05.12.08

Work Is a Four-Letter Word (2008 Update #21)

Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 8:42 pm by Gregory

Great song. You can get it as a fun Smiths cover on one of those Warner Bros. “obscurities” (Just Say…whatever) CDs that you can’t get anymore because mainstream pop music mostly sucks now.

Yeah, I went to work today. Like a normal person. It was totally weird.

Mind, since everybody “Googles” everybody now (Related evidence: I was just “befriended” on my fledgling MySpace Music account — TWICE! — by somebody I know personally — but who was probably simply “seeding” other musicians’ “friends” [I loathe that word being used out of context] — which indicates just how irrationally cozy all this online beeznuss is getting), I am going to go out of my way to mention that my current employers really are nice, and they run a nice business, peopled by nice people. I mean that.

I also mean it when I say that I ardently dislike MySpace: I believe that it cultivates terrible Falseness among humans. (But I’ll try it anyway, probably for the same reasons everybody else does.)

DISCLAIMER: This post is being crafted in the stylish “coarse” mode; no appy-polly-loggies are offered. (Stupid Burgess term used specifically so that Clockwork Orange fanboys will stumble upon this post at some point — perchance to nobody’s gratification whatsoever.)

Now…on with the frankness.

The day started badly. It was grey — which is good — but nonetheless, any Monday that begins with me having to get up early and go to work is not a happy Monday. Of course, I am awakened sickeningly early every day by Clompy upstairs STOMPING on my ceiling, and by the lousy adoptive mothers who cannot control their SCREAMING children — as well as all the SUV-Assholes who graduated maxima cum laude from Honking University — but that’s all a given by now. The getting up wasn’t even the hard part — since life has been such a total cosmic joke for me the past several years, I have become very proficient at pretending I care when I am, in fact, totally delirious. (This is why I don’t do or need drugs. People on drugs — I suspect — are simply in more desperate need of a chemical means of faking it. Or they’re merely lazy. Possibly both. I just fake it because this is Earth and that’s what is expected of us here.) So I was up, and delirious, and smiling as though I cared. Check!

The first problem was the big hole in the crotch of the trousers I needed to wear today.

Now, this is Southern California: Although faux-50s is still preferred, you can just about get away with having a chain linking your left nostril to your glans and still work at, say, the DMV. The Norman Rockwell artificiality by which the rest of America (well, white America, anyway) fakes its way through, no longer applies here.

But a gaping crotch-hole — that’s another thing. Not terribly professional.

It has happened to me before. Several times. I walk everywhere. Friction is incurred upon the fabric (bay-bee).

Was there time to go buy some crappy little sewing kit? No. I opted for Scotch tape.

The Scotch tape lasted approximately halfway to the bus-stop — at which point it made itself very well known to me. Hello. Nice social liability, too! However: Determined to go through with this “working Monday” business no matter what, I increased my pace and carefully recited the rap to Prince’s “Sexy Motherfucker.” (Sorry, lit-chix; this simply isn’t an environment that promotes recitations of Wordsworth.)

I then proceeded to miss my bus by approximately two seconds, or five hasty footfalls. It drove on without me. It seemed as though its driver saw me and drove on without me anyway; I often suspect this sort of thing from bus-drivers. Legal revenge.

I cursed the bus, using a medium volume, ridiculous tone, and inventive obscenities. Beside me exploded a chuckle; I had entertained one of those old homeless women who look like they’re going to expire within the next ten minutes.

Good deed for the day!

At this point, my mental process was as follows:

1. Don’t actually want job.

2. Humanity should have evolved beyond labour and money by now. (Seriously!)

3. Why are all these Mexican guys running these OUTRAGEOUSLY LOUD machines all the time? Especially early in the fucking morning? Destroying pavement, lopping off branches, knocking down walls, whatever.

4. Why is there an “emergency” (with BLARING SIRENS) every five seconds here? (That’s being generous; it’s more like every three seconds.)

5. Why was I born?

6. Would being dead just be like dreaming constantly and eternally? (Not a bad deal!)

7. Why does it have to be that voting for Nader would equal urinating?

8. This Orange-coloured VitaminWater tastes rather nice.

And then the next bus showed up. I decided that — cosmic-joke-of-a-life well considered — it would be more interesting to show up for my first day on the job with a ventilated crotch than to cower like a little bitch and go hide under a pile of books whilst waiting to be rescued by people who definitely don’t care about me.

En route, I noticed the bus-bench ads with Madonna’s new album on them. My reflection: “Why does a stupid old bitch like Madonna get to roll around in hundreds of millions of dollars with her English trophy-spouse while I’m riding on a bus, crotcho-ventilato, toward a job I already know I don’t want?”

