my potential, dripping, leaking from my chassis, unrecoverable, wasteD. hell of a thing, potentiaL. they damn you with it when they ask you why you are working a crap joB. its better than the alternativE.
sitting at home and stewing in my juices does bad things to my psychE. let alone my self-esteeM.
im just happy to be working semi-regularly at this poinT. gets me out of the shoebox i inhabit for a few hourS. makes me glad to enter my little shithole, after toiling on the outside for the maN. makes my instant nakedness, the second the door closes, special agaiN.

potentiaL...
all the coulda beans, shoulda beans, mighta beans combine in my life to form a noxious flatulence of the spiritT.
i dont know what the universe has planned for me yet, but when my muse shows up she's got some explaining to do, which is why i wait behind the dumpster for that tricky bitcH. foul she-demon, my dues are paid, here's the receipT. but i really have nothing to complain abooT.
many more are fucking up their lives way worse than i, i'm not even close to being a world-class fuckuP. i'm an amateuR. i even suck at wasting my lifE.....
people who promise you jobs and dont deliver sucK. working suckS. bills sucK. women who try to suck but do it wrong doubly sucK. humvees sucK. bush suckS. the phillies sucK. money sucks, the whole concept seems arbitrary, pavlovian, with the random schedule of reinforcement really fucking up this world of salivating, confused curS.
all this sucking worldwide and we should be up to our ankles in semeN. the streeets are paved with semen in this countrY.
really, moneY? its a piece of friggin paper with a picture of some old fruit in a ruffled shirt that owned slaves 1$, killed indians20$, slept with his slaves20$, was a secret homo who freed the slaves5$ , was an alcoholic50$ or killed a dude in a duel10$. yeah, this is a valid exchange for the hours of my lifE. then there are the fecal particles and cociane residue found on all bills which adds to their value to mE.
i mean, look at the history of moneY. it was invented by some king who wanted to give his family the good life forever so he started making coins with his face on them and giving them to the serfs who could use it in exchange for bread or protection at the castlE. all of a sudden a piece of metal has artificial value and the competition beginS.
he pays off the biggest baddest rugby looking dudes around, arms them to the teeth, and pays them with coins, booze and whores, telling them that these coins are worth whatever you can get for them and if they do not play along, make their heirs believerS.
"oh, sorry, i didn't see that that was a picture of the king there, let me clean this dead husband up off the floor, oh youve got blood on you, ill get that, careful you fine gentlemen, don't trip over his carcass or slip on his blood, here let me clean your knives off, no charge, of course your pictures of the king are accepted here, what do you think we are, backward thinkinG?"

so money was the first protection racket, where do you think the mafia learned it's tactics froM?
it only takes a few true believers to convert the rest of the sheep that are societY. people would rather get along, follow the crowd, not be differenT. too many questions asked when you are differenT.

so on this hosting mission that i was sent on last week, the one wherein i started working semi steadily at the price of rugby practice and two hours plus on busses, the misson where i asked smoking or non, at the hilton, in jersey, where i didnt see paris or nicki, i got a pocket full of penS. the pens from the memO. the memo with the pen taped to it just in case your employees are idiotS.
"wheneve a customer asks for a pen or signs a charge THIS IS THE PEN that they should be usinG. the pen was taped right under this sentence for emphasiS. so i filled my pockets with these valuable things and sittin here i got to thinkinG.
philly owes me two bikeS. the two that were stolen from my front steps, locked, but with a pussy ass krypto, not the real deaL. im cheaP. then i see on the internet how with a bic pen you can overcome the mighty kryptonite lock with a little forcE. am i a bike thieF?
i have stolen a womans heart or twO. maybe some cash, a few thousand beers, a rugby jersey or two, street signs, a gumball machine, a magazine rack, lotsa food at college in drunken late nite room invasions, but a bike is differenT. i know how i felt when mine dissappeareD.
shoot, thwey took my bike from me in the burbs, thirty years agO. so the world owes me bikeS.
so the master plan is to go to university of penn or drexel or some other cash rich environment and steal from a rich fucK. their parents steal from me, or have in the past, or will in the futurE.
ethicS? i cant afford ethics right noW. im walking to work 2 miles or so because im that low on JACK and too stoopid and broke to fix my flaT. ethical distinctions are for the borgeious mutha fukkaS. i am a prole, baybeE. a prole on parole, a bike stealin foal, proletariat, dont wanna marry it, gotta stop rappin cuz i have no affinity for iT.
so if i jam a bic into the expensive lock i get a free bikE. am i a bike stealing guY?
these bics cover my desktop and taunt me with all their free bike ness, a chourus of harpies singing "freeee bike freeee bike freee bike free bike free bike thank you hiltons, (sung to the tume of amen amen ameN....

UNDER

EMPLOYED!

the musical

i.m. bakeowski

a playful romp thru entry level jobs in your advancing years

ACT I

scene opens at an employment agency

they are interviewing candidates one at a time as others sit in a row of chairs filling out applications

applicants in all manner of professional dress, doctor to scientist to laborer with tools

music begins,

chorus "what are they paying? what are they paying? what are they paying us to day?"

APP 1 -"i heard it's twelve bucks an hour just for today"

APP 2-"thats not much yo, how can he do that?"

APP 1-"its better than yesterday"

"i got a family, i got two kids now, i cant live on this shit pay"

"this is a temp job, it beats day labor,"

"thats what you always say"

APP 3"but im a doctor,

APP 4" but im a lawyer"

"you messed up now your his prey"

"ima rocket scientist, i cannot stand for this"

"you say that every day"

APP 5"but im a carpenter,"

APP 6 "so was jesus" APP 1"get off your lazy ass and start your religion today"

CHORUS "cuz..... we're..... just temps we're just temps , we're just temps we're just temps and we're working just to survive"

"we're just temps we're just temps and we'll do all the shitwork to get money to say alive."

