I just thought I would scribble down a jot or two and offer up some song lyrics that apply to the current political atmosphere. I have not been writing a lot lately and especially not about politics.
Frank Zappa played this song many times during his enormous touring tenure and he hit’s the nail directly and flush on the head with this one:
~~~
“Hot Plate Heaven At The Green Hotel”
I used to have a job An' I was doin' fairly well Depression came along An' everybody start to yell "Where'd they go, them good ol' days, An' all that crap we used to sell?" Now I'm in Hot-Plate Heaven, at the Green Hotel
Republicans is fine, If you're a multi-millionaire Democrats is fair, If all you own is what you wear Neither of 'em's REALLY right, 'Cause neither of 'em CARE 'Bout that Hot-Plate Heaven, 'Cause they ain't been there
They really oughta go 'N find out how the hall-way smell -- They'd benefit to know 'Bout what the bums in there could tell (Of course we're only dreamin', But I s'pose it's just as well That's ALL you get to dream Up in the Green Hotel)
Nature didn't put me here, An' neither did my fate -- It musta been some evil ol' Republican candidate! He's over there in Washington, But I wish he was in HELL 'Cause I'm in Hot-Plate Heaven At the Green Hotel
Things is slightly better now; They hope we will forget Their misery of 'TRICKLE DOWN', An' jelly-bean etiquette The Regal Presidential Style Has simply not worn well, But neither has my rags, Up in the Green Hotel
I said the Green Hotel I mean the Green Hotel Been there once The Green Hotel We're goin' again The Green Hotel Neither has my rags, Up in the Green Hotel Hey, pass me the dog-food!
~~~
Notice the sarcasm via the denial of self responsibility in the last few verses and the honest and refreshing reflection in the first couple. Excellent!
Both parties are virtually the same. Both are looking out for themselves first and their friends second. We are not even thought about beyond election time itself. The whole process is an animal that not even they can control.
McCain or Clinton - I puke thinking of either possibility.
I see only one possible hopeful and that might be Mitt Romney. Barrack Obama would have actually stolen my vote until he started backing up morons like Steve Angelides (the most recent Democrat candidate for California governor) as an attempt to get good grace wallet strokes from the DNC. That is where Barrack lost me and probably lost me forever.
We need parties beyond the two big bad bullies to actually have a chance at running and winning and the Green Party, The American Independent, The Libertarian, and The National Anarchist Movement parties are not realistic competition so we are stuck with buffoon A or buffoon B.
The way that things find themselves into our lives with all of the sun and moon and glorious winds blowing through our stream of consciousness and into the public forum of exposure and vulnerability. What is it that drives and strives us to reach out to our fellow man in either a negative or positive way? What is it that allows us to rest easy, or uneasy, at night while we think whole and hard about these ideas and the concepts that we project? Why are we who we are?
Many would say that tragedy and lessons learned are what mold us into ourselves, who we look in the mirror at as we wonder if our toothpaste is working or whether or not a different brush would be more gentle on our locks. Is that conditioner really worth what we pay for it; is it doing it's job? Conditioner - I laugh! We all have our tragedy. Dead parents, drugs, drink, fallings out with our churches - our communities. Some have been beaten or molested or raped. Others have been psychologically twisted into a barber pole of spiraling amalgamation that we accept as our reality all while wondering what the rest of the world is thinking living the way that they do. Some have mental illness or physical disease. Poverty or riches. Need or reckless abandon. Conspiracy or congealed acceptance. All said and done we are products of our own tragedies and traumas.
There are others that are shaped by the glories of their existence. The ones that stand tall and proud regardless of how shallow and empty they may be inside. Everything handed on silver platters with silver spoons. Always finding the up tick to each beat and rhythm. Are these personal triumphs really that building when it comes to who we are or are they simply the rewards we receive from dealing well with our own mistakes and the mistakes of others that have been imposed upon us in order to deal with life, reality, and who we are becoming?
