Things look good in my insurance world (I was a touch worried) so I may have another car soon. And I finally got to see “Frisky Summer”. Johann Paulik gets fucked wearing his rollerblades. Love it; I’m thinking of blowing up a video capture to make all the “yuppie blader scum” really nervous.
No sooner do I return from Minneapolis and points midwest than I am treated to a visit from one of my oldest friends and closest soulmates (i.e. we laugh at the same stupid stuff and fibish each other’s sarcastic and ironic sentences…). I’ve known Duncan since we were idealistic young radio gods at WUAG in Greensboro, and we presided as Program Director (Duncan) and Music Director (me) during what some people — especially us — refer to as the “golden age” of the station. Duncan and Jeff (who visited earlier this summer) are just about the only two friends with whom I’ve kept in touch in uninterrupted fashion since 1982.
An expiring frequent flier ticket at an opportune moment brought Duncan to Planet SOMA for the first time. I learned of this visit while checking e-mail in Minneapolis. It made for a good end to a haevy tourist season; seems all my long lost friends decided this was the time to visit the City.
Duncan arrived midday on Wednesday, just as I was in the midst of my “I’m back from my vacation and I’m now sick” moments, as well as my “I’m back from my vacation and I hate my job more than ever” moment. I fear this kept my energy level down and I hope that I still managed to be an effective civic booster. Unfortunately, my web energy level was down too, having just completed the Minneapolis pages. But here goes:
Some highlights:
- We ate well, with excursions to Tad’s Steaks, Welcome Home, the Palace, the Tonga Room (with mutual pal Mark), Ma Ma Wa, and (of course) Jack in the Box.
- A few romps through the Planet SOMA hotspots, including Hole in the Wall, My Place, Sissybar at the Powerhouse, Tops and Bottoms at the Stud, and a rare visit to the Castro by your host. Duncan’s comment about My Place: “there are lots of attractive unemployed men there in the afternoon”.
- The “Full House” tour of postcard row (pictured below).
- The obligatory visit to the Marin Headlands and views of the Golden Gate Bridge (also pictured below).
- Duncan’s trip — with Dan — to places where they keep all the nature. I don’t know the way to these places.
- The circular escalators at San Francisco Centre, a strange fight on Muni at Castro Street Station, the traffic system at KRON-TV, Brainwash, lotsa pinball, and the dang cable cars.
- Maybe the best part: taking transit all the way to San Bruno in desperate need of a Sears, and running into my landlords as we pondered how to get back. We came back in the back of their truck, very cold and very illegal in California. Of course, my landlord is a cop, so he wasn’t tremendously worried about a ticket…
I’m not sure Duncan was completely infected with my love of the City, but I get the feeling he was pretty fond of it. The neighborhood bars seem to be in a major state of tediousness, which several friends have confirmed is not just my opinion. But I gotta say that Planet SOMA in its worst periods is better than most places at their best. I think it was a good trip; I enjoyed it at least, which is after all the most important part. It was good to see Duncan; I have this plan to expose all my best friends to San Francisco and then have them move here. It’ll save me a fortune on vacations.
Over seven years ago, I began my current career in cutomer service management (which followed my previous four-year career in customer service management). Things have gotten steadily worse over the years, especially now that I work in an atmosphere which caters to Financial District corporate slime.
I don’t understand these people. I don’t speak their language. I do not share their priorities. It has always been my belief that you get better results by being nice to people than by throwing attitude from your first encounter. I am completely unwilling to go out of my way for customers who are condescending and rude from the minute they walk in the door. Unfortunately, coprorate culture — especially in large cities — seems to have brainwashed its clones into beleiveing that rudeness is perveived as an efficient, assertive, and businesslike attitude. Rudeness gets results! Yeah, right…
Some recent highlights in my career: I’ve been called stupid by a for not having the psychic powers to decipher an order messengered to me with no instructions, told I was full of shit for following federal law, called sexist for waiting on a man who was in line in front of a woman, called racist for asking a gentleman who was not a customer but had been using the phone for an hour to let actual paying customers use it, and told to “fuck off” for not dropping all pending business to do the impossible immediately for a stockbroker swine.
Today, a woman threatened to sue me. This has happened before, when a job was not comlpleted on time for example. Lawyer-swine love to threaten “lowly” service employees with litigation, assuming we’re too damn stupid to know that (a) they have no case, and (b) our corporate lawyers can most likely kick their asses. This woman, however, threatened to sue me because I told her I’d call the police if she didn’t get out of my store and stop poking me in the face. Yuppies hate it when you remind them they’re breaking the law by physically assaulting you.