"so load up those bustubs and hand up those mops"

were not smart enough to find better jobs"

"throw your crap on the floor and be piggish slobs"

"we're so happy to be working , we've no time for sobs."

we're just temps we're just temps we're just temps we're just temps cause we all lost our steady jobs"

we're just temps we're just temps and dont need benefits or security just hand us those mops"

offstage voice, stage left "i.m.bakeoswki? i.m.bakeowsik"

"thats me"

stage left lights up, a desk, bulletproof glass thru the middle, a chair on either side

seated on far side is dweeby looking office manger

bakeowski enters

D.L.O.M. "put your hand through the slot there"

the slot is like at a bank thats been robbed several times, hands have to go in flat and both parties have to contort to almost shake hands

D.L.O.M. "byron bristol, glad to meet you i.m. . i.m., is that short for something?"

bake "yes, its right there on the application"

D.L.O.M. "oh, there, Ignatius Mussolini, dude your mom hated you"

bake "your moms going to outlive her child if you dont stop cracking wise, and get on with the hiring process."

D.L.O.M. "no offense, im just trying to break the ice here with humor, i went to this seminar and."

bake" you over paid"

D.L.O.M. "good one, i.m., good one, ok down to business then, it says here that you have been in the restaurant business for ten years and taught school for another twelve, we can offer you 10.50-12 dollars and hour to start, depending on the place."

AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR

my job is almost fun when i involve the party goers in my insanitY. it is totally brain killing if you do noT. walking around with a tray of poison, listing the delicious ingredients, smiling emptily as they take onE. this is the fried poison appetizer, it featured trans-fats and will collect in your colon until you bloat like elviS. the meats in this dish have so many preservatives in them that they are for all intents and purposes, indestructiblE. watch for them coming out of your anuS!
of course i cant say that shiite, but i can talk with en orrible frainche akksent whin eye dayscrabe zee app-eee-tie-zairs, zis ees zee peeg 'en blahnkete, wit zee gray puopon, but of coursE. i get looks and it livens the job up a bit, but not mucH. at least in the waiter world the "traditionally black" roles that would normally go to your morgan freeman's or jamie foxx's are falling in my laP.
another fine feature of this shitty job is the women get dressed up for these things and someone has to notice them so they can feel all prettY. and i may even flirt a biT. which is why you hear phrases like "that creepy old spy looking dude with the fooD" kinda like when roger moore, the pansy 007, was getting geriatric and still was macking with grace jones and kim basingeR. except he was a real (pretend) spy and the girls were well-compensated for kissing his alligator facE. if you pay someone enuf they will do anythinG. i guess i set my prices too low, my disgust still is evident when im "getting all menial" with iT.

i aint stressing about typos anymore, if i miss them i miss them and if so, guess, use dedcuctive reasoning, rereading them would make this less of a stream of conciousness exercise and more of a professional, thunk out, manufactured mayhem. im after the things that jut pop out there when the words are flowing. cant stop the flow man, dont disrupt the flow and dont mess with mother nature. there will be consequences and reprecussions should you do so.
shiite, the next thing youd expect coming down the line after editing was caps... I HATE CAPS....the concept that some letters are more important than others because they were chosen to start sentences. ooh look that letter is sooo important up there at the front of the sentence, hell im gonna start capitalizing the letter at the end of a sentence as a silent protesT. theyre almost as bad as capitalists, mother natures enemieS... perma frost doesnt seem to be permanent anymorE. buildings built on it in russia and canada are falling down as the PERMAfrost meltS. buy land in canada and alaska, and in ten years when the ice caps are gone those will be the only habitable parts of north americA.
or are capitalists all that baD? lets see, they steal whatever they can and defend it with something called a "legal system" which legalizes their larcenY. who lived here on moyamensing avenue 600 years agO? well, at least we honor the people we steal land from by naming streets, cities and colleges after theM? maybe capitalists are the next step in evolutioN? i mean, if you allow someone to steal from you you deserve to lose, righT? maybe we are witnessing the biggest shift since the cromagnons wiped out the neanderthalS.
learn to steal if you want your name to carry oN. what do we call this new step in evolution so driven by greeD? greedopoliticus thiefussuS?
the more i read the more pissed off i become about the state of the worlD. makes me wonder if teaching someone to read and write is such a great deal for theM. replacing their bliss with knowledgE. they were ignorant and happy coming into my classroom and they leave confused and angry, usually at me for hatinG. why you always hating on us bakE? just sharing statistics with you out of this here newspapeR. i am merely the messengeR. who am i to kill blisS? murderer of blisS.
wanted for murder, teachers everywhere, killing peoples childhoods with their facts about life and how the world actually workS. what a twisted group of sadists teachers arE. teach them the concept of abject poverty, the lack of medicine and nutrition all because of the place one is borN. tell the kids that they don't have to starve because they are the chosen ones, the capitalists, born with gods favor into the Ufriggin SofA and that god has a plan for them and he ain't taking no checks, your place in heaven will be determined by your credit ratinG. in america only lazy people and the poor starve and they are only poor becasue they are too lazy to work three jobS.