I think it is more of a carbonization and combination of both, much like a Chinese lunch or seaside seafood special. Everyone loves a little combo platter. It offers variety and a sense of contentment that we have tried all we could possibly try in the face of change, derangement, variety and diversity. Could we all be who we are if it were not for all of those that have surrounded us? Probably not. We would end up being concrete grey slabs with the occasional pock mark left after settling has occurred and the oxygen has escaped. Settling? Maybe not. True? Possibly so.
Sometimes it would appear that life is as simple as appreciation and acceptance. A simple mix of awareness and what can come of realization and not over emotionalized division. Sometimes the sun refuses to shine on and the rain drives hard at each and one of our doors but this allows us a bit of dry time from the wet outside and the hibernation and settling reflection can be what one needs when thinking outwardly, as well as internally. The unpredictable world outside our cocoons can be unwieldy at best; management of it can be as easy as breathing and realizing the whole world is not here to rise to our expectations like curdled cream in a coffee cup that is far, far too hot to be submersed into.
Cuddled, coddled, curdled, clotted. Reality is fluid into solid into gas and back again in no set or said order and that uncertainty can lead some of us to be down right curmudgeonly and curt, over the top special fancy nice and prolific about smiles and such, and ever reclusive in our pursuit of existence and harmonized reality. It is a manic game of rochambeau that always comes up scissors. Smacking your own ‘potatoes’ or shooting out ‘odds and evens’ against yourself is futile, so we need the chance odds of interaction and socialization found within that first step, and each step thereafter, out of our doors.
For some that is found online and others it is at the mall and others it is only at work. Some cling desperately to each interaction as their only defining quality and they are part of every group, club, and clique that they can shove their tentacles into, project their voices through. We all have trials and conflicts and contortions of now and then and what is to come and how we make them all come about. We all do it in our own way. Reality is much like sex - each and every exchange is different. It depends on blood sugar, serotonin, endorphins, adrenaline, caffeine, alcohol, nicotine and other various bloodstream sundries and mental mollies of viviparous nature. We make it what we want it to be at that moment - how far we are willing to go is dictated by the event at hand and what we find comfortable or what conformabilities we are willing to sacrifice at the time. This uncertainty is what makes us who we are.
The uncertain fates and futures that present each of our pale pink wet bodies as we frailly push ourselves down and out the canal and struggle to huff in those first gulps of breath as we, in shock, cry so loudly that you would think us to be a reckless college student at some sort of homecoming game on the brink of eternal immortality as the underdog who swung back up to the top of the pond. From that first cry, that first breath and breach, that first blanket or parental arm cradle, we are presented with it. For years upon years we have very little control over what will mold us, form us into who and what we will be. Some who cling onto that lack of control as some sort of Oedipus clinging to the cradle and womb are the ones who will fail miserably.
Strength is found through weakness and we are only as strong as our weakest moments in our minds and this may be what holds us back so much in life as we trip and stumble and hope that the outcome will and can and could be beneficial not only to ourselves but our prodigies of existence - our children. Will these firm little soldiers turn out like us? Most likely, in many ways, as that is not only genetic but environmental and the stress is on both, not one or the other. Will they be different? Yes, of course. Life is the ever present unsolved equation where ‘X’ has nothing to do with Malcolm beyond uncertainty. Choices and choices of others and realities in general, constantly keep us hopping and hoping.
With all of it all squished together we all seem to be able to get from sleep to awake to sleep again.
Variety may be the key but maybe it is how we deal with variety.
There will always, ALWAYS, be Bush’s, Clinton’s, Hitler’s, Stalin’s, Christ’s, and so on. We are never going to eradicate diversity.
Life is a Pu-Pu platter.
There are spare-ribs, rangoons, chicken wings, breaded chicken, fried shrimp, two egg rolls, maybe a spring roll or two, and of course the ever sought after beef teriyaki on a stick.
The trick is not to burn yourself on the sterno too many times while you are getting what you need and accepting that others like things that make you puke.
Without this we are left in a shadow world of defeat where glory can not be found due to the constant need to defeat the guy reaching over you.
