I’ve known Matt Chaconas for almost a decade. We met in 2011, when he moved into the crumbling miniature mansion (that’s what happens when a duplex meets a rowhouse) we called home in Crown Heights. Matt arrived via Couch Surfer, which is how most of the rooms were filled then; I had found my room through Craigslist. I lived on the second floor, while Matt lived in a small room off the living room downstairs, and in 2012 he moved to Harlem before eventually moving to Mammoth, California. He settled in Los Angeles with his wife last year.
When I remember my years in New York with Matt, I remember hours of walking, drinking iced coffee, bickering, and laughter. Now when I wander the city for hours at a time I am walking alone.
I interviewed Matt on Thursday, October 8, 2020. This as-told-to interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The compactness of New York City was more beneficial to life in the city. There are so many people in Los Angeles, but if you don’t live in that one pocket, you’re just traveling constantly, even if you’re in city limits. It throws off your whole day. When I used to work, on the highway, it was—if there were no traffic—15 minutes from where I live. If there was traffic it would range anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours. And I knew that coming into it, but that was just to get downtown. Just the pre-planning or, “How am I going to find parking, how am I going to pay for parking,” and arriving twenty minutes early. Obviously in New York, you’re going to pay for parking too, and New York has one of the world’s most expensive parking spaces, but at the same time there are just so many options you can take to avoid it, and in LA there isn’t. The public transit is a joke. The heat here is unbearable for so long. There’s no, “I’ll tough it out.” When I was working the first three months I lived in LA, it was nice, I had an awesome parking sticker for the garage in the middle of downtown. It was amazing! It was like I had a golden ticket no one else had.
We might be leaving. Right now we’re having a big discrepancy, like everything, with Coronavirus. Anyone with a good amount of money—I wouldn’t say the one percent, [but] all the affluent people—they’re all moving around in the area and it’s just making our home prices skyrocket even more. Apartment rentals on my income are becoming vacant at a very rapid pace. When you walk up and down my street it’s easier to count the apartments that aren’t available for lease than it is for the ones that have leasing available. Even at my place, when we moved in, the sign [for rent] came down. We got the only apartment in the building. Now it’s back up and there are four empty spots in our building. We’re 28 units. Our apartment is very LA, very Melrose Place, everything faces the pool in the middle.
We’re either staying or leaving. I’m looking for jobs out of state as well as in LA, but we’re still in our first stage of lockdown with no end in sight. (Ed. note: During this interview and at press time, Los Angeles County allowed limited indoor dining.) It’s not great for my job. How I pay my bills is restaurant work. The acting thing…when I think about it, I’m grateful for everything I’ve ever had. …I’ve done a lot more than a lot of people can say, and I pivoted really hard and if I really want to be an actor, I could do this anyplace. I’m not even thinking about acting right now. The world is on fire here in California, literally and figuratively right now.
We’re currently looking in Michigan [where my wife’s family lives]. They seem, culturally…you can work in a restaurant there. It’s been long enough now for me to feel comfortable. I wear a mask and wash my hands, so do what you want.
I had an interview and it led to the fact that if someone was sick with COVID they didn’t know how someone would handle it. They didn’t know if the person would fall off the face of the earth and never have their job. They said it was a case-by-case situation.
Every day I go into my room and work out. I hate working out at home. I bought some at-home equipment when this started. It’s not as motivating. I put my headphones on and throw my body around like I’m in a mosh pit for 30 minutes. I don’t even call it dancing. I spin around in circles and cry at the same time. It feels better.
Beforehand I was already going through such a big change that honestly having COVID-19 step in just prolonged the big change, to make it feel like something new was coming. I moved from Mammoth to LA with the intention of not keeping the job I transferred with.
We moved on December 29th. It was almost three months to the day. It was March 25th or 27th when I was finally let go. I was working at the Staples Center as an in-house manager, I had four different clubs inside the building that was mine. It was intense. I wore a suit every day. …It was terrible and awesome at the same time. I found out I was losing my job on the TV behind the bar. I’m not going to say I was a prophet—I didn’t see Corona coming. But as it was getting closer, and especially that night that I found out, I said, “Guys, I think this is way bigger than we imagined,” and no one believed me.
They were talking about the NBA, saying “We’re going to pause for two weeks or something.” Management hadn’t said anything. No one was trying anything.
It was a Kings game, a hockey game, and in the middle of it, the NBA announced it was going on pause. I said, “We need to take a moment and listen.” At the end of that game they called the entire Staples Center staff, like anyone and everyone, from security to my company, and the president…said we were all going home.