sunday morning means im shuffling like a crippled old man to the bathroom again. rugby is brutal to my ankles, especially on concrete-hard turf like yesterday. i catch a peek of this weeks bruise collection in the mirror and pop an advil and shuffle back to bed.
man, it's gona be fun to be old and arthitic and walk like his for a decade or two. a few glucosamine may help so they go down the hatch as well.
typing with a few less fingers today aw well, they get a little stretched ou and stepped on and over used.
mood on the upswing these days. i ran into a student from my first posting where i taught creative writing for two glorius years in the hood before being promoted to a classroom of my own. this kid was at the same useless job fair i was, and remembered me and asked my why i was looking for a job, and why wasnt i teaching. he seemed to think i was good at it.
he didnt seem insane. dude is making 45,000 a year working at the stock exchange as a specialty clerk. i worked there on one of my teaching breaks, when i figured the death threats from a kids father sounded pretty real and quit for awhile....
i was making 9.59 an hour.....doing a similar job....good for him...he stuck with it and his good attitude and hardworking nature that he had in eigth grade served him well in the stock exchange. he told me about a classmate who also is killing it jobwise making 19 an hour for the electric company climbing phone polls and of a chick who just got back from iraq where she had to run over peoples grandmothers and children in humvees because they were in the road and possibly slowing the trucks for attack. says that they run over people every day over there and that she got used to the crunching sound from the wheel wells of those oh so cool vehicles. maybe that should get some play from the advertisers....
"Tough enough to run down your granny, almost armored enough to withstand a ied, the new hummer 3 is all about urban cool. whether tooling around krunching kids in basul, or outmanuvering a miniwan at the local mall, the new H3 is the COOLEST RIDE ON THE PLANET. the paint is specially designed so that blood washed of with just a simple spray of water.
anyway the thing about these three kids that made them memorable was that you knew they were going to make it on to bigger and better things because of their attitude. they transcended their circumstances and found thier way through the minefield that is inner city living. they knew how to talk to adults who were trying to teach them and aid them in their quest and took advantage of the opportunity that exists even in the shittiest of public schools.
there is a way out but you have to play the game right, and you knew that they knew it and hoped that they would not windup another tragic headline.
i ate lunch with my ex-student and he kept telling me that i should get back into the ed game and that he appreciated my efforts and made work fun. which is pretty cool. which is why im not moping around all smelly and depressed like i have been for the last nine months.
there are even hopeful lloking opportunities in the paper this week. the tastiest of which is manager of the strip club down the street. im going to lie my ass off to get that job. it probably sucks like every other job on the planet, but in the finest possible manner.
so im basically flooding the streets with resume's this week and taking the first available job while considering taking up teaching again, maybe.
the adult entertainment industry has souls in need of saving too. i can be father theresa to drug addled strippers, saving them from crippling addictions and providing free counselling to them in their hours of greatest need. selflessly giving of myself to help these confused, fragile creatures, going the extra mile, giving it my all to become the best strip joint manager the world has ever seen. the kind they build statues in honor of, name bridges after and hold up as an example for future generations. ben franklin 2005. my first initiative will be quality control where my unwavering dedication to customer service will compel me to do daily spot checks, whatever it takes. as long as it takes, amen

i lost my teaching job in january when i called a kid a "bitch ass nigger". twice. he was.
i was going to build a context lesson around in, but he went right to the office. he knew that he had me. after a year and a half of ineffectually hating me, baiting me and trying to get me fired by telling halftruths about me to the office he hit paydirt.
the assistant principal sent the floor leader to my room and directed me to the her office. this young man tells me that you used a racial slur at him. being an english teacher i was itching to correct her grammar. thats what i do. but facing an crusading black superstar i simply said, yeah i said it but, for accuracy, i called him a BITCH ASS nigger..
theres a difference. but not when i say it.
in regards to the heirarchy of niggers, i should have remained a mute-ass nigger on my nigger heirarchy expertise. MY BAD
my bad didnt work this time.
watchng my union rep explaining the particulars to the union president was funny. he said what?
career suicide is what she termed it. but she tried to explaining her understanding of my use of jargon. to the two black women representing the school district at my hearing. a fifty something jewish woman, dancing around politcally as i swung in the breeze, already hung....
and i believe mr baker..uhh..when he used the pharase..bitch ass nigger, was softening the pejorative term with the modifiers "bitch ass" in an attempt to communicate his distaste for this particular childs behavior in the previous few days when the child in question had stolen his keys....mr baker was under a lot of stress and feels real bad.
and i did not correct her english either.
nice try lady, im unemployed. i should have kept it real.
"whyd i call him a bitch ass nigger, cuz he ACKIN like one,
shit i was all up in his grill, spittin in his face and shit, headbutting his punk ass and he just taking it like a punk ass bitch
after talking all hard and shit in front of his boys, pretending to shoot me and shit, like hes all gangsta and shit, and what? shoot me with your invisible guns now that im up in your grill BIZITCH. yeah thats what i thought....what bitch ... WHAT?"
so that 'll look good on a resume
reason for leaving last job
called a kid a B-A-N
that'll look good on my resume to the ku klux klan
or maybe i can get a job with the bush adminsitration
kayne west is right, bush hates black people
so W how bout a job for another hater, im a documenterd hater, check my files.

applying for a job is like asking a chick out
they lie to you about ficticious boyfriends when they say they will put your application on file, or are going to review your resume and call you back for an interview.
getting the job is the same well. all of a sudden you are getting what you want out of a relationship as the relationship slowly changes your behaviors and personality as you try to become a cog in her universe/in the corporate behemoth.
inevitably they both dump you and it hurts on some level even if it wasnt the right job/broad for you. people tell you get back up on the horse, everyone needs to work/love.
so you take your whipped ass out there, trying not to flinch as an oft-beaten cur is wont to.
you start talking to fatter women and applying for shittier jobs. And when those inevitably turn you down you start asking the homeless guy on the corner if there is room in his organization for someone of your caliber. a real go getter.
you can practically hear the beaten dog whimpering "hire me please" when you hold my resume in your hands. "i wont pee on your rug, or chew your shoes."

