of production

>>PRESIDENT/EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 2002-2003
Red Herring Magazine, Montréal, Québec, Canada
Editor of comedy magazine of McGill University; launched popular sections of magazine; appointed positions; directed content
Doubled production and increased distribution by 150% under the same budget as previous year
Revamped ailing magazine, raised it to #3 publication status on McGill campus (out of ~20 publications), described as “hilarious” and “cutting-edge”
Initiated web publishing on www.redherring.hm
Founded and head writer of a monthly column in The McGill Tribune (the #1 publication)
Organized successful sketch comedy fund raisers in conjunction with local comedians and musicians
Nominated for “2003 Guy Awards: Club of the Year”

EDUCATION

>> New York University/Tisch School of the Arts, New York, NY
Professional Film Certificate, Screenwriting, 2005

>> McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada
Bachelor of Arts, 2003
Major: Mathematics and Statistics
Minors: Philosophy, Japanese Language and Literature

>> People's Improv Theater, New York, NY
Screenwriting with Michael Showalter, 2007

>> Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater, New York, NY
Improv Program, 2007

Closing act for April's BlackHole: COPS!

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to blog ALL WEEK because I'm not allowed to at my job anymore (we had a staff meeting about it) and Verizon won't even answer my phone calls anymore so I still don't have internet at home.

Last Wednesday was one of the best BlackHole shows I've ever done. There was stand up, musical comedy, a magician who swallowed razor blades, obscene testicular poetry--and the closing band was Coffin Daggers, who rocked so hard that I am not allowed to have a closing band anymore because some stupid wasp called the cops and closed the show down. That person is such a square and probably never gets laid.

The line up for April 25th was:
Jessica Delfino
Vince Averill
Alexander the Poet
Mike O'Rourke
Stuart Palm
Coffin Daggers



I didn't get to play my classical-music-stand-up act like I'd planned because the show was overbooked and I didn't have time. But next time I'll make sure not to over book it. So far, the line up for next month includes Mike Burns, Sue Ball, and Stuckey and Murray.

From now on, I plan on taping BlackHole, editing it down to a half an hour, and showing it on public access, (like Art House) and internet.

If you are stuck up and don't want to come to Jersey City to see my show, remember this: Nothing in Manhattan is up-and-coming anymore, and it's gotten so homogeneous that you have to go to horrible places like Jersey City to see new things, or maybe Queens or Brooklyn.

My butt still hurts.

I broke my butt!

Last night, Abe's parents were out of town, so he could have girls over if there was a chaperone. I fell down his stairs on my butt TWICE because the stairs are very narrow and carpeted and my socked feet slipped. AND NO, I wasn't drunk the second time.

After I complained for several hours, we had a rambling conversation about our relationship and I don't remember what the outcome was. We both woke up sad, but melancholy is generally our baseline anyway.

I looked up broken coccyx on webmd and things don't look very promising. It said to go to a doctor but, "A rectal examination may also be performed. For this exam, the physician inserts a finger into your rectum to feel the area of the coccyx and determine if there is a dislocation or a fracture that can be felt and if direct pressure against the coccyx reproduces your pain." Can't I do this exam myself?

Also, I'm supposed to get a dough nut butt pillow like old people have. I'm going to a party tonight. How's it going to look if I carry around a bright red dough nut butt pillow and take 20 minutes to sit down? It's going to look like I shouldn't be at the party.

And then there's BlackHole on Wednesday. Am I going to have to do the show in a butt cast? I'm pretty sure it'll look like an external diaper. How many butt cast jokes will I have to write? The show's almost three hours long. THREE HOURS OF BUTT CAST MATERIAL?

THE CHAPERONE SUCKS.

Who wants to get me pregnant as an act of Civil Disobedience?

Even though I'm in a man-hating mood tonight, I want to get knocked up, preferably by an ugly loser who I don't care about. He can be really old and fat, too. I don't care. He can even have AIDS, because IF I CAN'T HAVE LATE-TERM ABORTIONS, WHAT WILL I LIVE FOR? BABIES? YUCK!

Yesterday, the Supreme Court upheld the big giant abortion ban that doesn't even have an exception for the life of the woman. This proves that the prevailing ideology in the US values a man's seed more than a woman's life. Besides, the US needs baby machines to supply little tiny soldiers for the wars that we start.

SO, let's have an abortion. I've been trying for some time, but I just can't conceive, mostly because when guys do me, they use as much protection as possible, like 5 condoms saran wrap and duct tape for some reason.

My room mate sucks even though she hasn't moved in yet.

I live by myself, and I've always felt that, with my hatred of cleanliness and penchant for parading around in ripped, yellowed unmentionables, that I am beyond having room mates. I can barely have house guests. Or, if I do, they must not be able to smell or stop looking at my crotch.