Work has been pretty exhausting, and my weekend started with an eleven hour sleep marathon last night. Serving the corporate clones is starting to drive me insane; one more run-in with a condescending stockbroker or lawyer is going to send me over the edge and it’ll be yuppie-kebobs for lunch. This week a customer threatened to sue us because he had to wait more than 2 minutes to pay. Another sleazoid got pissed because we wouldn’t spend fifteen bucks to messenger her ten dollar order to her. It’s a truly frightening thing that these stressed-out corporate stooges are pretty much in control of the country. Fortunately, I’m starting to have some nibbles on the new job search.
OK…enough on crappy customers. The purpose of this rant is to announce that after seven years and two months in my current job, I gave notice today. Granted, it was a long notice — over two months. And no, I don’t have another job lined up as yet. But there sometimes comes a point when you gotta get out, and that time has arrived for me. I really hate that I’ll no longer be seeing a group of people I really love on a daily basis; the people I work with are the absolute best. Hell, I even like my boss (imagine that…)
This is kinda big news; I have this tremendous fear of being unemployed and I’ve only had two full-time jobs in all of my adult life (I tend to hang on along time…) I think the company will survive without me and I’m pretty sure I’ll survive without the company. At any rate, I’ve developed a certain inner peace which is quite pleasing for me right now!
If you’re in need of a pretty nice guy who writes decent HTML and does OK with English too, let me know. I’m available soon.
I’m a bit of a slob, there’s no denying it. Housekeeping is not my forte. Probably never will be. My room is a mess comparable to that of the legendary Oscar Madison, clothes and papers everywhere, a few dishes scattered around, just a vaguely neurotic disarray surrounding me on all sides. Perhaps it’s the sign of a cluttered — if active — mind. Long ago, I reconciled myself to the fact that I’ll never live in an immaculate picture perfect house. It’s just not gonna happen.
Strange then that I’m so obsessively clean of body and that my work space (including the computer desktop) must be so stunningly and neatly organized or I go completely nuts. And that I empty ashtrays with an almost psychotic furor. Go figure…
Today’s lesson will be in part about ways to deal with a resident slob, or at least this particular one.
1. Sarcasm doesn’t work.
Or at least not in my case. My dad tried it when I was a kid (“Here…I’ll pick up that dish for you”, “It’s OK…I’ll put that towel in the hamper.”) Obviously it didn’t work. All it made me do was shoot the bird at him behind his back. I found out today that it still produces this reaction.
2. Sometimes guilt works.
Sulk around, looking exasperated at the mess. Occasionally pick up something. Be an “enabler”. With me, this usually results in a guilt-induced cleaning spree which would make June Cleaver proud.
3. Learn coping skills.
Despite our nature, slobs can usually meet you half way. we can keep our messes confined to a certain mutually agreed upon area. It won’t always work, but usually we’ll try to keep things in order as much as possible. sometimes we may let the mess linger, but we’re usually acutely aware of it and will have a sudden energy boost which will rectify the situation eventually.
OK, I got a bit pissed today when the roomie made a remark or two about things I left sitting out in the bathroom. He had every right to be mad, but by phrasing his complaint the way he did and then leaving before I could respond — probably a wise move — all he accomplished was adding to my already pissy mood. Most days I wouldn’t have let it bother me but today was not most days given my current collection of insecurities.
What? Yer Humble Host is not feeling on top of the world? What could be the problem in Mecca? Oh you know, the ususal mundane things like someone burning my car to a crisp, realizing (sometimes in horror) that I’ll be unemployed in two months, having a thing for someone who’s 2000 miles away, being (gasp) bored with fags in general and (bigger gasp) even slightly bored with the City. Today was a bit of a roller coaster ride; I usually keep a pretty positive frame of mind going, despite my cynicism. Today it went from pissed off to edgy to almost inexplicably bawling while walking around in Border’s. Strange…maybe it’s hormones…
Of course, just for effect, it was really cold and windy and gray today, but that’s usually a plus for me.
Ah, but I’m getting whiny. This must stop. Things are generally good, despite my vague unease with the planet. “The Simpsons” have returned for the fall, hits are up on the old web site, I got a very favorable comment on a “secret” picture of myself which lies within the confines of Planet SOMA (ego boosts are a good thing) from someone who didn’t even know it was me, I bought a cool Route 66 video tonight, and The Third Sex is playing in town on the 13th. By tomorrow, I’ll be thinking happy thoughts again. I promise.
But it’s a safe bet I’ll be absolutely no better at housekeeping.
