[213] Screed City

[213]

12/07/2022 Wednesday. Cardboard Box. Hampshire House. Portland, Maine.

Well, am back in ole' Poor Me, living on Can't Catch A Break Avenue, just joking, I got no complaints, I just wanted to make that poor me joke. If anything this job is the opposite of not catching a break, I mean I have been here three days, worked 30 hours, and maybe, just maybe did two hours of the actual work I came here to do, I mean, it's not like I have been doing nothing, like standing around with my thumb up my butt, it is quire exhausting not being able to do your job and then running around from building to building helping other people do their work so you can eventually gain access to the tools that they are using so you can do your job with them, I mean, maybe it is time to buy a truck and invest in a chop saw, but I have one thing to say about that idea: No way in hell!

Portland, ME=Poor Me, it's not even a joke, it's like Wyoming University=Why, you! Whatever, I stand by it.

Brother Luke is done at the Brewery, his last day was last Thursday. And the irony of all ironies is that his leaving basically created the position that I have now, which is the position he had been advocating for, for himself for nearly, I don't know, at least the last few years, maybe longer, I would say it was nepotism, but it is more like a switcheroo, I get all of the benefits with none of the headaches, I can come and go as I please, and I only answer to one guy, so sure, I may be stopped all the time when walking from one place to the other, much like Brother Luke, but people just want to talk to me, they don't need me for something, and I can focus on one job at a time, instead of managing an rapidly expanding business that is under-staffed and over-funded. Which, when you hear about these "Genius" executives coming in to save a company from their own downfall, it is a load of horseshit, all they are doing is looking at all the places that they have been throwing money at things to solve short term problems and eliminating those problems. It's not even cutting the fat, it's basically balancing the check book and saying: Why did we buy 50, 1 lb bags of flour when we can buy a 50 lb bag of flour for half the price? And then everyone is like: Look at this genius! America wins! Two extra boot-straps for everyone!

I mean, Brother Luke needed 10 employees like me underneath him, well, maybe not 10, more like five, I mean, since he has left his job has fractured into five different jobs that five different people are taking over of, is that how that sentence should go? Five different people take five different jobs with? Five jobs, five people? Whatever, his job needs five people to do, I am doing two peoples jobs, and Wade, Oly, Asa and Bob, I mean I guess that is four people, and I am doing two peoples amount of jobs, I could use an assistant, because I need help sometimes, not because I need an extra person to do the job, I just can't do the physical work sometimes, because sometimes you need two people to do the work that I do. Facts. So I guess Brother Luke's job was him and five people, meaning six people in total. Glad we cleared that up.

But what I mean, is that his job was an impossible task from the beginning, and he was never given the latitude to successfully do the job, not that the Brewery didn't try to assist him in his endeavors, it's just that his job was impossible to do, you can't be the manager and the fry cook at the same time, you just can't, sure, during the lunch rush you can help out, you know? run the fry station, wash dishes, but there is a moment when your managerial duties are more important than the dishes, and sadly, the Brewery did not understand this, and now there is a sea-change because of it. And because of this, I now have as much work as I want for the next year at least, on my time, on my schedule, on my willingness to do it, and because I am in this intermediary state of not being an employee, yet not being a contractor exactly, I am basically a dedicated handy man for the company. Free to come and go when I please. With all the resources of a large company, and none of the liabilities of a private contractor. I mean, it is kind of cool. It is a little bit of the dream. I mean, it would be nice if it was in Vermont or the City, but, you know, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, ATBMS.

And Brother Luke is doing alright. He got a different job, doing things he has been wanting to do for a long time. And the irony of the irony of the irony, I think he will come back to work at the Brewery as a per diem employee, much like me, but with better pay and fewer responsibilities. And at that point, I will be HIS boss. Sucker. Just joking, I mean, I will be his boss, but he is not a sucker, in a just world he would have gotten everything he desired at the place and would have continued to strive and lead the company into a new and glorious future, a clean and green future, that would put the Brewery on the map as one of the most progressive and successful companies in America, but for now, things are a little fractured, and his ersatz replacement, meaning me, is more Bugs Bunny, Aint I a stinker, then say, I don't know, Elizabeth Warren, I mean, I refuse to use U-line to buy things, but at the same time, since Brother Luke has been gone, I eat my lunch in Junior Mint, listening to the Majority Report life stream, eating meatball wraps, chip shards collecting on my lap, the only time I have seen myself in the mirror in the last week is my rearview mirror, I mean, my point is, I might be a climate activist warrior like anyone else that actually cares about the world, but, I mean, I love to eat Utz Red Hot chips, and who the fuck knows where those come from. I mean, my only cares in the world, the things I have control over, is the few hours each night that I write, and the kind of burrito I eat for lunch, and even that gets decided the Sunday before I get on the road to go to work in Poor, Me.

