I once was an Eskimo. I once dwelled in a cold world that was easily warmed by my aspirations and endless idealism. At one point in time I had reached up the World’s skirt and grabbed it by the balls as if I were in Lou Reed’s imagination.
I remember eating acid as if it were the Eucharist and I was attempting to get a white collar via the ceremonial exchanges of precipitation and perception on a missionary sabbatical from a rectory found so familiar and safe. The woods were all around and the children gaily sung and screamed and simply made asses of themselves for the glory of another’s glee. Youth is such a sexy thing that can only be touched once.
I have tripped on LSD well over a Euchre’s set and enjoyed almost every time. I have had liquid LSD dropped directly into my eyes. I have eaten tablets, paper squares, gel-tabs, micro-dots, sugar cubes, and just straight liquid. Many magical mystery tours have been had and each had their own presence and prowess upon my psyche.
My first experience was when I was 16 and I ate one hit of white blotter. A friend of mine was spending the night and we were going to dose and listen to music in my bedroom. We were in a band together and writing lyrics was a sidebar agenda. About 30 minutes after we dropped my mother asked if we could watch my three sisters (one of them was only a mere babe of one years old at the time) as she was going to go out. In order not to get busted we agreed and ended up watching Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ on the television in the living room. Such a silly film!
My second trip was by myself in my bedroom, floating around on my waterbed and seeing Hindu kaleidoscopes on the stalactite stucco ceiling. For years after that, I would see those swirling patterns of Vishnu and Ganesha on the ceiling. My companion was that of a phone call to a girl named Harmony French. She had corn silken strands of blond hair that fell completely straight down past her waist and she was earnestly a depot of lust for me all through High School. It was a simple night, until my Mom wanted to go out again and left me in the roll of the tripping babysitter. Ahhh, the trials of growing up.
I could go on and on about my trips. When I saw my hand melt from the fingertips down into pools of flesh in my palm that burst bubbles of skin back up into the air, only to pop into skin rain and re-form my fingertips. When I could not remember my name or who I was or where I was or why I was. When I ate so many mushrooms (an ounce in a day and a half) that I stopped tripping and just became delusional with a schizophrenic break. I remember watching the Anaheim Hills fires from 2004 high on mushrooms and laughing at the helicopters bringing in water. I remember tripping on sugar cubes going into Harvard Square on the Red-Line and watching the rats talk to each other as they scurried across the rails.
I really don’t know where this posts goes other than how it was brought into my mind. I heard this song last night on the radio and I had not heard it for awhile.
Just before I heard this song, I heard a radio news rap about the clocks changing and it seemed odd, a bit off.
It was four weeks off.
I thought a schism had arose; a long deep scar of something long forgotten.
When a friend of mine recently returned from the Colorado Phil Lesh shows he brought back some real clean gel-tabs and extended the invite. I just said ‘no’ and made Nancy Reagan proud.
With the time change f’ing with me and all I have learned from, I am happy for Nancy and her McDonald’s make-up screaming anti-drug.
Wait a minute … now I know the time change is f’ing with me.
I am working crazy ass hours lately, so much so that not even the fact of having to use a regular keyboard (as my ergonomic yummy-mummy one has failed again) is that bothersome when coming down to hitting the brass tacks of putting out a piece of delectable deliciousness.
However, (there always is a however), I have been deterred from my reality participation and regular good time smiling persona by the never ending failure of my Ignition Interlock Device. DEVICES! Yes, they suck!
Funny how sleeping 3-4 hours a day seven days a week and spending the rest of my time being tied up in work duties or commutes are not as upsetting as the car not starting due to technical malfunction! I could live on one hour of sleep a day if everything went with ease; specifically the friggin’ car starting!
Here is the device that I use:
They are installing the fourth one into my truck today. It is the fourth one in less than two months; yes, that is right, FOURTH unit in FIVE weeks! You do the math on that one sweet-cheeks!
Here is a great picture of someone trying to impersonate me being happy while blowing on my device in order to get other people to blow into the devices that they lease to other social deviants and legal miscreants like me! Mom must be so proud! I know that Dionysus is!
Just remember that this could easily be any of you and I DO NOT want to hear the “I NEVER drink and drive” excuse. Even cough syrup is technically drinking and driving! Any accident with fatal injuries that involves alcohol is zero tolerance and is considered manslaughter or second degree murder - just ask a D.A.! Always remember the chart and keep in mind that drinks are always stronger than the picture would lead you to assume (plus that morning after hangover could lead you to a D.U.I. as well!):
So, if you don’t pay attention or consider the consequences of everything you are doing with precision than you just might end up like me, or this guy:
I have played by all the rules since I was pulled over for bad registration tags in September 2005 and found to be under the influence. I have done the time, done the classes, done the AA - ALL the rules. My reward: having my truck non-operational for most of the last two months of permitted driving due to faulty technology and other people’s human err.