The rainy season arrived this weekend. Specifically, it arrived as I was walking around Union Square Saturday morning without anything resembling a raincoat or an umbrella. Happens to me that way almost every year. The opening of the rainy season is a new West Coast ritual I’ve had to adjust to since being here. On the East Coast, of course, rain is something that happens on and off throughout the year. In California, it’s pretty much confined to a four-month period. And there’s always one thoroughly soggy, gray weekend which — although it may not be the first rain of the year — is always a dramatic introduction to the months to come.
You can always tell when this weekend hits by the volume of e-mail. Saturdays and Sundays are usually pretty low-volume for me, but this weekend I was flooded. When it’s raining in Internet Central, it shows.
As luck would have it, the beginning of the rainy season was accompanied by my first really nasty winter cold (thanks, Mr. “I’m Not Contagious”). It’s one of those really knockout ones; I feel like I’ve been run over by a freight train. I’m on my second day out of work and I’m BORED!! Aside from Lucille Ball in the remake of “Auntie Mame”, which I’m watching right now, TV has sucked. Even if I felt like leaving the house, I’d be worried that work would call the second I left (OK…not that worried…)
A few ideas for how to spend time home alone and sick:
- Make a Kleenex sculpture.
- Answer all the e-mail you’ve been avoiding like the plague.
- Start working your way through that Quark book, even though your “borrowed” copy of Quark has become corrupted, making it hard to follow along.
- Scan the Sunday paper for jobs you aren’t qualified for.
- Organize and catalog your pornography by fetish.
- Identify and label the stuff in the back of the refrigerator by species and creation date.
- Alka-Seltzer Plus cocktails at 10 and 3.
- Write another long essay about the nature of sex, love, and relationships. Or don’t, and save yourself lots of pointed questions…
It was most definitely a restful holiday. Much of that, unfortunately, had to do with the fact that I couldn’t drag my ass out of bed except for the few hours of the wonderful Thanksgiving feast Chez Rae (pictured) and Michael. I was planning to include pictures, but two things stopped me. First, my energy level didn’t allow me to do it. Second, I decided to take a holiday break from chronicling and preserving every aspect of life. So there.
Spending the holidays far from “home” has never been as disorienting or as unpleasant for me as it’s supposed to be. In four years in San Francisco, I’ve spent one Thanksgiving back in north Carolina and this year’s Christmas will be the first one I’ve spent there. By and large, I’ve had some pretty good holidays here. The big difference, of course, is that in the absence of a family, with whom you’re “supposed” to spend the holidays, you get to actually choose your companions. It’s pretty cool, actually. This is not to say that I don’t like my family. I’d just prefer, given the choice, to be with them at times other than the insane holiday season.
Anyway…today was a good Thanksgiving, spent mostly among disenfranchised Kinkoids. Food was great, company was good, and the football game was not the main focus of attention! The only problem was the nasty bronchitis which has overtaken my lungs and is doomed to make me a miserable whiny wretch throughout the holiday weekend. And I thought I just had a cold. Y’know, I thought strep was bad, but this bronchitis shit is the most unpleasant malady I think I’ve ever experienced. It’s made me damn near useless for almost two weeks now. Oh well…thank God(dess)(es) for Codeine.
I have decided that Friday will be the day that I become a functioning human being again. Wish me luck.
Just by way of an update, I’m almost over the nasty bronchitis thing, thanks to antibiotics, the inhaler, and codeine — the happy drug. I was really amazed at how many people wrote to ask how I was doing. It’s almost tempted me to believe that people are nice, which — given my experience with the public at Kinko’s — is hard for me to admit. Anyway, thanks a lot. It made me feel good to know people actually knew and cared.
So what’s up, you ask? Got a job yet? That answer would be “no”. I am starting to feel a little nervous, given that my current one ends in a couple of weeks. I find myself walking around saying “what the fuck am I thinking?” Of course, I then go back to work, have a couple of days like the last two, and realize that I’m not making a mistake.
Right now the plan calls for a few weeks in scenic North Carolina around Christmas, with side trips to Atlanta and maybe D.C. I suddenly realized the other night that for the first time in my life, there’s no real hurry to come back off a vacation and I can really take just about as much time as I want. kinda cool, actually. Plus mom and dad will feed me for free, and Jeff and Duncan can show me all the newest decadent hot spots in return for their Planet SOMA tours!
Seeing “Beavis and Butthead Do America” while in North Carolina holds a strange thrill for me somehow…Sorry, got sidetracked by a commercial.
May have a visit from Christopher some time this rainy season.