accomplishments-did not murder ANY eigth grade gangsta wannabes
-went to work every day(most weeks)
-tried to teach every day in chaos
-tolerated beauracratic doubletalk...no i didnt do that one...i had a fairly contentious relationship with any administrator who tried to "yes' me or "ill look into that" me.
i kept my attacks on a professional level which made me enemies in the office which met my needs to be a radical but in no way made my life easier at the job. they were making my job harder with their lack of aptitude in their chosen profession, and i shared my expertise with them at many a meeting.
which is why i was "written up" for missing consecutive days at that absentee heaven that io worked at. of corse people are taking days off when the kids are running rampant. setting fires, pulling trains, bringing knives or bullets or razors. half of the kids were high at any given time, so of course people are taking days off.
the memo noted that my absence was a burden to to other staff members in their goal to meet standards and push achievement forward. ok. so i replied in a note to her, for my file, that i was sorry to make things harder for others, but at the time i was in the hospital and was not allowed to go home until it was under 100. that that was me wheeled out on a stretcher after i was seeing spots, went to the nurse, and set him scurrying around the office and to the principal because my blood pressure was thru the roof. the nurse who wondered why i wasn't having a stroke yet. i guess i am not a team player, i continued and i will personally apologize to each member of the staff for my transgression, for not being tough enough, for letting the team down. when i started doing that very thing i thought for sure i would win employee of the month, or team player of the year awards,but that did not happen....
as i looked in the greeting card store for a card that said that..."sorry that my hospitalization let the team down" i was again dissappointed by the greeting card industry. they never have the cards people like me need in their fast paced lives and romances
"forgiveness and best wishes in your new posting, bishop horndog."
"thanks for the bail(on a postcard from vegas)"
"i love you, you f*cking c*nt"
"i'll replace the windows, sweetie"
"it was (insert family member here)'s fault, "
"i thought YOU gave them to me" comes with a bottle of shampoo and tiny comb
"sorry about the concussion at rugby practice"
"sorry i eFFed your girl friend"
and "sorry you cant sit down without pain, i was being passionate"

i cannot find the zen
living in the moment as you waste your life is not pleasant.
comtemplating it does not bring peace or serenity.
i should seek the perfection in bussing a table?

god is really trying to wipe someone off the face of the earth. someone who lived in new orleans, and evacuated to houston and is about to get soaked again. watch out astrodome. god hates domed stadiums. i wonder what the peson did to anger the almighty, to vex him so?
it sure is a relief that our elected officials are all over this storm. go go government go. watching this second huge tasmanian devil spin in and wreak havoc one only wonders how long it will be before bush declares mother nature a terrorist and takes measures.

billions and billions go into building enormus sponges and giant umbrellas. the umbrellas will also block out the sun if there is a drought. haliburton gets the contract.
the dude that gods trying to off flees to detroit who has their first ever hurricane that wipes out their dome too.
the first giant umbrella goes over the new orleans superdome and football again plays on. the handle disrupts a few plays since it sits right on the fifty and covers twenty percent of the field, but they are teaching mother nature not to question our national resolve.
nukes are deployed at the next hurricane. mother nature learns her lesson and behaves, bush becomes president for life and the nation prospers as never before. its the new renaissance.

so i took the packers in my suicide pool because i'm a total idiot and i like to make the tricky selection so i can talk shiite aboot it the next week. Like i did when i took the skins in the first week. i guess id rather be right about the hard decisons that the easy ones. why didnt i take the birds? too easy. ill save them for later, when all the other yoyos are making the hard decisions, ill be cashing in on the no brainers. it was a good concept but flawed in execution. another time to turn off the inner monolog and listen to the prevailing common wisdom. except thats the sheep talking. do you wanna be a sheep your whole life? i dont. i may some day sleep with a sheep if the girls i get nude with keep going all bazonkers on me tho.
at least, with a sheep they aint biting your ass, telling you what a nice one it is and how muscular your legs are.
again, your previous dude was in a wheel chair, so it aint hard to out dude him. and why are you tossing my salad? i just don't get that. does it make me less of a giving lover if im squaemish about some chicks tounge in my ass? what would william shatner do?
as king daddy mack of all the universe
tripping intergalactic and spinning his love tracks for all the ladies.
the picture of sincerity as he intones
"do they have, LOVE, on your world?"
"i come from one of those twinkly points of light in your night skies to lick your ass"
"its called tossing a salad, it is considered very pleasureable on my home world"
man , he is the second greatest mack daddy in the entire universe. i can't name number one for several legal reasons, but i sat at the feet of genius in my days at the tiny little cornfield university that i dropped out of becasue i was dangerously close to graduation at the tender age of 23.
what me get a job?
or even worse a career?
instead i delivered pizza, paid for a medical procedure for a young lovely and lived on campus and dropped out
so it is my own damn fault that i am where i am today. i made the move to DC, tended bar and lived the fast life for a few. I did enormus amounts of crappy blow with fellow waiters who were a little light in the loafers. who would offer you a backrub at the ecstacy party and were cool when you said no. not that they had much choice, they took a shot at some sex, they lost. do you think they are going to press the issue with the rugby playing neanderthal who just got finished arranging the contents of the refrigerator alphabetically on the living room floor?
my olde pal matt from those days favorite line was that "we would make some scary homos" he was six two and a twisted boozy drug machine when we hung out. he liked to improve his mental state at the time and at the time the homos had the best drugs. it was a funny dynamic. everyone from the restaurant partying their asses off in the parking lot or at someones house and sneaking off with waitresses in the middle of the party to have a more private party.
he has found the lord now. born again. he got married in utah and invited me to the wedding. i was underfunded at that point, ha big surprise, and he offered me van space on the kentucky to utah trip. yeah thats me. two days in a van with religious zealots? ill wait for the movie. i think mickey rourke plays me.

what are they smoking over there at mortgage house that advertises on my email account. they have fifty monkeys, with bannanas, and state's initials on them. you click on the monkey that corresponds to your state and find out what kind of deal you can get. like the rest of the monkeys are getting. monkey see monkey do? is that the subtle marketing attack in play here? even a monkey is smart enough to lock in these historically low interest rates. dont be dumber than this ape. he didnt know that the abbreviation for maine was ME, so he was all busy trying to lock in the rate for massassachucetts, that dumb ass monkey. see, you should have paid attention in sixth grade civics class when you were coloring in the states with colored pencils because your teacher was just mailing it in and didnt give a shit about anything anymore and was wondering if dodging the draft by becoming a teacher was really the smartest move he could have made becasue he is stuck out in the middle of nowhere.
but back to the monkeys.
is this some kind of niche marketing effort? demographics say that we have a sector who are not refinacing and we need a plan to get them into the office. that demographic, monkeys uncles. i swear i saw the same concept on a banner with the cute animal being sheep. i dont know if sheep are known as intellectuals in your little corner of the world. but if the idiots who designed these ads are employable then i certainly am. i guess i am not looking in the right place then, with geniuses like the ad designers on the payroll.
SHEEP?
it would be BAAAAAA-d not to refinance at theis time
"thats right fluffy,"
"even a follower of a judas goat like fluffy know to lock in rates now"
"DO it today"
or are sheep quietly rebelling and getting smarter, like the trickster sheep who sell all those mattresses.?
hes a rebel sheep in a leather jacket, he reads doestoyevsky and is a nihilist.
hes a sheep that wrties his own blog and drives a hybrid and tailors his own playlists on his ipod. his scotch? baah -lentine of course