If we could apply table manners more often to our interactions beyond the dinner table then maybe we would all stand a little taller and be able to come out of the caves more often.
Unfortunately most people these days are not taught table manners and fed via some 'take-it-to-your-room' trough. Such a shame of self absorbed reality.
We will all have tragedy and joy.
We are all going to deal a bit differently.
Knowing that we are really all the same thing with the exception of experience would get us a long way as a race - the Human Race.
This again is NOT a post for kiddos but is nowhere near as offensive or outrageous as my previous post on G.G. Allin.
However, I would appreciate the same level of video viewing. Please watch each clip as it presents itself or click the link for the interview or bio information as it is pertinent to how this essay is ingested.
I do not post lots of video clips or links or music or pictures so I would appreciate this level of consideration while reading this kiss of history’s past.
Thank you.
Once again, Parental discretion is advised.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"All my life I wanted to look like Elizabeth Taylor. Now Elizabeth Taylor looks like me."
These are the words of a man born on the 19th of October 1945 named Harris Glen Milstead also known as ‘Divine’.
I grew up hearing about a drag queen that loved to eat dog shit and nothing could be further from the truth regarding that statement. Yes, there was a man in women’s clothing and, yes, at one point dog feces was involved but the generalized statement of disgust that perpetuated the existence of Divine was not what he was by any means. He was a man who acted and sung fabulously and was someone that would go down in film history thanks to the films of John Waters.
If you have never seen a John Waters film then you should go back and take a look. Do not rent one of those high budget jobbies that he put out like ‘Hairspray’ with Johnny Depp and Ricky Lake or ‘Pecker’ with Edward Furlong. Relapse into the day of the midnight movie complete with ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’, ‘Eraserhead’, ‘200 Motels’ and of course screen gems of low budget consumption produced, directed and written by Mr. Waters starring the most elegant of offensive ‘good bad taste’ - Divine.
John Waters made low budget social commentaries revolving around the Baltimore that Divine and John grew up in and is now so disgustingly down trodden that it begs the answer to the typical questions of life imitating art and vise versa. His movies were crass, obscene, overtly sexual, disgusting and shocking to say the least but Divine made them shine with a quality that the low budget could never have reflected without him. Edith Massey didn’t hurt the films either as she was a sidekick counterpart and play against to Divine in all of the early films.
First I will give you the couple of bio links that I find to be mandatory reading for anyone looking to learn about Harris Glen Milstead a.k.a. Divine. Both are informative and to the point and can lead you into the right direction regarding any extra curricular research you would like to do after having read this.
http://www.dreamlandnews.com/divine/index.shtml, (check out the great high school photo of Divine on the lower right hand side of the screen with his hair and yellow jacket and boyish grin - EXCELLENT!)
I would like to take this moment in saying that I could regurgitate all of this information back to you like a Momma bird puking down the throats of it’s youth (and on the subject appropriately so) but I would rather have you see what is out there and flavour this research project of mine with my words of originality not some plagiarized douche bag essay of Massengil flavored flowers and fields and mother-daughter combos on bikes asking about ‘feeling fresh‘. I will present these clips and hopefully it will inspire you to look deeper, rent a film or two, or ask yourself the questions that John Waters intended to make us ask ourselves as we laughed and sat staring at yet another car wreck meant to teach us something about that moral fabric of which our society is sewn together with; flimsy at best - of Kathy Lee sweat shop quality during any propagation of.
About a year ago I was entranced by the film ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’; falling in love with the music, the tragedy, the emotional vacuum that it sucks you into. At the same time the Independent Film Channel (IFC) brought us a visual holiday trilogy (a disconnected trilogy but trilogy in the chronological sense -it is thrice out of cast and crew not linear follow) of John Waters.
The first film shown was ‘Pink Flamingos’ or in America titled ‘John Water’s Pink Flamingos”. Gotta give the man some credit there as incorporating yourself into the title with only two other low budget home video films under your belt makes for the allowance that you think you are a pretty damn good director and writer and are waiting for the rest of the world to catch up, and catch up quick they must as his career sprung up and onward from that point unlike his signature moustache. Geniuses always have killer facial hair and this again perturbs me regarding the shaving of my beard.