Nearly an hour late, I walked into the establishment of my current employers.

Nobody seemed to mind.

The owners run a business, so I’m sure they both noticed and minded — but all was cool, all was cool.

Goal of the Day: Keep ass turned away from potential spectators at all times!

Mind: By this point, I was already feeling pretty terrible. Not lazy and not loathing of humanity — just: Why I am here and why would anybody care if I’m here or not?

It was at this point that a couple of rougher-edged guys sized me up, shared a comment, and laughed heartily. Then they decided to include me in their fun.

GUYS: “Hey, yeah, you know, you do! You really do!”

ME: “I do what?”

GUYS: “You look like Sam Kinison!”

ME: “Thanks. I’m going to go chop off my own head and chuck it into the toilet now.”

I didn’t actually say that. I did actually say this:

ME: Uh…he’s dead.

GUYS: [silence]

(I had intended this to mean: “Well, thanks a lot! Likening me to a long-rotten corpse! The nerve!”)

GUYS: [more silence]

GUY 1: You’re a little easier-going, though.

GUY 2: And a bit taller.

GUY 1: And not quite as fat.

ME: [stunned silence; going over the incredible, ego-salvaging power of those modifiers]

It’s a little blurry already, but I think it ended with me just staring blankly until they changed the subject.

I used to get “Kevin Bacon” — today I got “Sam Kinison” — not the most encouraging start (although, as with the blind men and the elephant, it must be noted that people perceive only what they’re capable of perceiving, based on their respective social vocabularies, and to these guys Sam Kinison = Way Cool.)

The only thing I ever liked about Sam Kinison (whom I always got confused with Gilbert Gottfried and Andy Clay, incidentally — the comedians I never liked one tiny bit) was when he shaved his head and mocked Sinead O’Connor’s version of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U.” That was amusing. Sad — but amusing.

(That’s three Prince references in two posts today. Two of which were not made famous by him, and were, in fact, recorded by female humans. Hmmm…!)

Following that, the rest of the day was as expected. There was a low vibratory hum which could be decoded into human language as, “He doesn’t really belong here, and we know it, and he knows it, but let’s just see how it goes, and not ruffle anybody’s feathers just yet. It is Monday, after all.”

I learnt everybody’s name and addressed them kindly, without getting all first-day-on-the-job weird-assed about it.

Some guy came in who was dumber than a rock; his only adjective — and he used it a lot — was “dope”.

A few little children came through. They all cracked up laughing at the sight of me. Their mothers noticed. I decided to take this to mean that — pre-verbal — they “get it’; and they noticed that I “get it,” too. Thus, they laughed their appreciation.

I ate my room-temperature lunch out of a plastic bag with a plastic fork.

Once again, the people surrounding me today were all very nice.

The most interesting aspect for me, however, was that “JACK-FM” was the station of choice, and throughout the course of the day I pretty much heard every single pop-rock staple of the past quarter-century.

It kinda blew my mind that I knew all of the words to all of the songs, all day long.

This proved, under the circumstances, more comforting than tedious.

Most comic moment: Listening to “Born in the USA” for the first time in years. That song is pure corn. “Corn in the USA”! Hilarious!

Happiest moments: “Buring Down the House” and especially “Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)” (who the hell could have predicted hearing that on the radio ever again?)

My day ended with Queen/John Deacon’s “You’re My Best Friend” — which felt wonderful, because I love that song, and love what it means, and love the performances in it, and it always tugs at my heart that I’ve never experienced its meaning yet.

I have, however, experienced the meaning of “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)” — because not only is it the only song I’ve ever karaoked (in front of frightened old people!) — but freshman year in college — back when friends had fun instead of merely worrying and trading-up — my roommate (who was an actual room-mate) and I (mostly at my behest) sat with Document and patiently transcribed every single syllable of that song, start to finish. I’d never do anything like that now, because I’m certain that I’m smarter than Michael Stipe even though he’s craftier and wealthier than I am. But at the time, it was great. And now I’m feeling a desire to get it off my cerebral cortex or wherever it’s been hiding. Note: I don’t care what the online lyric-pages say; this is our translation of the song, rendered whilst we were still actual teenagers, and phonetically, and I’m pretty sure I’m the one who bothered to memorise this vital treatise:

That’s great it starts with an earthquake birds and snakes and aeroplanes and Lenny Bruce is not afraid; Eye of a hurricane listen to yourself churn world serves its own needs dummy serve your own needs; feed it up an ox-beat crime knows strength the latter starts to clatter with dinner fight down Hi! Choir in the fire representing seven days and a government for hire in a combat site; Lester was a-comin’ in a hurry with the Furies breathing down your neck; Team-my-team reporters baffle Trump traffic crop look at that low plane five dead; Uh-oh overflow population counter group a little due save yourself serve yourself world serves its own needs listen to your heartbeat dummy with the rapture and the reverend in the right flight; You patriotic patriotic slam-fight-bright-light feeling pretty psyched!