So this is where I am these days. FIRE! I know you have all seen the coverage; they are even reporting the California fires in Australia - it is truly Global News!
Many have asked and inquired as to my safety and how close I am to this fiasco of arsonist delight. I am really, REALLY, close to the blaze that is now being called the Santiago Canyon Fire or the Santiago Blaze. I can see the fire from my back porch, as I drive home; I can smell it everywhere I go. I can hear the choppers over head at night and in the morning, brining in the water and fire retardant in order to quell the flames. The fire has consumed a series of canyons that hold a special piece of my heart as I have always wanted to live there and have spent a lot of time there as well.
Yes, yes, the ring of fire burns bright into the night and the winds have swept the smoke into my everyday existence. People walk around with paper masks in order to prevent the inhalation of the stuff. Ash rains down onto cars and reminds us how close we are. Smoke plumes rise high in the not so distant horizon as looming signs of impending doom. The Sun is colored odd, the Moon glows red and black and red again like a pre-menstrual emerald dining on shiraz. My house smells like a campfire; my eyes burn.
The firefighters in Orange County are using Vietnam-Era helicopters to do water drops and the ensuing debate between Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Republican State Senator Todd Spitzer has escalated in regards to resources and reaction time. Bush will come in tomorrow and the brouhaha of comparing this to the FEMA debacle of Katrina has already ensued due to press conference questions from Geraldo Rivera. All said and done, we need, NEED, to pay our firefighters a bigger homage and set of applause - go down and talk to your firefighters even if you do not live in a fire prone zone. The firehouse is where we find pride in our community and are reminded of a work ethic!
The area that is burning is comprised of numerous canyons that I have written about extensively during the September months of 2006 on ‘young, broke, and republican’ - all while doing my chain gang time. The areas are Modjeska Canyon, BlackStar Canyon, Williams Canyon, and Silverado Canyon. I debated moving to Modjeska when I found my condo to be up for sale a couple of months ago. Makes me think that it is easier to be a rock star than to live like one in a secluded Southern California area.
I thought long and hard about it all and watched the news and received the e-mails and phone calls from around the world asking if I was ok. It got me all feather-ruffled and worked up. It actually made me randy. I am working so much lately that unless I can see it from my work or porch, than I am not down with it as sleep (or lack there of)does not permit it. Car troubles have also plagued me so the ash has only been a secondary concern. The evidence is everywhere but I have not watched the licking flames first hand. So my response has been to light my fire and get to work.
This leads me to calling the police on the little bastard who lives next door today. Many schools have been cancelled and this little retard has been raising hell all through the neighborhood all day. I went out to have a smoke before some pre-dinner errands and the little Son of a Bitch was lighting fireworks off with his buddy on the hill right beneath my back porch! Keep in mind that my backyard is full of dry brush, sun-baked mulch and dried out trees! He was actually disappointed that some of his works were ‘duds’ as he flicked his lighter around, with no parents home and a plethora of trouble on his day’s buffet. I wasn’t here when the cops showed but I did hum this song while I did errands:
All of these songs bring me to a reminiscence of being in fourth and fifth grade and then a bit beyond then. In elementary school we had a special needs child named David who schooled with us and his favourite thing to do was to sing Bruce Springsteen. Shortly after that, my mother became emotionally involved with a woman almost half her age named Nancy who looked like Bruce Springsteen and many a day of smoke and fire ensued. Special needs, new chapters, my aversion to under-bites and men from New Jersey; all wrapped up in ribbons and glitter:
I am not on fire or ablaze; I am smoky and hot as hell.
Sometimes the Devil just parlays through the pantry and does not stop for a drink. This is when the horned bastard needs a rain coat and a vacation.
The dumb horned son of a bitch might be inclined next time as I get a 20% off discount at my new job and they sell Moxie.
Screw the flames licking my world; buy the Devil a drink and he might go away.
Let the beast run through and bad songs and smoke inhalation ensue!
Be good and smile.
Godspeed …
FIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Come get the 250,000 if you know who did it… KFI is putting up 100,000 of it!