‘Pink Flamingos is down right insane and complete with all of the raw animal sexuality, rock and roll degradation, and wild reckless abandon that some one would expect form John. In one of the final scenes of the film Divine scoops up dog shit and pretends to consume it. Runny, foul, nasty dog shit. There is something to be said for going the extra mile to make a movie real, and real it is. Here is the trailer to this film (I love the music he chose):
Movie two would be ‘Female Trouble’ and is yet another romp of sideline society. This one has to do with rape and criminal deviation and how fucked up our society can be when not checked with some balance and repercussions for our instant gratification. We follow a rebellious big girl (long before BBW was a term or magazine) from running away for not getting hooker shoes for Christmas all the way to her being fried in the electric chair. Divine goes wigless into the chair and comment son how comfortable it is. Excellent! Here is the trailer for that film:
Third on the countdown of excellence in low budget thought provocation and stomach turn is the early eighties release ‘Polyester’. This is more a full frontal assault on the suburban wet dream of two and a half perfect kids and all the necessities of life brought to the modern ‘70’s housewife by her ever laborious husband. Ahh, the glamour! Except this housewife’s husband is a porno theatre owner and the kids are absolutely bonkers and out of control and the Divine character named Francine Fishpaw is best friends with a retarded inheritor named Lulu played by Edith Massey who we see in BDSM leather insanity in the previously mentioned picture. If you can not stomach the weird sexual bizarreness and low budget aspects of the first two films than this first medium-budget film of Mr. Water’s is more up to your speed while still attaining the ‘John Waters Feel’ and the ‘Divine Touch’. Here is the trailer:
Divine did many music and stage performances due to her launch from John’s spring board and his musical career became widely applauded as well as his acting. He was set up to be in the Fox show ‘Married with Children’ just before he died of heart stoppage due to weight and sleep apnea in 1988. Here is an example of one of his music attempts (and don’t ask me why when I find bizarre music attempting to be pop that it is a Frankie Valli cover, I don’t know why Klaus Nomi and Divine opted for Frankie covers!):
There are two interviews that with Divine that I would also like to present in order to round out the picture and colour it up like bad rouge and mascara. One is an Italian interview done with him subtitled in Japanese for any of my Japanese readers who were confused up to this point and the other is from an early David Letterman Show where Divine appears with John Waters to promote the film ‘Polyester’. Both are very intriguing but there are very important points to be made with each and I will give you the two point cheat sheet to each. In the Italian interview it is interesting to focus on the separation of Harris Glen Misltead from Divine and the intertwinement that is implied simultaneously. It is very interesting and gives you some insight to who Divine was. You might have to turn up the volume a bit to hear the interviewer’s questions as they are very pertinent to the answers. The second point to be made would be how young Letterman is, how he deals with the dynamic duo of Waters and Divine (as well as how John Waters carries himself in presentation and language), and at the end of the clip we get a glimpse at the disgustingly young Larry ‘Bud’ Melman. Here are the two clips.
First off, the Italian interview:
And here is the one on Letterman:
So here I am, thinking of Divine and how that ties into G.G. Allin and society in general. I think about it maybe a bit too hard since I have been dreaming of both real hard now for days. I don’t think it is the tie in of fecal fetish as maybe this piece would be about Kostas, the self proclaimed ‘French Poop Sadist’ who has had many an album to talk about - all of the outskirts of morality and fathom ability. It was hard enough to find good Divine clips on YouTube never mind Kostas. Funny how I found a trillion clips of G.G. but hardly any for Divine.
All I know is that there are those that walk the line of fringe like Lou Reed and make it happen while dressed androgynously wrapping microphone cables around your bicep in some pseudo mock shoot up thing. There are those that make it work like Ru Paul. There are those that suffer for it all across the board. So what is it that makes us accept what we do and shun the rest because I don’t think it is a measure of content but maybe press. Maybe the gossip train with it’s big yellow letters of acidity spelling out ‘Urban Lore’ in sulfuric glory is running down the track at speeds that prevent us from stopping it with any shield of rationale and reason. Maybe it is just a primal denial of who were are.