Had a very entertaining evening out and about with Rob (picture soon, I promise) last night. He’s coming along quite nicely, is passing most of the major “tests” (except the music quiz…Pet Shop Boys…bleccchh…) and he looks much younger than his 107 years too. And he has a room with a view…
On my mind in a major way lately: drugs.
I’m really getting tired of going out and seeing that my neighborhood local bars look like (unsuccessful) drug rehab centers. There’s always been a lot of speed South of Market, but it’s seemed a lot worse lately. At Hole in the Wall especially, the scene used to be about smoking pot and drinking to excess. Even though I stopped smoking pot about 1981 and don’t foresee returning to the habit anytime soon, I can understand these drugs. Pot heads may be annoying at times, and may show all the motivation of a coma victim (there are, I admit, exceptions), but at least they’re not doing major damage and killing themselves. Same for your average drinker, although excess in this area has its fatality factor too.
Now it’s all about speed and X (and heroin and even crack, to a lesser degree). A whole fashion culture is developing; it’s not hard to tell who’s dealing or tweaking even from a distance. And it really bugs the shit out of me that this whole scene is overtaking places I like to hang out. One of the main reasons I don’t do the dance club scene is to avoid this crowd (of course the fact that I don’t dance figures into it too…) and now I can’t even escape it in the corner bar.
Maybe I’m just more sensitive now that a few close friends have allowed their own addictions to render them homeless and essentially useless. Maybe I’ve just brought home one too many boys who couldn’t muster an erection if their lives depended on it and just want to sit around watching porn and calling the sex line at 4AM. Who knows?
I’ve always tried to let people do their own thing in peace as long as they (a) go outside to smoke pot, (b) shut up about it after the first time I say “no, I don’t want to join you” and (c) don’t allow their drug drama — including endless conversations about how good it is, how much it cost, and how much trouble it was to obtain — to impact my life in any way. But I’m now declaring Planet SOMA, the “little apartment that could” and all areas within a five-foot radius of my person a “tweaker free zone”. What this essentially means is that if you’re on the amphetamine train, stay away. Period. If you manage to get into my house, you’ll be asked to leave as soon as I clue in. I do not trust you. Actually, I may trust you, but I don’t trust your chemicals.
End drug rant.
I think it was originally supposed to be a surprise party and was originally just for me, but neither component quite happened. I had to be informed (in order to get me there) and Rae’s announcement that she too was leaving added to the festivities. Appropriately enough, it was held at Harrington’s on Front Street, our offcial “what a crappy day” bar. I had a few big realizations. The first was that I’m really going to miss seeing all these people on a daily basis because I’ve developed some real friendships here. The second is that my camcorder is not great in low-light situations.
The loot: Rae got a “classic disco” CD, as well as her very own copy of the “Macarena”. In a big rash of appropriateness, I received “Television’s Greatest Hits” and “Tube Tunes”. There was much food, much beer (thanks again, Clinton) and hours of good Christian fellowship, despite the fact that a fair number of us were pretty damned hungover from the Christmas party the night before. It was a very good thing.
On the coldest day of the year so far, I joined the ranks of the unemployed. Of course, there was no chance that it would be an easy day. Staffing was a tad short, due to vacations, training of the “replacement team”, etc., so I got a chance to alternate beteween moments of extreme stress and the perspective that — no matter what — this scene really had no further impact on my life. I closed out the voice mail, emptied out my folder on the network hard drive, and — as my last administrative duties — completed a review and promoted someone.
I did get the pleasure of one last run-in with an obnoxious yuppie shitbag. As I came into the confrontation, related to something which was about five minutes late, the rabid bitch was standing at the counter snapping her fingers yelling “Chop chop…let’s go. I want it now.” No matter what preceded it, this was tremendously inappropriate and unprofessional and I let her know that. Didn’t phase her or affect her exaggerated sense of self-importance, but it felt good…
There was a great cake and Sarah brought pastries. After about 2PM, I was essentially useless, except for Brendan’s review. Lots of last minute details and pass downs and quick hugs. I announced the promotion, started saying goodbye (a long process which began to get a bit teary), and by 4:15, it was all over. Rae and I punched out for the last time, and we were gone.
Once outside, it was so surreal. After all these years, I’m unemployed. All the stress was over and I wasn’t sure exactly where it went. The fact that we would no longer be seeing these people we both love dearly seemed very real. Rae and I just looked at each other with this sort of “what the fuck?” expression. I lit a cigarette. We went to the bank to get cash. We went straight to the corner bar. We began drinking. Things got better. Ray, Angela, and Mark eventually joined us. They felt better too.
Tomorrow is my first day of unemployment. I sense the unusual sensations are just beginning. If this is so strange, getting fired must be really weird…