Wednesday By Any Other Name Would Just Be Belittled
“There once was a kid on the loose who wanted to drink him some booze He grabbed all the beer with nothing to fear ‘cause the night crew had nothing to do”
Lately this seems to be the escalating way of the world in my overnight shift reality working in the grocery store. I see many an odd character during my 40 hour work week and so much has gone on in the last couple of months, that I figured a good little blurb about one aspect of the third shift would make for a good post this morning. I sense I might even elaborate on the regular non-sense in later posts but for right now I would like to have shoplifting and fraud take the center stage.
This past week has been ‘Shrink Week’ and it is the most ridiculous array of obviousness that anyone with half a clue would ever be forced to participate in. The break room is full of tawdry decorations and each day has been full of silly and elementary games for the 1st and 2nd shift people to learn about shrink (appropriately so, since most are first and second grade level and the questions on shrink contest quizes consist of, "You should get the __ __ number of the car of someone participating in a crime" ... Do you know the answer to the blank-blank?). It just so happens that the store I work in has experienced quite a bit of theft lately and many attempted thefts that have been averted by mere chance rather than the thinly veiled attempts of formality followed through with by Loss Prevention; Loss Prevention, in it’s own right, is the joke of the century!
These are the consumer items that always make their way out of a store without being paid for; they are high ticket items: razors, film, baby formula, and of course booze. However, there are many aspects of thievery going on in the grocery world which is in stark contrast to the common-place thoughts of retail when it comes to shoplifting. Remember boys and girls, shoplifting is a serious offense; unless of course you are ripping off a grocery store during the 90% of the time that Loss Prevention is not there. Those bracelets hurt; they hurt well indeed. Meat hooks beware!
The most innocent form of stealing from a grocery store is called ‘grazing’. Many people are guilty of this and do not even consider it a crime or an offense that they could get in trouble for. It is when you walk around the store shopping and you eat food that is readily devour-able; such as produce, nuts, bulk candy, prepared foods, or the package that you rip open because you just can’t get through the whole shopping experience due to how famished you are. I remember shopping with my maternal grandmother and she would munch on grapes the whole time (she said that was what they wanted us to do so we would buy more!) and hand them down to me in the cart. Oh, what fruit of the tree, so to speak! We have a guy who is an organic/produce nut (no pun intended, well, yes, pun intended) and he consumes about ten to twenty bucks a visit while “shopping” (he shops at least once every three to four days). He normally will spend about ten bucks on some produce and organic eggs all while inhaling whole trays of strawberries and pre-made sushi and the like. He really is a wack-job. He comes in wearing thermal underwear with shorts over them and is always out of 'it'. I call him ‘the grazer’ and he is bonkers! I know, I know, innocent right? Nope! Just ridiculous. Pay for what you eat, ass wipe!
The second, much more planned out version of defrauding a store is debit card/welfare account/coupon abuse/unacceptable payment method. People that use multiple manufacturer coupons for the same item, people who know register codes and the like who get you to accept monies that are not acceptable, using coupons from other stores, and so on. One customer named "shovel face" uses multiple coupons from multiple different stores and we have to normally throw him out. He is an odd duck at best - something is not right with the wiring of these people! In contrast, we have a woman who comes in every three weeks or so and buys about 800 dollars worth of groceries. She had worked as a cashier for 17 years for my company and is now on permanent disability due to a wrist/elbow injury. She knows the ins and outs of the business. She tries to get in and out before a morning cashier has to deal with her as the night cashier is the grocery manager who is not so savvy when it comes to the current scams and shams out in the retail world. She got busted yesterday morning trying to pass off two 500 dollar traveler’s checks for her 600 dollar bill. No doubt they were frauds or counterfeits and she knows we do not accept traveler’s checks in that high of a denomination (notice the 400 cash back she would get). She said she would be back with cash for her 6 carriages of groceries at 9 a.m. The carts are still sitting in the dairy cooler as of 5 this morning waiting for her to come back. She won’t. She is break down, shake down, busted.
On to the most common occurrence that we experience everyday, seven days a week (eight if you are a Beatle): basic thievery, shoplifting (beer runs if you are an 18 year old kid looking to loosen up the chicks!). There are two varieties of this genre: the hard core Organized Retail Crime member and the thrill seeking idiot. Anyone involved in ORC is knee deep in the planning of what, when and how. The Idiot just goes for the gold and is normally amped up on something or just looking for the adrenaline rush associated with getting away with getting something for free.