G.G. Allin said it best when he said that he is not a human being but rather a human animal.
Maybe it is an issue of approval that goes far beyond the means of our recognition.
"Of course the last thing my parents wanted was a son who wears a cocktail dress that glitters, but they've come around to it." - the words of Divine.
Maybe that is it. Maybe it is not.
Maybe it doesn’t matter anyway because water rises to it’s own level in the end.
It is far too cold in California.
Typing with numb fingers hurts ones pads.
What would the critics of Divine and G.G. read into that statement?
I wish this post had been in ‘Odorama’.
This post has been brought to you by the number 1 and the letters S, H, I, and T
This has been a production of the television workshop.
Bonus: Debauchery Has A Name And Two First Initials As Well!
WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THIS POST CONTAINS EXTREME GRAHPIC VISUALISATIONS OF NUDITY AND VIOLENCE AND IS ABOUT G.G. ALLIN!
CHILDREN NEED NOT APPLY!
To understand this post you MUST view each video and have it build up into what I say. If you can not do that then you need not take this to heart based on what you know or may not know. This post requires media submersion in order to get the jist of what I am saying. PLEASE watch as you view!
The interview, just a few short sentences below, is mandatory as well as it helps colour in this piece even though some parts may be redundant as I have used it as reference.
Thank you for not reading if you are a kiddo and for reading the right way if you continue on!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Growing up, my Dad and my Nana and I used to make trips from my birth place in Conway NH to the Rangeley Lakes of Maine, home of Lake Mooselookmegunnic. We would drive up the 16 from Conway and arrive there for serene picnics. Little did I know, as a youngster of picnic fancy, that I was driving just East of the raising point of one of the most influential post punk, pre Goth, pre industrial, coinciding death metal , punk masochists individuals that has ever lived. That place was Northumberland NH and the man was G.G. Allin.
Born Jesus Christ Allin, his childhood nickname of Je-Je was a sure keeper even though his mother had changed his name to Kevin Michael for schooling reasons.
G.G. was raised in a cabin with no electricity and no running water where his father would dig graves for the kids and their mother in the basement, burn the marriage bed when the mother would not sleep there and beat them as well as use loaded weapons as threats to them all. G.G. up to his dying day said that he had not been molested and if it had happened he had blacked it out entirely.
I do remember hearing of G.G. Allin's antics and deranged stage presence as a young man at University that would make plenty of trips into Boston to live up the nightlife of rebellion and deviancy. At this time in my life I knew many Goths and punks and did many drugs and they all did with me as we discussed nihilism and did endless quantities of potential overdoses.
Death and anger radiated from every building top that I jumped from on Boyleston St., high above the brownstones next to Fenway Park. Something made us all giddy beyond the drugs and the birdcage elevators that never worked. It wasn't necessarily G.G. but it was that sort of annihilation and that mentality that brought us into the cloudy dawns of do it over again. The obsession to combine destruction, sex, need, and death into one full swing night of decadence and joy. Simple to those who have been there.
I liked my punk and my party. I listened to them all from Crass to the Circle Jerks and the Descendents to the Vandals back around again to the Angry Samoans and the Sex Pistols to Stiff Little Fingers and Minor Threat. I thought I knew all my punk and knew it well. 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. But I did not know G.G. Allin as well as I should of when it was poised to me the other day; there was still a listener out there, in fact many of them.
G.G. died in 1993 of a heroin overdose and this is the time I remember his face and Siamese fish mustache being stickered all over Kenmore Square and all throughout ‘The Pit’ in Harvard. You could not go more than two stops down the Red Line without seeing a G.G. Allin sticker. It was as if he was the patron saint of depravity in Boston at the time. It was a bloated picture of G.G. Allin dead in his place; like a plasticine corpse waiting to break free from the fat of a Madame Curry mold of puffed up death with broken glass in hand and reality in mind - waiting to rebel with feces and fury in hand.