I mean, I don't fucking know about anything. And Portland is funny. The people that I have met that live here have a very wild perception about how things work in Portland. Because on one hand it is a bastion of liberalism, sure, sure, whatever that means, I mean, it's true that people care about the environment and the future of the planet, on the other hand, these fuckers are terrified of property crimes and the homeless, and the two things are connected, of course, but it is funny how checked out people are with politics about it, the supposed progressives are actually Libertarians that want things both ways, cops to remove the unhoused from the streets, because, I don't know, it sucks to be stuck in traffic and feel guilty that some guy is asking for money with a cardboard sign that says; Hungry, anything helps, but then they go to work at companies that are All Inclusive, and Portland is actually very awesome when it comes to immigration, it is very open and the working class is very diverse here, because of that, but at the same time they are constantly worried about taxes and crime, and there are at least four dedicated right wing bull-horn radio stations and at least three Christian Nationalist radio stations, I mean, my point is, much like UpState New York, things are not as liberal as they seem, or more like, things are exactly as they seem and both states are actually swing states that lean right, it's just that they have big enough cities in them to appear to be left-leaning, whatever that means, I mean, you can't be for saving the whales and then flick your cigarette at the un-housed dude standing at the intersection. You can't be open to immigration and then vote down a bill that allows affordable housing to be built in affluent neighborhoods. I mean, it's money, and that is all that it is. And, of course Susan Collins. I mean, I am not supposed to talk politics on this newsletter, I have lost probably half of my audience from that already, I mean, remember 50/50? Back in 2020? People still don't respond to my electronic mails because of that three month experiment, I mean, I am not talking politics now, I just think it is funny that Portland, Maine, Poor, Me, is considered a progressive place when every other radio station is that one guy or that other guy or that other guy, doing white washing Tea Party nonsense about how supposedly the Conservative outlook is somehow sane and isn't just a party of Slick Willy all over again. And I feel like Hunter S. Thompson over here, not that he had his finger on the button, or even that Gonzo Journalism actually meant anything, I mean, it did, but only because what was interesting about it was that, yes, you can't report on things without getting involved yourself, I mean, the Schrödinger's Cat of reality, it is valid and an actual conversation to be had, but celebrity? I mean, sadly, read his last writings, when you are no longer relevant, Gonzo Journalism is a wet sock, wet soak? Did we every clear that up? Which is fine, viewpoints are meaningless, really, politics are dumb, there is no world where the Dems would have elected Mayor Pete, I mean, my point is, my only point is, Maine is not progressive, most of the state is very Let's go Brandon, and same too to New York, the only difference is NYC is about 1,000 times bigger than Portland, and Maine and New York are about the same size, which makes it a numbers game, and NYC should be a City-State, because fuck the boonies, fuck those assholes in Caledonia-Mumford that use Wall Street money to build their schools and towns, pretending that they made those tax dollars themselves, I mean, UpState New York is a fucking leach, sucking blood from the hard working families in NYC, I mean, the amount of money that gets siphoned UpState to fund these racist bigots bullshit is...

See, that was actual politics, I swore I was done with that, and I am, I swear.

I mean, what can you do? One second you are comparing yourself to Hunter S. Thompson, and then the next second you are apologizing for it? Talk about Gonzo Journalism! I mean, the DISHWASHER launch party has been called off. It just can't happen. Not now. Not next Thursday. I mean, I won't lie, I don't have it in me. I'm not focused, the book has taken too long to come out, I wanted to have some bands play at the thing, but because of December and the holidays and Thanksgiving, I mean, whatever, I mean, whatever indeed, because I have these shirts I have been handing out, and they are good, and I got more shirts coming, but also, this damn book, I mean, it is a book about shame, and it's funny because I am now ashamed of the book, in a way, I mean, I don't even know, it's like I am, for the first time ever, not so certain about something I have written, I mean, I made quite a few choices about the book that when I finished it, last December, I think, I mean, things have changed, and since then I have had a new approach to how I write, so it feels like, to me, a turning point, and maybe, just maybe, it needs to hang out there in the balance, waiting for the correct time to come out, on the other hand, really, I don't care, not in the sense that I don't give a shit, it is more like; I spent a year fucking around with this shit, and frankly, Percolator [Italics] and Hairpin Corners [Italics] are better books, and this new one I have been working on; Don't Wait Up [Italics] really ties it all together, not to mention Hilarious [Italics] which might be my best work, if I can figure out the fucking ending, I mean, what's more lousy than politics to talk about is my writing, I mean, in that sense, this idea that what I am doing is somehow interesting, I mean, I don't know, this operation is crumbling anyway, one day it will just stop, I mean, haha, I need to somehow turn off payments I receive from this writing, because it isn't right that people pay for this newsletter, but I don't know how to do that! It is the same when I started this fucking thing! I mean, what is cool about Substack is that it is basically MailChimp without all the bullshit, but now that I am ready to break away, to go back to, I don't know, electronic mails, I mean, I don't care anymore, the pivot has happened, I mean, and I really do mean, I will keep this thing going, but if you are somebody that pays for this nonsense, PLEASE! I beg you! PLEASE, stop paying for it! I don't know who it is. The experiment has failed, and because of how things work, how corporations work, I mean, there are at least 10 of you paying $4 dollars a month for this weekly newsletter, and it needs to stop. I have other things on my mind, and I hate to see money wasted because you don't notice your invoice.

I'm serious. This newsletter will keep coming, just please stop paying for it. I mean, one day, maybe soon, things will get interesting again, but for now, I am retooling like the cockroach guy, who, I mean, I wasn't a very big fan of Kafka, I mean, the hype of his writing versus the actual writing, I mean, I'm not saying it is bad, and the dude spent a lot of time on his craft, or whatever, but, I mean, much like the Great Gatsby asshole, I mean, maybe I don't understand? Or possibly I just don't get it, because there is a moment of life, or living that doesn't actually move you, you know what I mean? When a book like; All Quiet on the Western Front somehow speaks to you? And who the fuck cares about what rich people do, or what captains of industry do, and this; Woe is me, mentality, which, need I remind you, I am currently living in Poor, ME, I mean, whatever, I just cooked a burrito, and I am going to eat it, and then go to sleep. However, on the other hand, I have been having some break throughs with my writing that will change the way I write, so maybe I am projecting, but still, we'll see, I mean, the next book I am writing starts:

Anger loves you.

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