(an adreneline molecule)
ORC members set up fake carts with cheap goods (paper towels, john paper, etc.) all around the edges to conceal what they are going to run with. They take notes on who works and when; who the easy employees are and the ignorant ones as well (making note of who the obvious security from Loss Prevention are is a MUST). They come in with lists and know how to get in and out in the snap of a finger, the blink of an eye. Two weeks ago we had a ballsy set of thieves march through the back room and go right for the liquor closet. They proceeded to wheel out 2500 dollars worth of Crystal champagne while pretending to be vendors. The next day a new shipment of the sauce came in. It is suspected to be an inside job. A week later we had two individuals come in at 1 p.m. They went to the locked up liquor cabinet on the sales floor that stores Patron Tequila and LaFrague Scotch (yes, I know my spelling sucks and Google is not giving me my answers this morning!). They jimmied the lock on the door and took off with over a grand worth of booze. Fellow customers are seen on camera watching the two men load up their pants and smiling at them. Lately, we have had five hundred a week of Grey Goose Vodka go missing. If anyone in your apartment complex ever asks you if you want to buy a bottle of high end liquor really cheap: It Is HOT! Sizzling Hot; Paris Hilton Hot! Funny that we have 91 cameras in the store and everything is being recorded. We even have video screens over-head in the liquor department where you can actually look up and watch yourself shop, but nothing is done; charges are never filed, no one is arrested unless Loss Prevention is ‘in tha house’; even then charges are not filed due to the expense.
This brings me to the inspiration for this post: The Idiot (and I don’t mean that fabulous book by Dostoevsky!). I have seen The Idiot in full force, fine fashion, furious fervor; yes, they love to flaunt their stupidity in the eyes of the people that sit idly by. See, we are told, as a corporate policy, that we can not (CAN NOT!) intervene in ANY theft. All we can do is tell a supervisor or management and hopefully, by the intimidation of a watchful eye, deter the act. Yes, that’s right, if you want to get tons of free crap go shoplift a grocery store at about 3 a.m. when nothing can be done - not a God damned thing! I have seen girls come in and play decoy for devious male counterparts dreaming of getting into the illustrious crotch of the distraction in painted pants and button-less boob cover. I have seen the drunk girls who nervously try to get out with a bottle of Absolute and set off the alarm (which is ALWAYS ignored or forgotten about) only to turn around in panic and set the bottle down on the floor and run away. I have watched the guys who come in and run out with an 18 pack in each hand and hustle through the door harder than a runner in the NFL going for the 30 second to death goal that will turn the tables. Deion Sanders at 16 looking for a buzz! The worst are the complete boobs who are in it for the munchies and stupidity.
Last night two boys about 19 came in. One appeared to be on LSD and was singing to the hot dogs at one point. He proceeded to abduct a carriage I was using and commandeer it as a skipping trolley for transportation and distraction around the store as his emo-buddy collected their post-bong-hit snacks. I watched the whole thing go down. I warned management three separate times, but it was 1:30 a.m. and it was only us meager 3rd shifters. I knew it was going to happen. Sure as shit, there it was: tripping boy was distracting the grocery manager (a.k.a. the night checker) while the tight-jeaned goof-haired kid strolled out with about 30 bucks of food. They were then gutsy enough to eat it at their car in front of the store after they ‘got away’. I went to lunch at the same time and saw the whole thing. Just as I got into my car and started to listen to a bit of ‘Coast to Coast with George Nory’, I looked over my shoulder to see the both of them pulled up next to the curb by the front door. They were clumsily jogging in tandem back to the running vehicle with arms full of pumpkins and then sped off into a night of impending vandalism. Ahhh … what a life kiddos have these days! I ran in and made an announcement over the intercom that was pretty much chuckled at since there is not one damned thing we can do about it other than leave a note for the store manager that we were ripped off once again! Thieves: Five Gazillion; Grocery Workers: Zero, Zip, Nil, Nada, Nothing!
So this is where I am, writing this and pondering it all in a weird array of beginning-of-my-weekend sorts of feelings. I arrived home at 5:15 a.m. and decided that this was a must-post. I was so thrilled that I even posted photos and did the research to find them. I know, I am no Mokie Joe, but I did my best!
I never shoplifted as a child or a teen and I have never shoplifted to this day. There has never been an attraction there. A good friend of mine when I was between 9 and 11 was a compulsive shoplifter and got my step brother Toad involved with a canoe stunt at a K-Mart. The good friend was killed in a car accident. He was knocked from an over pass by a car his twin brother was in after they had had a fight and were going home from the mall where they both worked. That family was never the same, nor was I. That was the first death I experienced as a child. I was 11. From shoplifting, to death, to music-videos indeed!
I hope you found this kind of fun or at least informative if you are going to go rip off an over night joint!
And yes, the limerick was an original, not so good, but an original all the same!