It’s the end of the world as we know it (x3) and I feel fine

Six o’clock TV hour don’t get caught in foreign tower slash and burn return listen to yourself churn; Lock it in uniform and book-burning blood-letting every mode of escalate automotive ‘cinerate; Light a candle light a motor step down step down watch it heal crush-crush uh-oh this means no fear cavalier renegade and steer clear and turn ‘em in and turn ‘em in and turn ‘em into flies; Offer me solutions offer me alternatives and I decline!

It’s the end of the world as we know it (x3) and I feel fine (plus backing vocals)

Repeat

The other night I drifted nice continental drift to find mountain sea and airline — Leonard Bernstein! — Leonid Brezhnev Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs birthday party cheesecake jellybean boom; It’s a symbiotic patriotic slam-butt-knack, right? RIGHT!

It’s the end of the world as we know it (x3) and I feel fine (plus backing vocals)

Cool feedback thing

Repeat

Repeat

Repeat

Fade.

So you got that goin’ for you; which is nice.

Actually — this probably won’t be interesting to you, but it is interesting to me — back when that song was new, I still harboured (and was ensconced within) dreams of Becoming Somebody.

I’m really no good at being a normal person who goes to work. If I could — and just have a honey, and watch Plasma with her — I’d probably do that. But I can’t, for some reason. Which is extra-weird in America — where workin’ men worship alleged “Workin’ Men” (who are really multi-millionaires with huge mansions) — but if you want to try to get away with Creativity, they’ll either stop you or ignore you. I don’t understand this, and it makes me very uncomfortable. I don’t want to be an hourly slave, but I don’t want to aim for some ludicrous celebrityhood, either. What does one do in between? Is there a definition thereof? Would you like to insult me with it?

It may have been the folly of Youth, or perhaps it was the folly of Me, but when that song was new, there was that feeling that: Hey, we don’t just have to be the assholes standing around at the mall talking about the guys who do the cool stuff; we can BE the guys who do the cool stuff! We can achieve Somebodiness! (And then, perchance, parlay Somebodiness into Usefulness!)

Shit — Reagan was still in office when that song was new. And Elderbush slightly thereafter. Can you believe that!?

And all along, for a couple of decades, I’ve cultivated this desperate notion that perhaps I could cajole my friends to move beyond bad Beatles covers (happened only once; but they weren’t that bad, actually) toward writing and recording and sharing our own material!

Never happened.

Darn.

Fuck!

Why didn’t we?

Well, it’s not as though Pop Music is exclusively the domain of the young anymore. I mean, the young definitely produce enough shit to fertilise the Sahara, but just look at Queen: New album (The Cosmos Rocks) due in October, and those guys are sixty, and their most gifted member is dead!

So there’s hope.

But I don’t endorse hope.

Hm.

Anyway, here: This is a nice realistic-and-depressing note upon which to conclude this expulsion of work- and reward-related ponderings:

After work, I bought a burrito and put it into my stomach. I also drank a sweet liquid with no nutritional value whatsoever. And then I waited for the bus. As I waited, I tried not to annoy the elder Latina nearby (she didn’t need to watch my assless ass eating). Then, however, happened upon our little scene a third party, being a flouncy female with ‘tude. This flouncer looked remarkably like someone very nice whom I dated briefly in college when I should have mustered the courage to ask out somebody I really liked but the agony of being shot down would have been too terrible to withstand — so I looked at the flouncer a bit. She withdrew from her large bag a small white tube stuffed with carcinogenic leaves, lit one end of it on fire, and began sucking on the other end. This sucking continued until the bus arrived, at which point it began to occur to me: Her ‘tude, her cigarette, her oversized bag, her work schedule, and her general direction all added up to: Stripper.

About this, given where she got off the bus, I was correct.

The aggravating aspect of this observation does not stem from a moral judgment; rather, it emerges from the consideration that the flouncer will be earning at least ten times more money on her shift tonight — Monday night, The Night of the Depressed and Lonely Men — than I earned during my day of Honest Work.

Bleh.

(But at least today was grey…)

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