G.G. was 36 when he died after a show in NYC. He went to a party and no one realized he had died until the next day. When he was buried he was dressed in a leather jacket and a jockstrap that had the words ‘eat me’ written on it. In his right hand was a microphone and in his left was a bottle of Jim Beam. They pissed in his mouth, shoved pills in his gullet, and pretended to make his corpse talk during the wake.
He never made a significant dime that wasn't used on his legal defense, medical bills or prostitutes. He was never signed by a major record label. He used to sell his records out of shopping carts on NYC streets and in Boston. He WAS art. As much as he hurt himself and others, it was as simple as Van Gogh relieving himself of his ear. G.G. had sacrifice for self perserverance in mind always. What ever got him off and propelled him made him who he became out of defense.
G.G. Allin was a self centered rocker/punk who lived for only himself. He lived extremely hard and died even harder. He had been in jail dozens of times and had been accused and convicted of crimes ranging from indecent exposure to inciting a riot and group rape over 52 times. G.G. still thought he was doing right by his ways and never showed any repent for his time on Earth. He actually had promised his fans that he would kill himself on stage so they could partake of his sacrifice to himself.
Something that should be revealed to those who do not know G.G. is that he cut himself on stage, defecated, ate his own blood and feces, participated in male and female rapes, broke bones and had his bones broken, publicly masturbated, and would even shove microphones up his ass. Mr. Allin was a deviant, a lost soul; although his soul was lost it perpetuated itself in a way that reason could not be denied even by those who hated him and did so with a repulsion and a fury that was of no compare.
G.G. grew up emulating the Stones but thought that rock ’n’ roll had become a sell out of mainstream glamour and corporate whoring that he could not stomach. He fought hard and fierce against it creating his own cult like brand of R&R reality that he would come to claim as ’real’ rock and roll. He was nothing more than G.G. Allin, but without him men like Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson would not have had a forum nor would many other groups that had parallel realities without the underground disgust and fear, the vile expression of intimate cataclysm requiring release for survival.
G.G. was banned in 11 states and was wanted for numerous warrants and violations of such. Funny how all he did was take Jim Morrison’s threat of masturbating on stage that one step further and ended up on endless government lists. He was just trying to be himself and express himself and around every corner was a force to hate him. With all of that hatred he thrived in a self indulgent riot of violence, depravity, and disgust.
It must be known that all of this video footage is true and real. It is all real blood and violence and insanity. Much, MUCH, worse occured at G.G. Allin shows. This is really 'G' Rated G.G. - his stage shows were beyond 'X' in any redundancy.
Durning his career he fronted such bands as The Jabbers, Scumfucs, Texas Nazis, Cedar Street Sluts, Drug Whores, Sewer Scum, Afterbirth, Psycho, Dissapointments, AIDS Brigade, Bulge, Murder Junkies, and the Toilet Rockers. His songs also included "F---in' The Dog," "Needle Up My C---," "Blood For You," "Drink, Fight And F---," and "Expose Yourself To Kids." This, in addition to his stage antics that also included beastiality with dead animals, but we may end up remembering him from this episode of Springer when all is said and done:
Many of us are born with fetish needs and likes and wants deeply engrained into who we are. From being spanked, to BDSM, to homosexuality, to bisexuality, to rape fetish, to golden showers, to scat, to cutting, to violence amongst consenting adults, to blood drinking and so on and so on and so on. We all have something, even if these examples are far too extreme for you to relate to I am sure you know of what I speak. We all have one of them, maybe more, and for that we are asterisked, cast aside, and ridiculed by most of society however hypocritical that may seem. G.G. Allin had them all in his plethora of oppression and criticism and seclusion. He found anger and self perseverance to be his most rewarding tools. Can we really fault G.G. for that?
I know some will. I know some will even be happy that he is dead. I know some will even call for the banning of me from BlogStream due to the profane nature of this post, just like G.G.