I'm being forced to have a room mate over the summer. Not because I'm broke, which I am, but because my parents are kicking my sister out and she has no where to go. Well, they're not really kicking her out, more like she's getting laid off from her room because there's no space for her right now.

She doesn't want to live with me either. She says I'm gross and annoying. But grandpa has to move into her room until his house gets built. So, she can either be my, or my 86-year-old Polish grandpa's room mate. Grandpa'll cramp her style because he likes to talk about God, Belarus, the army, and death. He keeps trying to force us into the military, get married, and have babies with weird Polish guys.

She's trying to force me to clean out my office because she won't sleep on my "grungy-ass couch." I wonder how she'll feel sleeping in my "grungy-ass toilet."

At least I'll have an intern all summer long.

DID YOU HEAR THAT STEPHANIE? YOU WILL BE MY INTERN. I'LL GIVE YOU CREDIT.

NOT COLLEGE CREDIT, BUT MORE LIKE A NOD.

This is a picture I made about how I feel.


You can't read it because I don't have an intern to show me how to make it bigger.

But the little bubble says, "I spend too much time on eyebrows," and the big bubble says, "I think I'm too good to sleep on Melissa's couch because I'm afraid of a little rabbit pee. I'm so college. I got all the Polish genes in the family and I burn easily. I wish I had Melissa's hair."

You've ruined my day, asshole.

Dear Tom,

I was looking forward all day to the shoot tonight, to spending the night in a Newark landfill that's only accessible by foot. It's the only thing that kept me from weeping all day and stabbing customers at work. I may have only one line, and I may not make it out alive, but at least it gave me a reason to live, for a little while. Now that it's not happenning until Sunday, I feel like killing myself. I don't know if I can last that long.

I will be sitting in a dumpster waiting for you to call me back. Answer my cries for help. Help me fly away on a seagull, into my dreams.

Sincerely,
Melissa

If only my job were legal!

Do you think it's obnoxious of me to watch an entire episode of LOST online while I'm at work? I'll use headphones! Maybe.

I don't work in an office, I work in a cafe, baking, and I'm doing a very good job of ignoring customers AND my boss at the same time. I'm pretending I'm doing paperwork, even though I don't handle any, because I'm a baker. We're having a staff meeting tomorrow that I didn't know about, and I'm the manager, which makes me think that it's going to be about me not managing.

I think my boss will be like, "Melissa, I don't pay you to blog."

And I'll say, "Don't read my blogs. They'll hurt your feelings."

I've just spent about an hour looking for this:


Now I'm going to try to find a company to airbush a T-shirt of it for me. I want a picture of Hurley on each of my boobs.

Bayonne fights terrorism with the saddest vagina in the world.

The 9/11 memorial at Bayonne Harbor. I'm not the first one to say it, and I won't be the last, but it seriously looks like a giant vagina.

I KNOW WHY THE HEIGHTS ARE SO '90'S

I saw a raver and it wasn't 1991. It was last Tuesday, on Kennedy Boulevard, by the Coach House.

I have a theory about this stretch of Kennedy Boulevard. I first became concerned when I noticed a Marilyn Manson fan in 2005. Then, I saw a grown man wearing a GreenDay shirt, a Sublime hoodie, a Wu Tang headband, Offspring gauntlets, and a wallet chain, all at the same time. I looked up, and all around me everything was at least 10 years out of style. I was frightened.

At first, I assumed the reason that the Heights are 20 years behind the times is because of the horrible, archaic public transportation system. They use jitneys, like in the 1930's. They are alternatively called immigrant vans, or immies, but I find that term racist, as the Heights are because it's so behind the times. The last time I took one, the driver was a deaf, 90-year-old who spoke no English, smoked a Cuban Cigar, and had a tumour on his nose. It looked like he had three noses. He drives the warped line of time and he's drunk.

Which brings me to my point: I believe that space and time are warped at this point. It's like the Bermuda Triangle of Jersey City. It may, in fact, be an opening to hollow earth. Perhaps, everyone who lives in the Heights inhabits the inner surface of the earth as well--that's how they keep their raver pants from the ravages of time.

Here is a map. You'll notice The Heights is near the upper left hand side.

Buy my face!

"Saint Melissa" tape portrait by Kayt Hester Lent.

She says the hole in my chest is for BlackHole but it's probably because she thinks I'm flat.

I don't know how much she's selling it for, but my beauty is priceless like indoor plumbing.

VODKA BABY!

Hey Maryurie,

It's been so long since I talked to you! What, like 5 years? How's everything?

Remember when we used to drink down by the train tracks under the Turnpike when we were like, 15? Well guess what: that whole time there was a baby who was murdered by his father buried there! Isn't that funny? It was in the Jersey Journal and everything! Look: I cut it out. Home town pride!