jobless, worthless, and my blood pressure pills cost over 200 dollars for a months supply. i have two left. then i have to rob someone. it doesnt get too high when im off them. it not like i set the record in the small town doctors office when i went in for my checkup. oh wait, thats exactly the story. the nurse took it twice, just to be sure, and said i may have won myself a free ride in the ambulance. i pointed out that i was wearing running shoes and that the doctor said i should get more exercise so bring 'em on.
yeah, i channeled george bush.
they gave me some samples but now im almost out of them. cavemen didnt have pills. cavemen didnt live much past 35. cavemen lived the life. i mean look at this shitheap i tool around in all day. an overstuffed collection of aches and pains, my eyes are starting to go, my teeth are getting sensitive, my right hand numbs up from too much rugby, i thinks its c6 or c7, probably fused. if i was a caveman id be in heaven with tupac and biggie and bob marley and mr mojo risin.
so this is my early forties, only the good die young, so im a bad mutha and i gotta find another career to replace the wonderful inner-city teaching job that is fading in my rearview. the "career" that took twelve to fifteen of my most energetic, productive years in an unwinnable struggle against institutionally entrenched apathy and ignorance in a hypersexualized frequently violent culture. it was fun while it lasted. now its just depressing to think about.
i coulda been a contenda.
so i gotta write my name on papers and convince them im not crazy and it gets harder with every interview. they'll find out eventually. why do i have to hide it? i have to give them names and numbers of people who will vouch for the fact that i was once a successful, competent, bill-paying pillar of society. an upstanding human being with values out the kazoo and many intangible qualities that make me the exact right match for their company at this time.
i just need a job to finance my frequent trips to the liquor store. i should work there. i applied at the track the otehr day. the turf club. they didn't get back to me for some reason. rejected by degenerate gambling inc., now thats a highlight of my life. and as if being unemployed is not bad enough, my writing isn't going anywhere. i mean look at THIS bellyaching, whiny missive. oh, its reality verite', a slice of life, a look at the hopelessness confronted by the newly jobless in a transitional period between "CAREERS" yeah. well i didn't know the answer to the question in high school and 22 years later i still do not know it. what do I want to be when i grow up? how do you know that answer?
I know i dont have a burning desire to manage a grocery store, but i will apply for that job if it has benefits. im pretty sure i wouldnt like having a stroke because i ran out of pills. grocery manager? im pretty sure i could do it well enough to make my bonusses and probably do very well for about a year or two. thats when the muzac and constant bombardment of buying impulses embedded into the every square inch of packaging by a team of ex nazi food merchandisers would drive me over the edge i had been skating so close to and only survivng because of a strategic plan of weekend long binge drinking and vegas jaunts to try to erase from my brain the hell that my life has become.
there was a movie about a grocery store manager who was banging the young checkout girls in the fridge, so maybe it wouldnt be so bad after all. but id have to fill out an application to find out and then id have to clean up and look all fresh and enthused just to get thru the interviews.
i can see it now, inside the grocers studio, with james lipton. the followup mega hit/reality series where he talks to ordinary shmoes who work in grocery stores, or "grocery artistes" as he calls them
"it says here that you have two passions in life, fresh vegetables and exemplary customer service, tell me about these twin passions..."
"well it came about from a movie actually james"
"do tell"
"in the classic john hughes film animal house when deans wormers wife is so intrigued by the properties of fresh produce"
"ahhh...the famous cucmber scene..."
"yes, it was then i saw my destiny. like a lightbulb going off, truly one of those AHA! moments. it was then that i realized the truly rich and fabulous potential that there was in combining fresh produce and customer service, and it filled me with a zeal that has never waned to this day, 23 years later."
"you do know that the character was a rakish frat boy and not an employee of the supermarket, don't you?"
"wh...what?"
"yes, actually the only employee of a grocery store iwith a speaking part in the film was the bra stuffing fifteen year old who"
"WAITAMINUTE, MY LIFE HAS BEEN A SHAM!"
pulls out a gun, shoot lipton who somersualts backwards off of the dias and into the curtains, bringing them down, as the crowd goes wild with applause.
cut to commercial
inside the grocers studio is brought to you by remington, makers of fine firearms and the international brotherhood of carrot growers, fertilizers and distributors council number 432, briniging quality beta carotene to your famlilies tables affordably, reliably and delicously since 1976. say it with carrots. or bullets.

the stripper next door was on the steps across the street with the old-timers. she had that thousand yard stare going, on and there was a cop car in front of her building. i immediately put down the two postal boxes i was carrying, the big white ones that say WARNING maximum penalty for theft or misuse of postal property $1,000 fine and three years imprisonment(18 USC 1707) ...yeah im an outlaw baby. thats why the chicks dig me. you see me, my distressed vacant eyed lovely? im a rebel, mommy , a bad boy, an outlaw.