The solution to the puzzle is understanding how G.G. Allin relates to you and how you can take a piece of him in order to make yourself better in what you do and find the comfortability in what you are, or were, via his reckless abandon for self indulgence.
Can you relate or are you that closed minded that you think he should never should have had the chance to express it - himself?
What is your opinion of G.G. after seeing these clips even though they are extremely 'vanilla' for G.G.?
Do you cast first judgment on him or can you see the correlation?
G.G. is dead so it hardly matters these days because if you think him the vile plague of youth than you have less worries, but in reality, do you?
G.G. Allin rests well and wishes you all to piss on his grave.
Like an Erlenmeyer flask erupting into the volcanic night, my midnights became mornings in 1997. I was refinishing and installing hardwood floors at the time out of a North Shore Massachusetts' suburb called Beverly. I was making ok money under the table, learning a trade, and having most weekends off. I, however, needed health insurance. It was this gigantic concern to my 22 year old self that sent me seeking new employ. It was as if I thought at 22 that my whole body would implode, explode, and evaporate all in one fell swoop if I wasn’t handing money over to some doctor to reassure me that I was healthy enough to convince myself that I was just a young buck; a few screws and tobacco chews away from being a kid.
So I started into this whole graveyard fiasco as a part time gig while I sanded floors during the day. I was working about 25 hours a week while the sun hid and I was making a mere and meek $6.50 and hour. After about three weeks I was promoted up to ‘full time’ and was making almost ten an hour and had benefits thirty days after that full time recognition. One thing that I have always known that was proved positive in this scenario is that working hard and saying thank you, as well as sir, really does pay off when you are trying to get ahead. If you are not willing to sweat, don't expect to run the kitchen! I was able to quit my day job and thank my old boss for the opportunity to learn a trade and he understood my obsessive fixation with benefits as he was a bit of a health nut.
Benefits is kind of an odd word. In the most commonly used and thought of context of health insurance and time off perks it was something that I wanted. Paid sick days can be a lot of fun if not abused or too frequent. Unfortunately in the grocery business the word benefit is some incestuous mixture of oxymoron, straight contradiction, and a pinch of hope in a very dark vortex of swirling, gurgling, and garrulous gratitude and gravity. The only benefit to working 50 hours a week while the land sleeps sound and children dream of the recess’ that they will have is that commute traffic is not much of a problem.
So I got a teeth cleaning and some new glasses and enjoyed a few sick days smoking pot and playing video games while eating far too much Cinnamon Toast Crunch drenched in whole milk out of a Tupperware bowl with a big wooden spoon. I worked every holiday. I stayed late. I arrived early. I adjusted my living schedule so I would come home at 7am and watch some TV or read or get high or whatever and then go to bed in the afternoon. Sleeping in the morning was out of the question as I was far to amped up to sleep. When you get home from work at 6pm or 5pm or 7pm try going right to bed; it doesn’t work like that. I would sleep from about 4pm till 10pm and then fly out to work. I was working 11pm to 7am. I saw my ex-wife about 15 hours a week. That required her to wake up at 8am on weekends. How do you spell bad? I spell it G-R-A-V-E-Y-A-R-D.
I wanted to excel. I wanted the insurance. I wanted the pension and the non matched 401k. I did not want the schedule but figured I could work my way up and out of it. I went quickly from part time to full time and did the job expediently and precisely. Everyone I worked with was insane. I don’t know if it was floor wax fumes or the shift or just personality types gravitating to a specific profession, but everyone had their own highlighted insanity.
Radios full blast down at aisle ends or up on frozen cases or dairy cases. Classic rock to metal to talk radio blared around every corner as if it were an entertainment complex and each aisle was a separate club or bar. Guys hooting and hollering, speaking gibberish; egging each other on to get the job done and get the job right.
