Monday, March 31, 2014

Fun With Pizza (Pt. 2)

San Diego...

My first pizza job was at an indie place on El Cajon Blvd. in San Diego.  It was "centrally located," in a manner of speaking.  The delivery area was monstrous: all the way up to Tierrasanta, down to Logan Heights, plus North Park, Mission Hills, Downtown, South Park, out to La Mesa, southeast to Encanto, and all points in between.  I'd never had anything to do with the business, and still recognized the madness in this giant delivery area.

I also recognized the possible dangers in delivering to some of the areas we covered.  East San Diego, Logan Heights, Sherman Heights, Encanto.... These were not fun places to be, especially for a twenty year old white boy.  My main defense was probably the punk rock look I had: "It's onna them crazy white boys.  Who know what he could do?"

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Theocrats. Oh, You So Crazy.

There's this dude by the name of Gary Cass, right?  He's part of something called the "Christian Anti-Defamation Commission," which, if Gary is any indication, a load of hyper-extremist, paranoid, reactionary mega-Fundamentalist Christians.  You know the ones: handing out Chick tracts on Halloween, spending their Saturdays at the park bellowing chunks from Revelations through their Mr. Microphones, convinced that non-Christian religions (especially the Muslims) are out to somehow take over America, and generally thinking God should be a source of fear and not love.

They're always pissed off about something: my grandmother fit in with that group, and I once heard her go on a five-minute rant about "those damn Presbyterians."  Mr. Cass had this to say recently (I pulled the last paragraph because I didn't feel like dealing with the whole thing):


Fun With Pizza (Pt.1)

I've spent quite a bit of time in my life delivering pizza.  When you have absolutely no financial aspirations, it's a wonderful gig.  Relatively easy work, decent money, and you're out and about for most of your day, which had the most appeal to me.  The money is enough to keep the landlord off your neck, keep the lights and phone on, buy music, and provide a savings cushion.... Which you'll need, because running a car for six to twelve hours a day means having to maintain it at a near-constant rate.  Plus, things still break, no matter what you drive.

Pizza delivery is sometimes aggravating, sometimes frustrating, sometimes hilarious, but it's never dull.  You meet people at their best and worst; I'll be talking about them later on.  Right now though, it's time for some advice.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Perversion

For convenience sake, we'll simply define perversion as deviation from a culture's view
of normal sexuality.

For example, let's take the Folsom Street Fair. While actual sexual activity at the Fair is discouraged and frowned upon, the dress and overall style of the attendees gives a good clue as to their interests: leather, chains, cuffs, masks, 9" spike-heel boots, spikes, whips... You get the idea.

However --- the Folsom Street Fair being what it is --- all of that is defined as normal, at least for the duration of the Fair and within its geographic boundaries. So, let's say a guy named Lenny goes to the Fair to flyer for his friend's piercing shop. He's wearing engineer boots, black Ben Davis pants, a Toy Dolls t-shirt, and has a zipped sweatshirt (a non-hooded hoodie) stuffed in his Zo-bag, along with the shop flyers and other stuff.

In this situation, Lenny is the pervert. In fact, Lenny wishes he was still seventeen and still thought spike bracelets were cool; they would have helped a little to blend in with the crowd. As it was, Lenny attracted attention to himself by NOT being dressed in leather, chains, et. al. Seriously, people stared, all day.

Lenny's sense of humor and ability to chat with strangers, no matter the situation, saved the day. Coming across a domme being pulled in an old-school, full-size rickshaw by her sub, he asked her where the fare meter was installed: both of them laughed, and the sub said, "Mistress, I know how we could make a ton of extra money!" Lenny complimented people on their... Ahh.... Well, they weren't clothes... But "costumes" would be insulting --- this ain't fuckin' Halloween for these people, it's a big part of their lives ---

Let's just say Lenny complimented people on the custom-made, damn-pricey-looking leather apparel many were wearing. People were flattered. Many, many flyers were handed out. Overall, Lenny enjoyed himself. He did, however, turn down a couple invitations to come to peoples' houses after things ended for the night: The invitations were from very large hairy gentlemen in leather thongs, motorcycle boots, and little else. Lenny thanked them and explained he had to meet his girlfriend later that evening. (Lenny was single at the time, and the only "girlfriend" he had was at the end of his left wrist. So it wasn't entirely a lie.)

Saturday, March 22, 2014

The Smut Racket (Pt. 1)

Well... Hell. Really, the biggest internal conflict is when some people think your job is interesting --- and it may feel that way at first --- but is just another gig, and your motivation is your paycheck. No more, no less.  Like right now, I'll talk about my time working in retail...

