[245] Screed City

[245]

04/10/2023 Monday. Microwave Top. Room 326. Holiday Inn Rochester-Marketplace. Rochester, New York.

Back on the road again. Irony of life. Ten years ago, I probably would have loved all this travel. At the very least, I would have found it interesting. But this is getting out of hand. There has to be an easier way to make money, right? I spent all of yesterday getting ready for this week. And next week too. Not that I really had to do much. Make 20 burritos and pack some clothes, do some dishes, clean up some stuff. But I am here in Roach Town 2 working at Roach Tech, hanging a tension wire grid. Which is a fancy way of saying I am installing some metal up in the air. We are here until Friday, then drive back to Vermont, have Saturday free to, I don't know, sleep, and then I am off to Portland, Maine to a job in 40 hours that I was supposed to have three weeks and maybe 130 hours to do. I mean, we'll see, we'll see how it goes.

But this stupid job. Because it is stupid already. To go back to the irony of life. I thought I stopped working for these jerks back when Scott and I drove 1,000 miles to do 10 hours of work in Pittsburgh. But the Brewery work is getting wobbly because they don't like how much money I cost, and since they are expanding like crazy, they have to buy a whole bunch of expensive equipment and since I am the low hanging fruit, I am the first thing to get cut. So, instead of having the perfect solution to being a working class artist, I.E., working one week a month and that being a consistent thing, and having three weeks to do art, I am back at BMI and woe is me.

But I wouldn't be so woe’d had they decided that I was too expensive BEFORE I bought plane tickets to Seattle, and Berlin, and decided to spend a few weeks in Brooklyn. I suppose I would have done that stuff anyway, but it is one thing to spend money you haven't made yet, it is another thing entirely to clear your schedule for three weeks and make all of your plans around a certain thing and then have the work disappear like Houdini is the foreman. I tried to get out and they pulled me right back in. But they did a reverse-around on me. Normally BMI is pulling the Brewery bullshit. Which, I can find humor in. At this point, pretty much everything is hilarious. Because life tricks you into thinking you have it figured out, and maybe, just maybe you can have a few months where shit goes like it is supposed to, but nope, you're a dumb idiot for thinking that. Hope in a box truck and drive four hours up to Rochester fucking New York and hurry up and wait.

Hurry up and wait. The mantra of the working class. Nothing says; You have no power like; Hurry up and wait. Nothing says; We do not value or respect your time like; Hurry up and wait. And it is funny. It really is funny. It's Catch-22 [Italics] funny. Because it is capitalism at it's finest. These jobs are bid low with the idea, the knowledge that you don't make money on the bid, what you make money on is the changes. The more fucked up the job is, the more money you make, but in order for that to work, you have to have goons and boobs and idiots like me standing there with a wrench in my hand waiting for the pencil necks to decide what to do and then tell me to do it. And sure, that gives me money, but I have to take this job serious because it is a serious job and I can't just fuck off and be a fuck up while I am waiting, I have to be on call, essentially, until the shit gets figured out. And that is great and all when the pay is good, but this is half-price work I am doing here. Private rate. Non-prevailing. Which, sure, in the grand scheme of things is a decent amount of money, but is it worth it? Dedicating five days of my life to some crappy construction job and maybe bringing home $1,000? The answer is, maybe. It isn't a hard no, but it 100% aint a hard yes.

I got up at 4:30a this morning to be on the road by 5a and then drove two hours to Queensbury, NY and then drove four hours to Roach Town 2, and then spent five hours taking 8'x8' hunks of metal from one place to another place.

[Insert Job Site Photo #1]

I mean, Jayboo and me drove the box truck up, and that was nice. I like Jayboo. He is hilarious. He has a little Hank Hill thing going. Baffled by the world, but he sticks to his principles. Which I find a little sentimental, personally, because that used to be how Wyoming worked. And he read Donkey [Italics] and liked it quite a bit, so we talked about literature for four hours. And he is working class too, although I think he might be closer to middle class. He works full time at BMI and owns a house and land, but he studied literature in college, and I think he might have a degree in it, I realized halfway through our conversation that I had some questions, but because of the way the conversation went I wasn't able to ask them. I mean, last year he spent the year reading all of Dicken's books, and this year he is reading all of Faulkner's books, and we are almost the exact same age, so it is nice to converse. Conversate? And it is nice to have somebody ask you about the book you wrote. And also understand it and get it and have ideas about it. And then you remember that you like that book too, and it was kind of a hilarious book and it was fun writing it and, I mean, the conversation alone will make this week of work worth it. It makes me feel better about what I am doing and puts shit in perspective, but it really gets exhausting to drive for six hours just to work and four of those hours are paid, but it is $11 dollars a fucking hour, for some reason, and it just makes your head spin.

