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Life On Dainty Ave
I was just now transcribing a report where some cops busted up a large party taking place on Dainty Avenue. As if the Bay area didn't have enough of a gay stereotype going on. I wonder if Officer Pinkstaff lives on Dainty Avenue?
The above, of course, means I'm back at my lovely job, chronicling the adventures of the mentally ill. I'm not sure if it's ironic or just annoying that my supervisor is just as mentally ill as the people I'm writing about. She's driving me. Fucking. Crazy.
She's a really sweet old lady. Which sucks because I can't bring myself to tell sweet old ladies to shut the fuck up. Bitter old ladies, I can kick thru windows, but sweet ones have me at a disadvantage. She's of the bucolic, hickish variety, and says things like, "I got me a hitch in my giddyup, by golly by golly!" Which doesn't actually mean anything of course, and it makes me want to ask her why she doesn't just use fucking English since she clearly already knows all the words. She also just says shit randomly that doesn't have anything to do with anything that's going on. One minute she'll shout out, "We're losing it!" and the next minute it'll be, "We're kicking some tail by golly, by golly!" It's like being in a video game at the part where you're fighting a boss and it keeps throwing out the same lines of dialogue over and over, regardless of how well you're doing in the fight ("You're no match for me, Spiderman!", "I'm gonna turn you into paste, Spiderman!", "Hey! No fair! Stand still darn it!"). However, unlike the video game, this isn't any fun.
And every time she shouts something out, I take off my earphones and I yell over to her asking if there's something she wants me to do. And the answer is always no. If you're not making small-talk with me and you're talking to me anyway, please either have something you need me to do or shut the fuck up. But I can't tell her that because she's a sweet old lady and I'm a fucking pussy.
I was talking with Howard last night and he was telling me about these fucktards that came into his bar and couldn't figure out why he didn't want them yelling, "motherfucker, yeah!" at the top of their lungs. Right then and there, I was reminded why it is I'm working at this job instead of a Border's or a Trader Joes (both of which would doubtless pay better and involve less driving). And that's because at this job, shitty as it is, I don't have to deal with the public. Ever. Which of course drastically reduces my chances of being arrested for assault.
Border Fence = Boffo!
 About to get political here, so please ignore if you're not in the mood to read something you might disagree with.
I love this country. Sometimes I love it so much I fucking hate it. Right now would be one of those times. I have to assume that in the face of a 29% approval rating, our president has decided that there's only one thing left for him to do. You'd think that one thing would be to actually listen to the 71% of Americans that disapprove of him, and maybe figure out what's got them so pissed off. Bush, on the other hand, apparently thinks that one thing is to appeal to the paranoid, racist rednecks in the country, of which, there are quite a few.
So. Illegal immigration is the big problem now, I guess, even though fucking no one has been discussing it up until just recently. At least, no one outside the usual crowd of paranoid, racist rednecks that is. It seems that every eight years or so, this becomes a topic of concern and people on both sides of the issue get bent out of shape and start yelling at each other and marching and all the usual horseshit. Everything short of actually sitting down and having a discussion about what we should do, if anything. Well, now our president is counting on this issue to bail him out of trouble and therefore illegal immigration is a threat to our national security, and therefore (queue dramatic music and extra-slick CNN title graphic), Something Must Be Done!
And the plan appears to be to build a fence along our southern border to keep all those greasy wetbacks out. This is one of those times I wish I could go back in time and interview people. I'd like to ask anyone from the Yuan Dynasty how well the Great Wall did in keeping the Mongols out.* Is it just me or is there something just a little less majestic about "The Great Fence Of North America?" So a big fence is what's going to keep all those Mexican assholes from coming up here and taking all those really desirable jobs away from us. They won't be clever enough to dig tunnels, or just use our beaches, nope.
So this is Bush's great idea. Nothing unusual really, he says stupid shit every time he addresses the nation. The real question is why am I so amazed that the Senate has approved this idea? An even better question is: If we're going to do something as drastic as fencing off our country, why did the Senate approve to fence only 500 miles of our southern border? What about the other three quarters of our border? Jesus Christ, these are the people we chose to lead us, aren't they supposed to be a little more effective and intelligent than that?
Pretending for a moment that illegal immigration is really a serious problem and that we need to stop it, why don't we just arrest and jail every U.S. employer who hires anyone not legally allowed to work here? I guarantee you that if the day manager of the local Denny's were to spend six months in prison, that Denny's would never have another illegal alien working the kitchen. I further guarantee you that if we actually did this, illegal immigration would dramatically slow down. That's because people won't come here if there isn't any work. But that's assuming that illegal immigration is a serious problem. And it isn't.
Nor is our open border a threat to national security. Putting up a fence isn't going to keep Al Qaeda out. We're talking about people who fly planes into buildings, I think they'll be able to hop a fence.
I swear to god, this country can't make a good decision to save its life. If we were presented with the choice of getting a blowjob from Halle Berry or getting a blowjob from a rattlesnake, we'd be less than a minute away from needing a goddamn snakebite kit.
*Not very.
Back at work.