My first night crew chief would show up all twisted on blow and still with wet crotch from screwing hookers in the back seat of his car up on route 1 before the shift. He could still price and throw stock like nobody’s business though. He eventually got into too much trouble for being late and they moved him over to asst. produce manager at a store that didn’t do much business - a store referred to as a ‘dog’ (one that does under $500,000 a week). You don’t get promoted out of stores like that. You are left there to die and contribute to the back room stink.
The dairy guy was a hairy bastard who made up nicknames for everyone and would jibber-jabber yell at everyone - especially the guys that hated it. He called me Nolte as some sort of abbreviation of my last name. He had been in the grocery business for over twenty years and used his four weeks of vacation to go to Montreal and sleep with strippers. He hadn’t had a drop of booze since his twenties so these ‘trips’ were done dry. Can you imagine screwing hooker after stripper after hooker on nothing but Diet Coke? I couldn’t.
One guy that really got pissed off was a little lawn gnome of a man called the Dory Dog. Height, beard, all of it made him look like the eighth dwarf left out of the Snow White escapades due to his horrible attitude. He loved to listen to money market talk radio all night long. He was in the Navy during Vietnam and when he came back (like a lot of guys) he just fell back into his old job at the supermarket. He invested every red cent he had into the market. He was a self made millionaire. Everything he bought was second hand and he used to wear these moth chewed Christmas sweaters all fall, winter, and spring long. When he would get made and scream at you he became 8 feet tall. Little cum jizz white spittle chunks would collect in the corners of his mouth and you wanted so badly to wipe them off for him with a bib or something. The baby thing I am sure came from the fact that he was under 5 feet tall. The Dory Dog used to be a Night Crew Chief but was just a clerk back then as he was forced to step down due to harassment. He loved, LOVED, to scream and swear and throw things and send people home. They held onto him because he could order product so well and keep such a small overstock quantity that he didn’t even need a pallet in the back room. He kept over stock on his table. In a way I miss the ol’ dog.
There were the drunks that would come in with drink cups filled with Vodka or bring in nips to drink in the bathroom and then put the little empty bottles up under the ceiling tiles. There were nitrous fiends and pot heads. About 80% of those guys were loaded on something. It was like stocking shelves on ‘Misfit Island’. That A&E show ‘Intervention’ would have had a field day talking to some of these guys. “Stocking shelves … so easy a caveman could do it!”
I worked with vets that would have flashbacks; there were even a couple of Korean vets. Guys that still live at home with mom and wore Izod shirts with the collar up and sweaters folded over their shoulders. Guys who still wore tapered jeans that they ‘pegged’ above their hightop cuffs. Everyone looked like surreal. It was like Picasso’s painting subjects melded with Tom Robbins characters and all got jobs working third shift so no one would be wise to their existence.
One thing that always set the night off was hearing the song ‘Stroke It’. Either that or ‘Ohhh, That Smell’. This is how we would know the chief was loaded and stinking like whore. Everyone would have to turn their radios off and he would blast it and scream along. “Stroke! Stroke! Stroke!; Ahh, ah, Stroke It!” - simply horrible. To me it was like a parade down big hair lane with a can of Aqua net and bangs that would eat people. At least I could find humour enough in it that I did not snap and break his boom box into a million little pieces.
The guys were all pretty vicious and sewing circle politics were beyond common place.
Store managers were always swearing at you and calling you names.
It seemed like the boiling point was always about one degree above the temperature.
Tempest in a tea pot would make it sound far too mild.
T-N-(long island iced)-T was more like it.
I actually miss being there now that I am here, but I think that is bound to happen to anyone at least once in their lives. Returning to something always makes one long for the first time they were there.
This is probably a little redundant but all of these words tend to be after a certain point.
I slept nineteen hours yesterday and wasted my whole damn weekend.
I need to go to bed in a couple of hours and prepare for another work week.
This feels nothing like a Sunday afternoon.
I just received the memo from Ray Davies, this is not a Sunday afternoon …
Many Blogstream members are there
already! Quotes from members: "It's like blog lite!" -- "I like the instant
gratification!" -- "Stop spectating, get in the game!"
If you have not joined in, you are really missing out!