My boss pulled me aside. She said, “We’re gonna send out an e-mail.” She was told something in her meeting about paying [union employees] out. You can’t schedule hours and then cancel. It all falls into union rules. There’s nothing in the union about what to do when a pandemic strikes. She had me send an e-mail, promising people they were going to be called for their scheduled shifts. Well, management changed their tune and said, “We’re not doing that.” They threw me under the bus and they called me into HR.
“We explicitly told you not to send any communications.” Yes, you did! My boss watched me over my shoulder, type it out, and hit send. I’m just the carrier of the message, from my boss, in that meeting. They didn’t give a fuck and they suspended me. I was livid. I looked at my boss, “You’re the one that told me to, and you’re going to let them send me home?” As a manager, I would never do that to an employee. I walked out. They kept saying, “You’re not in trouble, it’s only for one day.” But if I’m not in trouble, I don’t need to go home. It was super shady and not cool.
We all came back to our offices, and the NBA…did a lump sum payout.
We were all sent home. What am I going to do in a restaurant working from home? I cleaned up the back-end of my system and did what I could, and then I was let go. I was in the first round, which was fair. I was done. They said there was no offer for a job if and when it comes back, but if a job is posted, feel free to apply. I wanted out of there. It was miserable. Fourteen-hour days, back to back, and I saw the red flags coming before I took the transfer.
The culture was something they were trying to address before I came. What they came up with was, if you go on vacation, we will give you extra brownie points if you send us a postcard from your travels. I was sitting in the meeting grinding my teeth. I had a trip to London planned. I’m not going to send you a postcard so you’ll like me more when I come back! This is not how you strike a work-life balance. Hire enough people so I can do the job I need to do and not be here for 14-hour days.
Outside of that, my life was very LA. I went to everything I could. I went to typical warehouse art parties where people sat in the corner being handpainted…and a communal chocolate fountain. I look back on that…and it’s disgusting now. We went to a drag queen brunch, and had drag queens sing to us while we drank mimosas, and Hamburger Mary’s—because that’s an amazing name. We hung out with friends.
COVID came and everything locked down. My life changed, definitely. There’s not a lot to do and I’m at home. My wife works at home, and I’m quiet a lot because she works as a training manager for a call center. She’s always on the phone and we’re in a one-bedroom. It’s the same job, she was able to keep it, remotely. We’re on the better side of worse scenarios.
We’ve lost friends from it. Not death, but we didn’t really have strong connections down here. We had people we knew of, and friends who left Mammoth for LA, so because of that we were making bonds, but everyone got held up in their apartments. Everyone already worked remotely…and now they’re not hanging out with us. People we do know [well] are not close to us, they are on the other side of the mountain.
I like being around people and I definitely like to be busy, even if it’s not work that I love. I’m struggling with that. I was volunteering quite a lot, but I’ve fallen off. …I wasn’t looking for a reward, but I’m tired of bagging groceries. It’s hot, it’s not fun, there’s nothing coming from this.
I kept one of my volunteer positions…I work with homeless [people] with pets in their shelters. It’s…shortlived. I go in and check to see if they need anything for their animal, and I send an e-mail. It’s helpful and it’s more up my alley.
I watched all of Archer. I watched Parks & Rec and Schitt’s Creek over and over. It’s so funny. We just play the same things over and over on rotation. We just started Schitt’s Creek again and then we’ll watch Parks & Rec.
Part of me is like, do I sit here and be grateful, or do I keep trying only to lose [my job] again? I feel like it’s even harder than the beginning.
I went to one protest. I went to the biggest one, the one that made the news. I didn’t know it would be that large. Me being there didn’t feel like I was doing anything. Continuing to go, for me, isn’t the way I can contribute the best. I don’t want to be a sideline person. There were a lot of people there without masks. I took solace in the fact that I know I’m doing the work. [The protest] did not inspire me to go out more.
We’ve traveled twice. One was a plane ride. It was nervewracking. Every day until we left we pulled up the cancellation page and debated back and forth. We kind of planned it, we needed to get out. We did what we could, we picked the airlines that didn’t book the middle seat, so we intentionally chose those. Our masks never came off. We were tested—we were never knowingly exposed. The next [trip to Michigan] we drove. I was super depressed. We went to some hotels, we wore our masks, we took our wipes and wiped down every square inch of everything. Because of that, I felt comfortable.
I don’t really know how I feel about [outdoor dining]. It’s a false sense of security. There are things I love about COVID. I love the crowd control. There’s a line to get into Trader Joe’s. I love it. It’s no longer a throng of people crowded people in an outdoor space. This is my jam. Everyone else is complaining, but it takes the same amount of time. It’s not great in the LA heat, but I love it. If we’re going to continue with our so-called normal lives, put your mask on.
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