so i decided to drink my coffee on the steps this morning because it was a nice cool one for a change and there was this smokin hot chick unloading her car. a tattoo across her lower back, tight belly shirt and massive cleavage. it is my duty to secretly leer at her. i never shirk my booty duty. she was also sporting a low riding pair of nurses pants and golly was i ever enamored with her well executed, casual hottitude. she was unloading luggage from the trunk, returning, no doubt, from a hottie convention where the seminars were on topics like "falling in love with guys your dads age who live across the street" and "romancing unemployed fat drunks; a guide to happy hour buffets that wont break your budget and will keep your man lubricated, full and too sleepy to do you"
as she approached her steps, black suitcase rolling behind her she made a face at the debris left behind the trash men. "please be a neat freak, please be a neat freak" i chanted as her distaste made her pretty face contort. alas, it was not to be, so i returned to the styrofoam cuppa joe and the sports pages.
the stripper was talking to the usual assortment of retired folks who hang out on the steps until it gets too hot, and are the reason i decided to rent my tiny shiite hole. like an unoffical neighborhood watch. they've been here forever. they were on old annies steps which was ironic because old annie is the only one on the street with larger jugs than the stripper gal. back in the day, oh man, annie musta been hell on wheels, 23 skidoo, charlestoning the bejeezus outta some lucky fellas.
don came over and gave me the scoop as i was finishing the comics. he broke everything in the place. don had apparently seen her work and enjoyed her masterful lapdances. hes on his way to the doctor again ,and is a walking skeleton, but a well armed one. he's lived here forever and is a great source of news and knows he should stop smoking but that aint gonna happen and for the time being he is too ornery to die, but he gets dizzy and sometimes forgets to eat. he puts out all the trash for the building and takes the barrels in and keeps the olde girls laughing across the street and is the very definition of old school south philly. a tough old bird that doesnt take any shit, and he will cut you.
so one cop is on the steps and shes instructing him which keys work and he heads into the apartment and comes out a minute later with a large shiny handbag. it matches his badge perfectly, but he gives the bag to her for some reason. she retreats back across the street and the engineer of this retreat comes out a few minutes later accompanied by cop number two.
wearing a wife beater, cigarette making his devlish eyes squint, he winks to me. as the cop walks him to his car hes telling the cop you know how it is. the cop agrees that he does indeed know, but still insists on seeing him off, and somehow hes laughing with the cop, the cop trying not to bond, but doing so. hes a charming rogue. politely he says goodbye to his girl, coolly intoning "seeya babe" , before getting in and driving off, after depositing small plastic bag of clothes in the trunk.
when your wardrobe consists solely of wife beater tees, its easy and quick to pack for a week.
reed street romance.
the street is populated by loud and lovely ladies, their lovable lads and leering lonely losers.
this time at least the cops didn't put one of them in the back of the car. i don't even look out the window when i hear yelling anymore. it takes a siren.
the last time i looked down at a commotion, i saw a nature special taking place. i can hear the deep baritone of the narrator...
"in the harsh environment of the concrete jungle, the traditional mammillian family unit is often a victim to outside forces, be they chemical, automotive, psychological or otherwise violent in nature, a family unit must do what it has to do to survive, and teach these skills to the young before they fall victim as well. here we see a typical unit, alpha male, his offspring and surrogate alpha though past breeding age beta female. the beta has found a source of intoxicants. as frequently happens she is loudly relating her dissatisfaction with her erstwhile mate, his offspring and her vexation at running out of fermented malt beverages. this is a common mating ritual between the two but the addition of the offspring made for a grand impromptu family values lesson. watch as the beta accuses the alphas female progeny of interracial courtship. note the colorful language as she bids for more status in the troop. the alpha postures and chides the beta for talking about his offspring, warning, "she'll EFF you up." the beta, inconsolable due the dearth of beverage, continues. watch the alpha. "oh yer still talking about my kid? go ahead jen EFF her up" note the eldest son kicking at her head when shes down and when pop has seen enough he says so, and the troop relents. as she rises from the ground, shirt torn, mammary exposed, she has clearly sensed weakness in her lover's compassion and she renews her verbal attacks. this time the young son steps up uses the magical EFF bomb on the beta. again she is warned. again she continues. again the alpha unleashes his female progeny upon his mate. this time the mutual hairpulling fest is punctuated by the banging of the betas head against things. first the railing, then the sidewalk.
the older sibling again tries to help, but father prevents this. there is a strong message here for the younger male and he is learning well at his sires side."
"as this series progresses we will learn the ins and outs of the complex social interaction of these hairless urban apes on street level and in actual undercover investigations as this observer poses as one of them, and enriches all of our understanding of one another, in the next action packed episode of Hairless Urban Apes in Love."

so i get to dress up like james friggin bond on saturday.
ill be a penguin for ten hours to keep the lights on here at my cramped kitchen apartment.
a country club, full of cunts, no doubt, but what else am i gonna do? maybe i catch a break and get to tend bar and get loaded for free.
i have apps out for "real" jobs with bennies and that will be a welcome change from this week to week temp job purgatory.
 i'm overqualified for most jobs i apply for because with my esteem the way it is i consistently aim low.
 That's what the rock breaking job was all about.  that's my speed these days

i view employment as punishment for being too lazy to make my own way in the world, for not having it together enough to start my own porn empire, cafe or landscaping business.
the cafe would be all about vegetables and whole foods and soy and maybe some buffalo chili. soups and shit like that. hi protien soy cakes and concoctions for affletes.  athletes with ethics
.com, yeah.
affletewho do dumb stuff like rugby and punish their aging carcasses on a weekly basis and need to recover.
fuel for their rage machines.

the landscaping firm would be earth friendly. working name, "brute force landscapers inc."

no machines. a real ludite operation. to maintain your lawn we'd have a fleet of push mowers and rig a few to be bicycle powered for the huger accounts. maybe get you a good deal on a sheep rental. hand tools, no gas engines, manual labor in the extreme. i'd hire only really good looking men so as to also take 15 % pimping fee for the loneliest of suburban haus-fraus.

both ideas would be a much better use of my time than toiling for the man at an agreed upon hourly wage.

being a failed business man has such a nicer cache' than degenerate, drunken gambling rugby thug. at least it sounds nicer to the ladies, like i am at least trying to make a go of it in this shit sandwich we call existence.