[Insert Job Site Photo #2]

But he solved a thing for me. A thing I had been working on for nearly a decade now. This book about a drug you take and all it does is make you remember, or relive the times you were in New Jersey. And I kind of was profounded about how simple the problem I was having and how easily his question changed my thinking. He asked; What happens if you take the drug and you haven't ever been in New Jersey? I mean, that is the STORY! Why does the person have to take the drug and why does it even matter? I mean, it gives the thing direction and a clearly defined outcome. The person has to get to New Jersey so they can take the drug and therefore...et cetera, et al. I mean, I have a lot of work to do, but he solved the plot hole for me. Which is a big issue when you are writing science fiction, because you always have to explain everything and, I mean, personally, I find most science fiction tiresome because there is so much explaining that has to be done, and it is always clunky and free of emotion because reading the rules of a board game is not as fun as playing the game.

[Insert Room Photo With Sunset]

I went to the dentist to get my hair cut. Just kidding. I did go to the dentist though. It was a funny time. I have some bad gums, but not all is lost. They have to get up there under the things and scrape everything away. I am going to lose a tooth and I need a crown, but I have no decay, and my teeth look spectacular. I was going to put a before and after photo in this thing, but I couldn't do it. It was too much. It might as well be a dick pic. I mean, nobody wants to see it. And I almost did an entire Screed about it just for the shock factor, but that seemed rude, so I ixnayed the thing. But really, I was so very glad I went. When the hygienest was cleaning my teeth is was like my mouth was filling up with sand. I mean, it was comical. She may as well should have had an rock pick or something. Worn safety glasses even. And because it was Vermont, I mean, I talk a lot of shit about Vermont, and for good reason, Vermont kind of S-U-X sucks, the people there are special, realistic, pragmatic, they understand things that other parts of America don't get. That we are all poor and just trying to get by, and yes, we would love to all have perfect teeth and look like Hollywood vampires, that, frankly, is not the reality of this world. I wasn't told that I was a total dick for not flossing more, I wasn't tooth-shamed, the room was run-down and could have easily been converted into a barn when needed. And after I had all my cleaning and x-ray shit done, a guy that reminded me of Seamus, my friend that lives in Berlin, this guy sat down, shook my hand, which, I mean, get with the times, bro, but still, I didn't mind that much, although I didn’t wonder if he shook, "They be shopping," people's hands, you know? the ones with big ol' titties, I mean, in his defense, I was wearing some pretty crusty clothes and should have remembered to dress up for the occasion, but I didn't, but after he looked at my x-rays and took a gander in my cock holster, he said; I think we can keep you in your teeth for the next 45 years. I mean, I did the math, killed the math, 90? Ugh, but then he said; And you have 20% more teeth than most people. And for some reason I looked over his shoulder and smiled at the hygienist. Like I was proud of having long teeth. I mean, it wasn't exactly perverted, but it was, I mean, look at me with my long ass teeth, you know what they say about long teeth? Look at how long my shoes are? I mean, maybe she was a size queen like Professor Curly?

[Insert Dentist Photo]

But it was good. I was glad I went there. I need a shit load more work done, but not all is lost. My teeth aren't going to just fall out. Maybe two of them will. But I don't smoke anymore and I have a water pick with me at all times. I supposedly will have to get my teeth cleaned four times a year until I die, but I am okay with that. And I have a thing with the periodontist in Burlington in August that will lead to somebody numbing my gums and scraping all the crap that had been shoved up there for 45 years out. And after that happens, I mean, I guess I will spend the next 45 years writing screeds about it until I am lying on my death bed saying; You may have destroyed my spirit, cruel world, but you never destroyed my teeth!

As the bridesmaids say.