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Ah, well, it's better than living in the gutter. I took this job a month ago and tonight is the end of my fourth weekend here. After a month of weekends, I can honestly say it's everything I walked away from when I left my last job. The difference between then and now is that I knew going into this that it would suck. Besides, it's a temp gig. My employers don't know that however, and I feel kind of bad about that. Based solely on their behavior, they really like me and have gone out of their way to make me happy. Well...sort of. They've gone as far out of their way as they can go without actually paying well. And the benefits are a fucking joke; shit medical and zero retirement. But then, the benefits don't really matter to me since I don't plan on being here long enough to make use of them.
When I left my last job, I swore I would never again work in the exciting world of small business. Small business is dumb. I used to put small business up on a pedestal as something we should all actively support, but I can honestly say that I've had a complete change of heart on that matter. There are, of course, plenty of small businesses we should all support, but those would be the small businesses run by people who have their shit together, and how many of those are there, really?
For example: Everyone knows that Starbucks is the devil and that you shouldn't support them because they've put hundreds, if not thousands of independently owned and operated coffee houses out of business and have homogenized that entire industry. That goes without saying.
Howard and I hang out every Thursday night at this small, independently owned and operated coffee house in San Dimas. Three cheers for us, we support small business. We're there damn near every Thursday night until closing, which is 11:00. Unless it's 11:30. Or 10:45. And every time Howard orders a coffee drink, he has to wait five minutes or more to get it, even if his is the only drink they have to make right then. And steaming milk is apparently beyond their capability. They can sure as fuck boil it though (that's a fun surprise!). Is any of this reason enough not to go there? Not really, not for us anyway. It's still a cool little hang out as well as a convenient meeting place. But it's certainly reason enough not to put them up on a pedestal as something we should all support. In this case, the fact that they're a small business only means that they don't know how to run a coffee house. Oh and I'll bet a thousand dollars that they don't offer health benefits to their employees. Starbucks does. Even to their part timers. Interesting, no?
That was a lot of words to communicate my feeling that (most, not all) small business can go fuck itself. Then again, what else am I gonna do this time of night? Where the hell was I? Oh right. So I swore I'd never go back to work for a small business. Not full time anyway, I've worked at plenty of small businesses in the last year and a half but that was as a consultant. And during that year and a half, I looked at and applied to a lot of different jobs, most of them corporate. I could probably write three or four pages just on how fun it is to look for work, but I'll save that for later. The point is, at the end of all that I wound up getting (they say I'm hired but I won't believe it till I'm actually in one of their training classes) this job at Verizon. This is funny as hell because I fucking hate Verizon. The only question is will I hate them more or less if I go to work for them? I'll be sure to let you know.
So until they have a training class scheduled and, more importantly, until I'm actually in one...here I sit. For a little while, anyway. If I find out they don't have another class scheduled till sometime in the fall then I just might go work at a Starbucks.
It's 6:00 on a Sunday morning and instead of asleep in bed with my wife, I'm back at the office transcribing the adventures of the mentally retarded. The window in my office is open and I can hear a couple guys going thru the dumpsters out back, looking for treasure. They're laughing at some joke that I'm sure isn't actually funny but, regardless, I want to set them on fire for having a better time than I am.
It's that sort of exaggerated self-importance that we're supposed to outgrow when we become adults isn't it? Then again, I've never claimed maturity as one of my strengths. The truly mature don't snicker like little boys when they encounter someone with the last name of Pinkstaff. Officer Pinkstaff was investigating a sexual battery tonight. Whether he likes it or not, Officer Pinkstaff has become my own personal motivator / demon / totem. Or something like that. All I know is that from now on, whenever I get distracted away from doing the right thing (whatever that might be in any given moment), Officer Pinkstaff will be there, looking like one of The Village People on steroids and chasing after me. Officer Pinkstaff has a PR-24 where his penis is supposed to be and he thinks fuck-ups are sexy little bitches. Officer Pinkstaff is The Cock Of Discipline and you do not want to be on his bad side.
Fuck you, it's 6:00am, I can say what I want.
Random thought for the day: It occurred to me earlier this evening that the product name "Walkie Talkie" is actually pretty gay.
It is 3:30 in the morning. I am sitting at my desk at what had fucking better be a short term temp job. I've had this job for three weeks now and I just got my first paycheck. I want to travel back in time to 1986 and give it to myself just to see the 17 year old me go apeshit over how much fucking money it is. The 17 year old me could buy an entire run of Marvel Team Up with that kinda money.
When I took this job I said to myself, "Well at least it'll buy you the crown you need for that half a tooth in the back of your head." If I don't spend any of the money from the paycheck I just received, I'll be able to buy that crown when I combine it with my next paycheck in two weeks. And after I'm done paying for that crown I'll be able to buy a tank of gas and maybe, if gas prices don't increase too horribly in the next couple weeks, I can buy a burger on top of that. Crowns cost about $800...you can do the rest of the math yourself, I'll just wind up quitting if I spend any more time thinking about it.
So you can see why I'd rather go back twenty years where the money would make every high school dream come true.
The saddest part is that the highlight of my night tonight was taking dictation from a guy named Officer Pinkstaff. I swear to god I'm not joking. There's a guy in this world named Andy Pinkstaff. And he gave me dictation.
If you really loved me, you'd break every bone in my hands the next time you saw me.
This, then, is the bold new look. Not so bold. Not so new.
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