"Using heavy machinery, shovels and dirt sifters, authorities on Monday dug through a brush-covered area under an elevated portion of the New Jersey Turnpike at Merseles and First streets in Downtown Jersey City, but came up empty. Reportedly, Williams said he'd buried the 2-year-old's clothed body there under 3 feet of dirt."

We'd get so wasted we'd ROLL down that ditch! So I guess those were those weird clothes.

So, how's the baby? I mean YOUR baby, not that one. It's dead. Do you still hang out under the Turnpike? Downtown is really becoming gentrified. Remember when we saw that shack and that guy asked us if we wanted to watch TV we could come inside? Well now it's a whole shanty town made of tents and I think he's the mayor. He's doing really well for himself. They've got a flag up and everything. It soars proudly over the cemetary.

Anyway, so I have a blog now. The comedy thing is going great. I played this awesome basement show the other night. They said if I keep it up, I might move to street level one day. Street performers make MONEY!

You should stop by my mom's basement one day we'll hang out and drink and bring that baby! Babies love vodka. My mom needs the computer.

KIT

"I can't use that quote."

Last night I stopped by the Waterbug to read Tom the most recent thing I wrote about his baby.

There was a guy from the Bergen Record who asked me for a qoute for an article he was writing on the show.

I said, "How about, 'Melissa Surach used to host the Waterbug until she got attacked on stage by this big ghetto chick.'"

He said he couldn't use it.

Then I said, "How about, 'The Waterbug crowd is so down to earth that no one ever bombs, even if they sing acapella Sarah Macsuckland extended covers off key.'"

He didn't know who Sarah Macsuckland was.

Then I said, "How about, 'The Waterbug is the only place Melissa Surach can perform at whenever she wants on a Thursday night that's three blocks away from her house.'"

He said it was the best review he'd heard about the Waterbug all night.

The highlight of the night was one old white lady who did interpretive dances off stage to everyone's performance without even being asked to ALL NIGHT LONG THAT'S STAMINA. For a 50-year-old she sure could move!

When she got on stage, she told us that she used to be one of America's top ten most wanted and did time for 5 years. Then, as she read her poem, she fell asleep standing up. Then, when she got off, she tried to make out with 2 20-year-olds. Luckily, they had quick reflexes. I saw her outside and she pretended to get hit by a car.

After the show she told me that I was mean to Tom and I should never do that again on stage. Tom asked her out and then I asked if I could be their baby. We had a group hug and Tom told me no.

I hope she's there on when I guest host on May 17, but I think she'll probably be dead.

My sketch or your baby. You have to choose.

Tom.

The show is tomorrow and we haven't even practiced once because someone is being a whiny baby and crying. Well soon it's going to be you, Tom, soon YOU'LL be crying.

You have to make a choice: My sketch or your baby. You are obviously too incompetent to handle both. You're going to have to give one up, and I think we both know which.

The baby sucks, Tom, and my sketch is genius. You will realize that once we get through the harmonies and choreography. Have you even TRIED to juggle those pins that I gave you and told you to learn to juggle? Does that little mermaid dress I gave you even fit? I bet you were too busy changing diapers and breastfeeding.

AND ANOTHER THING:
I had to take the subway to Queens last night, in the rain, because SOMEONE had to be put to bed at 8:00 pm.

You have to make a decision: Giving me rides to Queens or your baby.

The baby is RUINING my transportation schedule and my life. Last night the E was messed up and it took me almost two hours to get home, when it could have only taken one and a half if you drove me, and then I almost jumped in the tracks because I was so consumed with hatred for your baby.

If you're not going to get rid of the baby, please at least teach it to drive me to Queens and juggle, OR AT LEAST LET ME BORROW IT!

I hate your baby.

Sincerely,
Melissa

GynoCult Pins

GynoCult is getting pins made so we can give them to our "fans," and by "fans" I mean we're going to force our friends to prick celebrities in subways with them.

These are some pin ideas I've been ignoring customers at my job for. Many were inspired by Journal Square.

GynoCult: We make house calls.
GynoCult: Disease free since 2009.
GynoCult: Get vaccinated.
GynoCult: Hot on the outside, cold on the inside.
GynoCult: Go suck on an egg!*
GynoCult: Prove us wrong.
GynoCult: Wet on the outside, dry on the inside.
GynoCult: Dead on the outside, alive on the inside.
GynoCult: Sub-Saharan Africa Tour 2007.
GynoCult: GynoCult wants to rape you.
GynoCult: GynoCult believes in government mandated sterilization.

Chris told me we should put a picture of a butt on it. But I think we're going to keep it classy and have an anus instead.

SO WHO WANTS ONE?

* I like this one because I'm trying to bring this phrase back to 2007 AND I NEED EVERYONE'S HELP! From now on, instead of telling someone to F off, say, "Go suck on an egg!" Now that's an insult my mom would approve of!