... At an adult book store, a job I held around 1987. Yes, a few of my friends thought the job must've been a real hoot. And... No, no, not really. There were situations that happened unique to the job and environment, and sometimes amusing things would happen, but it really was just a retail gig, with all the tedium one expects from retail... No matter what you're selling.

People always find something to bitch about to the clerks in retail.  For whatever reason, we didn't have to put up with it so much.  Such a vast percentage of our customers were carrying around some sort of bizarre Calvinist shame just by being there that they probably wouldn't have complained if we'd set small areas of their clothing on fire.  It would be eerily quiet in the store, even when it was full.  While it's not the sort of place you normally start up casual conversation, It would have been nice if the damn customers actually spoke to us, while we were ringing them up.

Friday, March 21, 2014

Violence

In my life, I have hit exactly three people without being physically provoked.

The first time --- which I have written about --- I was on LSD and having a not-so-good trip, was massively paranoid, and was convinced, in the manner that only people high on LSD can be, that a total stranger on a BART platform was going to attack me, so I had to attack him first. I spent three hours in the custody of BART police, followed by a trip to Alta Bates Hospital to be shot full of Thorazine. No charges filed; the guy I punched figured someone as messed up as I was didn't need any more trouble in his life. A very generous act on his part.

The second time I was drunk, surly, and stupid. One of those "You lookin' at me, asshole?" attitudes. I swung and kind of connected, sort of, he swung and connected well. He "won" the fight by dint of the fact that all he had to do was push me and I'd nearly go down: I was really, REALLY hammered.
It was probably pretty funny to watch. I'd stagger towards him slurring "Imma fukk y' up," he'd simply push me, and I'd stagger backwards to where I started, often landing on my ass. After about three or four times of this, a couple of random guys guided me out the door saying soothing things like "Don't worry, he ain't gonna fuck with you any more, okay? Why don't you sit down out here and get some fresh air?" So I sat down against the wall and promptly passed out for two hours, until a cop woke me up. I explained that I'd "felt a little tired," and he let me head towards home.... Fortunately, only four blocks away.

The third time was an ALF protester, maybe twelve years ago. Before everybody had cameras on their phones, which was a good thing.

This would also be a good time to mention that my wife is a diabetic. You can probably see where this is going.

Monday, March 17, 2014

LSD, Failed Violence, and BART Cops

This is a little incident going back to 1990, when I was twenty-two.  Just another punk rock weirdo, in a town with hundreds of them, who decided to spend a spare three dollars I had on a hit of LSD from one of the hippie shits in People's Park.  A perfectly sensible idea: drop acid and see where the rest of the day took me.  As it happened, I was taken places I never expected to go....

I don't remember what the hell I was doing in Rockridge, no clue at all.  Way far out of my turf.  I was already high, so I may have walked all the way from Telegraph: something of a stroll, but I was so used to walking just about everywhere it wouldn't have fazed me.  And I was set for a trip: fresh batteries in the Walkman, a few cassettes (Ministry, Skinny Puppy, and some early Discharge), Tic-Tacs, a BART ticket with about ten bucks on it, and a little cash.  Plus my usual stuff, consisting of cigarettes, lighter, pens, single-edge razor blade in my wallet, and a lock-blade Buck knife in my back pocket.

The paranoia kicked in about eight blocks from the Rockridge BART station--- did I say "paranoia"?  I meant to say, Unknown Faceless Pursuers, who I could sometimes spot, started coming after me.  They may have looked like normal-ass people, but I knew --- I KNEW --- they were stalking me.  I made the decision to get to West Oakland and sort of hole up at a friend's house.  I've got decent beer money, me and Sean and Ginger can drink forties, shoot the shit, and I'll take the edge off this fry with malt liquor.

My Strangest Day At Work

For those who have worked around porn in any capacity, there is no greater joy in life than the fact that real sex is absolutely nothing like porn sex. In real sex, you're allowed to fumble around and giggle, try different things on a whim, take a break for water, talk, and fuck in positions that are actually comfortable for BOTH of you.

What's missing is a small and fairly bored audience, interruptions to move lights and cameras around, pre-scripted positions, breaks to touch up the woman's makeup (and towel off the guy --- NOBODY sweats in porn), and much interest in the person you're fucking. Yeah, performers get along well enough, lord knows they kinda have to, but the action is so stilted and planned out that neither one is having much fun except on the most biological level.