I am quite sure that I will feel the wrath of most who read this but I have never shied away from things that I think to be funny, informative, or controversial. One thing that should be mentioned as a preface is that I grew up in a house full of women and no men at all. This has always offered me an interesting perspective in regards to male/female relations and most of the time it has benefited me. Maybe not so much in the posting of this humour, or outrage, depending on which beam of light your prism shines.
One thing to keep in mind is that I do not condone or deny the viewpoints of anyone mentioned in this recollection of listening.
Sunday mornings always provide some fabulous morning radio moments on the AM dial, especially here in Southern California where all things (including religion) take their bizarre sunshine twist of fault lines and consumerism. Any of you who have read my blogs, since I started almost two years ago, know where I stand on politics and religion and you also know that I was and am a HUGE talk radio fan.
All day long for about five years I listened to the Los Angeles based KFI 640 AM. They broadcast local shows, as well as big name syndicated programmes such as Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura Schlessinger. I enjoyed these programmes for many different reasons but also enjoyed the local big names such as John and Ken and Bill Handel. Some of the lesser listened to shows also grabbed my ear and occupied my time as I laughed, cried and thought deeply about what was being conveyed across the sometimes staticy airwaves of the forgotten dial. Don’t get me wrong, Coast To Coast has always been an over night favourite, but I found Wayne Reznick and Jon Zeigler just as entertaining, if not more.
This brings me to my favourite Sunday morning activity, if I am awake early enough. Now that I have my truck and I drive home very early in the morning from a long night off at work, I find that this show is in my ‘drive time’ commute back home. It is listening to ‘The Jesus Christ Show’. Originally, KFI only gave this show an hour on Sunday morning which has now risen to a whopping three hours from 6 a.m. to 9a.m. every Sunday. Today I was blessed with a great moment of radio mixed with theology and this is why I love the show. Let me first tell you about the programme in general.
On the show’s main web page, the description of it’s three hours is as follows: “Tune in this Sunday morning to find out why the young and old from all over the world listen (via the internet & radio) for answers to life's toughest questions. Hosted by Jesus Christ and produced by Neil Saavedra.” Yep, that about sums it up. A D.J. posing as Jesus himself answers calls and e-mails and helps people through their problems and theological quandaries. It sounds really ridiculous and blasphemous but it really, REALLY, is not - I promise! Here is a link to the main page and it links to various aspects of the show:
So, today I happen to catch it late and was listening during the 8 - 8:30 half hour. I caught a call around 8:13 from a man named Alexander who had found faith in Christ in 1995 and was a devout Christian ever since. Later in the call we find out he has been married to his wife for 6 months and they and previously dated for about 18 months prior to the nuptials. He insists that they have a completely open and honest relationship of mutual respect and growth. Alexander’s problem was with the book of Genesis and what follows after the sixth day. Ahhh, yes, something for us all to take a bite of apple over … huh, huh?!?!?!?
Ok. Enough comic relief and to the point of this post beyond possibly turning you onto the show. His question comes after he goes through the story of man’s creation and gets to the whole jig and gig about woman being created. This is where the whole phone call becomes almost absurd or obscene. Alexander interprets the Bible’s talk of God’s creating of Woman as a means to solely ‘entertain’ Man. Mmmmm … a much different school of thought from most I know, especially anyone talking about woman/man relations publicly. Bless radio!
This leads Alexander to pose the question: “Was Woman really created by the Devil in order to highlight the juxtaposition of good and evil and light and darkness; the contrasts of morality?” The whole time, our Holy Host (that is not a pun, but rather a phrase coined via the show) is in awe, almost in shock. This brings us to our 8:20 commercial break along with some traffic and, boy, was it needed!
So Jesus comes back from the break and begins to enlighten the rather confused Alexander about how Woman was created as a ‘half-meet’ of Man and that God’s intent was to have a being to help and compliment Man as an equal. This is why the host is in awe of this man’s confusion regarding his Father’s intent with Woman’s creation. The word ‘entertainment’ is obviously never used. Jesus even points out that animals would have been just fine if ‘entertainment’ were the cause to be rallied, as ‘chimps are awfully funny creatures to watch. Have you ever watched a chimp? Hours of fun!’.
This leads him to the flat out denial that the Devil has anything to do with Women in regard to how they came about. Yes, they do struggle with evil and temptation as much as Man, but when it come to how they arose Satan has not a finger in the pie!
Ok. So that is my Sunday morning.
Maybe good.
Maybe bad.
I suppose you will all let me know.
I will keep listening though.
The old Victrola (with tuner band) used to bring it to me, but those days are long gone.
I guess one good thing came out of me driving again, well, beyond being able to get to work.
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