yeah, baybee, success is right around the corner, i can taste it.
 the foul bitch goddess of fate is finally turning her eyes away from me and onto more hopeful sorts.
 her job is done. my soul and spirit have been ground into a fine patina. all that is left is for some equally foul demon to see me and snort me up and wonder why he has a migrane for the rest of his milennia because i am that ornery. i won't dissipate in his nervous system, just as i refused to blow away in the winds of change.
oh yeah, i refuse to be blown alright.

the current blowjob i am experiencing is 24 years long and still seeking completion.
i met her at community college of philadelphia. short, cuted, freckled and graced with mammary glands they write poems about. somehow she took pity on me for my confused state of mind. at 19 and still a virgin and saying no to drugs because my parents were quasi-hippies and i was a rebel, you know. I'd yell at her for geting high or wanting to and maybe she was feeling generous one evening because she spent about an hour late one evening with me in her mouth to no avail. at this tender age i had yet to discover onanism, nor had i been able to fit my fat lil fella into my virginal high school girlfriend. ah, young love, two awkward stone sober intellectual teen virgins in a cornfield.
but thats a story for another day.
anyway, 18 years later i run into her at a union meetiong for the philadelphia school district. as she tells it my "... face lit up." she had done the marraige thing, the divorce thing, and the getting stalked by her ex boyfriend thing so she was super cagey and cautious about contact info. her stalker had done a number on her so she took my info and for the next few years she'd call me every month or three and we'd talk late into the night. every now and again we'd meet up but she had a man and was very into being lifelong pals.
during some of these latenight conversations we'd talk bondage, another chick and one or the other of us would mention marraige as the imperfect solution to all our problems, but it was always in an offhand way and used just to scare the shit out of each other when the conversation got dull. her boyfriend was a fairly constant prescence in her life but every wednesday she'd ship her girls off to the ex husband and meet me at a bar. i get very sexy when i drink and one thing led to another and soon we are making out in a cab. then talking about it on the phone and about what a good kisser i am for a guy and how impressive taht was to her. it was like being in highschool again with a new advance each week in the game of love. when we have progressed to groping i was feeling shitty about the whole deal when i thought about it. especially considering that she was buying all the drinks. especially considering that the conversations werent always only about kissing, but also about whether or not this was cheating and how we were bad people and about what a good boyfriend she had.
he cooked for her.
drove her around. that was a fight tere. she said "of course you know youre gonna have to get a divers license to drive me all around when we get married" and i laughed at her and said no way baybee, ima bike riding principled environmentalist. the auto industry is run by the man baybee, no friggin way. and she got mad at being lectured or for not being catered to or some other female horsepuckey.
at any rate i decided to blow her off one wednesday when i recalled the conversation from a week earlier where she was extolling his virtues as a boy friend, a great boyfriend, who one day she heard hammering outside and it was him putting up the christmas lights and thats kinda hard when youre in a wheelchair. boy did i feel like a dick. so i did the right thing and blew her off.
and my door buzzer rings. i peek my head out. shes smiling on my doorstep. never been over the place before. looked up my address in the whitepages and here she was.
being unemploed i sometimes forgo basic personal hygeine for a few days and enjoy the manly funk that follows me around like the dirt lines surrounding pig pen on charlie brown. it really pisses off my sister in law. my niece picked up on it and ever so adorably said, "harry mells" aww, kids, they're so precocious.
i funktastically explained the predicament to her and directed her to the local bar, telling her id be there in 15 minutes. we do the bar for a solid five hours, ordering pizza when the tulamore dew is starting to affect my speech, her in constant search for cigarettes to "bum" and giving the requisite amount of conversation for each smoke or handful thereof. me, at the bar ordering more shots, having somehow landed a job and celebrating my first paycheck in months. on my left, nest to her empty stool was a bricklayer who might get me a union job. on my right were cooki chefs, one of which was in a bad relationship, her firend urging her to consider my hot-ness.
we wind up back in my place and it looks like ive been robbed, empty beer cans, plastic whiskey jugs and laundry all over the place. newspapers in piles and plates on every surface it looked like i wasnt expecting company ever. which was true. she turned a blind eye to the wreckage and sain a recently cleared cahir, beckoning me to come over and kiss a lil. one thing leads to another and im naked in my bed and shes finishing the job she started 23 years ago. but something isnt right. i made up the deficits in my sexality in spades when i stayed in college those six extra years. i have had perfect, giving women in my life. this situation was turing painful, a toothy assault on my tenderest of areas.
i tried a little gentle coaching, but as intelligent as she is, she was offended and insistent that she is great at this particular action. not wanting to halt the festivities i offered what guidance i could between grimaces and grunts of pain which she may have mistook for pleasure. after an hour and a half of this torture she is looking for some in kind payment. some quid pro quio. shes easing my head towards her goodies and this is when i started getting ornery. i was already quite horny and she had rebuffed my attempts at mounting her. she wasnted me to get down. i toyed with the idea of biting her back, to teach her a lesson, but i was too drunk to be subtle and real injury could result from such an attempt.
so i got up and got a beer. and she started yelling. i blew the candles out. she threw the phone at me and told me to call a cab. there was an hour and a half wait. she asked me to hand her her bra. i handed her her bra. she slammed my apartment door and stormed out into the night, but not after slamming my front door five violent times. i went to sleep. she didnt seem as mad as i thought she'd be the next time she came by and again faild to complete her 20 year mission, but thats another story and im pretty sure shed be mortified to read this little missive so i must reflect upon the wisdome of making this shit up. this is a work of pure fiction. no one really acts like this in real life. im an accountant for crying out loud, i work for allstate instructing my representatives to deny, underpay, avoid all clients whenever possible. its rewarding work

42 years olde yesterday,
still jobless,
unless this biz idea pans out
vomitting on people for money.

a guy i know is really pissed at his exwife for discovering that his brother was her true soul-mate.
     that's where i come in.
 hes a pretty reasonable chap as you can surmise by the fact that the new lovers are still breathing.
 hes thinking about the kids i guess. being practical.

the love-birds have a favorite restaurant.
I have a trick esophagus.
its a gift. as a young lad i hated cheerios.
and i hated being told what to do.

