[278] Screed City

[278]

02/19/2024 Monday. Kitchen Microwave. Queens Manor. Ridgewood, Brooklyn.

Circling back. More proof that change only comes when you force it to happen. And I have not forced things to change. I am right back where I was 20 years ago and the only difference is that I dislike it more now. And the antidote to all things? Art. To spend at least a couple hours doing something that I enjoy doing even after spending 12 hours doing something that blows my mind with boredom and contradiction. I'm not trying to be negative, I just think it's funny how habits begin and then if you are not careful about them they become your life. Stay in school kids, not because education is the way out of things, but because when you're in your late 40's and you really need to change your work habits having a degree of any kind will mean you apply to 1000's of jobs that are not allotted to you if you drop out of school and drag your cockroach soul through the gutters of destitution.

I coulda been a contender. Whatever. I can do anything. And if I can't do it with the knowledge I have acquired, I can figure it out. But that is not the point. The point is that piece of paper that says I spent four years not working and blossoming inside a classroom is pretty important to society at large. I coulda been a librarian. I coulda been a astronomer. That is what the tests I took tell me are my interests, with regards to work. And I don't disagree. What the tests don't tell me my interests are are being a hilarious dude like Tim Murphy would say or spending my free time playing Scrabble because I need to learn how to spell. Queef: a pussy fart. Deef: a dick fart. Plus everything in-between.

I went to the Walgreens in DUMBO the other day. I told this to the Publisher and Agustin, so, sorry to repeat myself, but I went to the Walgreens the other day and was in Aisle One. I wanted to buy some corporate Ticklers. When the guy showed up, finally, it was a Friday at around 7p, I said:

"Aisle One't you to open that door please." He didn't laugh. "Man, this whole time I was waiting I have been thinking about that joke."

"Normally you would have got me, but it's been a long ass busy day."

"But at least it's Friday! TGIF."

"Yeah, sure."

It's not funny. My joke was funny, but the poor guy working at the Walgreens in DUMBO on a Friday night was not amused. For good reason. There was no actual indication that Friday meant anything different than say a Tuesday or a Sunday. Because that is how it is with businesses like that. They are open 7 days a week and usually 24 hours a day. Which means that you are basically going into a coal mine with cheap bargains and florescent lights. And what do you do with a life of work? Like Iggy Pop says, the hardest working man in Florida would say, Face it in the morning.

I got up this morning at 5a. Last night I fell asleep immediately when I got into bed. But the sleep did not take. I had a very intense dream and then I woke up. Then I fell asleep again and had a very intense dream and I woke up. After that there was no going back to sleep. I did sleep a little, I know that because when my alarm went off in the kitchen I was sleeping. Professor Curly is in Vermont at the moment so I was sleeping solo.

And I don't know. I was worried about getting to work, working in the Navy Yard in Brooklyn, an impossible place to get to unless you drive or ride a bike. I didn't want to drive because that would mean I would have to drive home after working a 12 hour day and the idea of looking for a parking spot in the hour of my most frustrated moment seemed unpleasant, but when I got up and did some research on how to get there, the trip was going to be quite quick. A train and a bus. 40 minutes, well 38.

But the work, what work is, what I mean when I say that it is all circling around again, this company I am working for I have worked for before, 20 years ago doing a job I didn't like doing back then. And it's not their fault exactly that things are rough all over, but it kind of is, they have this whole, "Brooklyn Made" thing they are trying to make people feel like America is number #1, but it is ironic in the sense that the people who are going to install the set we are building are going to be union workers and they, well, maybe I won't go into that. It's complicated is what I am saying. 20 years ago the work hours were long and the pay was junk and here 20 years later, the work hours are long and the pay is junk. There is no negotiation. You either show up and do what they say and take what they give you, or you don't work for them. Fair enough in a sense. I wouldn't run my business that way, but then again I am a bootstrapper through and through.

But the old shop used to be Greenpoint and there you just show up to work and then work. When the work is at the Navy Yard you have to have some sort of a pass for some reason. The reason being, I have no fucking clue. There is no reason for it. Just because it is called the Navy Yard does not mean the Navy is there, there are no secret submarines or something, it is basically a Hollywood sound lot that has a gate keeper. And because of this when I showed up to work today at 6:38a because the train came on time and the bus came on time, I stood there next to brick wall sheltering from the wind and waiting to get let in and freezing my nards to the bone.

Technology. Somebody was supposed to send me a pass last night. To get in. They didn't. And as I stood there freezing I kept checking my phone. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I watched a ribbon of sunlight crawl down the side of a building across the street. When it hit the concrete I walked over there and basked in the motherfucker. Which changed everything. I could suddenly think straight. Before I was inundated with cold winds and gulag politics. Last night in my misery state of unsleeping I was listening to this thing about these shipwrecked fools near New Zealand and at one point a giant iceberg showed up next to their miserable camp and until the wind blew the humongous chunk of ice away they were attacked by even colder air than usual.

Once I warmed up from the ribbon of sunshine I called Professor Curly and she prodded me to get in touch with Dirty instead of just waiting around. Which is my usual eter vous or whatever. My fun times. And I don't mind waiting around, I look at things and people and stuff, but until that sunlight hit me, that hour of cold ass shit sucked.

Eventually Dirty came out and took me in and we spent the day working on a set for a Broadway play and the work was fine, and the people were great, actually, it is an odd operation, but I really don't understand things. I don't. This business has been growing for 22 years now, yet it is the exact same. And here I am 22 years later doing the same job, but I am not the same.

[Insert Work Photo]

[Insert Heart of Rock and Roll]

I don't know, maybe I'll get some sleep tonight and the pass they sent me, finally, will let me get into the place on time? And maybe I'll feel better about everything tomorrow.

Work is a four letter word.