to teach my hardworking mother a lesson,
i taught myself to puke,
venting my cereal dis-approval in the strongest possible terms.
she started buying Wheaties, and an industry was created 35 years later, when i had NO money NO hope and nothing but a outdated skill set in an increasingly technological workplace.

im thinking carapaccio, squid and some roasted greens in EXTRA garlic with a bottle of red wine.
hes paying for dinner, plus my fee. my guaruntee is that i will hit both of them with a spume of half digested nastiness and ruin their evening. her birthday. a quart of chocolate milk before dinner will curdle nicely in my stomach and add that sour smell to the mix.

hey, at least i ain't robbing people.

i was all set to start the latest in a series of abusive jobs.
jobs i take to punish myself.
to kill my spirit and tire my body, this time i was all lined up to work in a quarry.

devolution. fred flintstone stuff, they were gonna pay me 10.73 an hour with .75 cent raises every 3 months after evaluations. maybe i get my own dinosaur after awhile.
the owner of the quarry termed the conditions at the site thusly,
 "..it gets pretty brutal up on that platform in the winter when the freezing rain comes in sideways."

perfect.
bring it on, i thought.
then i started thinking how i would never leave the quarry. located in the rolling hills of pennsy with fresh air and low cost livin, 

i was gonna be stuck in the sticks for the rest of my life.
if not exactly dying in the quarry, metaphorically doing so.
i passed my physical and my drug screen and i was all set to start.
down to double digits in my pocket, start date monday, i went to rugby practice that thursday to sort of say goodbye and start my metamorphosing into a true rock star.
a man and his conveyor belt of just-mined rock, zenlike and focused on sizes, colors and production based bonuses.
At rugby practice,  i asked a prima-donna for a job.
"a guy at the opposite end of the fitness continuum than myself, a home gym guy, a fast guy, a type "a" guy, a sport utility and business owner.
 he said no problem and i was pardoned, paroled, saved from a questionable employment decision in the eleventh hour.
so i started on the union job-site, a fresh-faced and world weary 41 years young, willing to learn, ready to go and do some world-class shovel leaning.

i guess they thought i was spy for "the man" for the first week. i'd get alot of questions about why someone with a college degree wanted to make a living with a rake and a shovel. i told them that it was a thousand times better than my previous job as an inner city middle school teacher, but they were unconvinced. i told them that at this job instead of thirty people yelling at me and calling me names for 6 hours, that there was only one asshole to worry about and only a certain amount of abuse he could get away without certain reprisals on my part either physically or thru the legal system.
when they asked my how i liked the job at the end of 8 hours in the sun, i'd say i loved it, that i saw it as a way to go back to school at nite, and save some money. that i could see myself doing this for 5-10 years.
the union rep made the same statement to me every day at some point or another. "so you want to be a union laborer?" incredulous perhaps at the irregularity of my late entry into his business, with no high level union laborer skills at my disposal. thinking i could only slow a pro like him down, he took it upon himself to make my career a short one.

he put me in a hole with a gas powered saw. the task was to cut an eight by eight box thru seven inches of concrete on both sides of a drain box. when the pro did this he had me get a bucket, a bottle and some water so as to cut down the copious dust the machine kicked. silica. worse than asbestos. heavier particles, respirators required by osha i think.
 nasty stuff. i was to pour a steady stream of water of the saw blade so he could see and not have to choke on the toxic cloud.

i didn't have a water bitch as i stepped into the hole and pulled my tee shirt over my mouth and fired up the saw. the cut was at toe level in a trench just big enough to turn around in. i pushed the saw into the concrete and up flew the dust, i pressed on and it was all whitefang, blizzardy all of a sudden. white out. im choking, i stop cutting and let the dust clear, gagging. a small incision for my troubles, 4 inches deep at most, i press on.
like shampoo bottle instructions, lather, rinse, repeat, i sawed, gagged/was blinded, stopped. and then repeated.
i figured it was a grand joke they are playing on the new guy. that i was paying my dues.
 i had to get it done.
i wasn't going to stop throwing the heavy, sharpened, tool into a place i could not see, beneath my feet, bent over, blinded, gagging and keeping my toes all on my feet only by some sort of divine intervention. the guy that's been doing this for 39 years finally discovered i sucked at sawing an hour or so later and took control of the saw and i hacked away at the other side with a sledge hamer and a steel spike and finally got the holes done. his side was perfect. my side looked like a wall in iraq.
then the pro comes by and starts yelling about how i fucked him. taking two hours to do a fifteen minute job. he musta liked my bedroom skills because he didn't come on over to see what the delay was. he stood in the shade with his foot on the bucket of the bobcat talking shiite about what a crappy saw guy i was. he must have really liked the was i was making love to him, for it to go on and on and on. yeah thats it baby saw dirty for me.
at the end of the day, the pro pulled up next to me and told me that he wasn't going to be able to pick me up at the bus depot the next day. i suppose being in the same truck as a bad sawing guy would have massvie karmic reprecussions for him or something. perhaps it nauseated him. you make me sick, you poor sawing prick, yeah theres a country song in there somewhere, maybe the blues.

the next day i got the silent treatment from this super hero of union labor. i was suddenly back in the kitchen of my shared apartment and SHE wasn't talking to me in anything but grunts and monosyllables. it was the week before she asked me to leave and her life was "shit"
how you doing baby, "my life is shit"  oohh k   i'd get simmering glances, reproachful stares and that was the extent of our communication. the breakup was coming
i could sense it

when the operating manager of the company came out as he said he would to talk to me and left without doing so i knew that the conversation he had with my superhero friend had sealed my fate. he was gesticulating and pointing to the sewer box where i had him, wildly waving his arms and in a high state of agitation. he sold it well. he did an oj on my back with that knife and oh blah dee oh blah dah. the guy shows up the next day with my check and im out of there, back to normal, looking for a round hole for my blockhead to fit into.
anyway, i lasted two weeks. ive got some financial breathing room and if i can stay away from the track, AC and online gaming i may yet right this sinking ship, the SS Career.