DRINK THE KOOL AID.

Can you imagine being so "over" your college experience that you throw away an entire photo album containing the photos?

If your answer is: yes, if it is the frat years.

I would agree with your actions whole heartedly.

WHITE PEOPLE!!!
Enough said.

Literacy Through Christ/Jail!

I can't say that reading and writing would make this gentlemen a less likely candidate for crime and drugs.

I have meet some very literate fuck-ups. Literally.

However, being on my high horse at 5am it is easy to pass judgment about this dude.
Then again the company you keep...

Would You Please Be Quiet, Please?

I have opted to remove the comment option due the lack of offensive comments I have been receiving. Which is probably a direct result of the lack of offended readers. Or readers in general. Talk amongst your selves.

Especially about the cross dressing photos below... How can you not comment on that?

Perhaps there should be a comment section for under the breath and it would type in white so no one can see it but you feel like you got it off your chest like this.

Breakfast of champions!

Cosmic lie!

I'm lost in the super market

I did not do it. I did it.

Tim or Tammy

kickin' it old school!

Glen or Glenda

Found these gems in a photo album on Langton St.

Daily affirmations!

This is so uplifting! How can you not feel better about yourself after reading this? Perhaps you or I can catch a ride on the trash barge to Hawaii and save the air fare...

Get up on the scavenger hunt before you get called names.

Trapper-Keeper Mysticism! Ride the art wave!

So here it is: A Reverse Scavenger Hunt. That's right people! I said it.

I will take the first ten (10!) submissions of items/objects from readers, that is supposing that there are in fact ten (10!) of you out there. You can post the item/objects you would like found/acknowledged in the comments (please count off as you post, I intend for this to be a challenge for all involved) and I will do my best to find or observe them in their natural habitat and get your either a photo, text message-photo or an awesome description peppered with my own special blend of idiocy.

As the items get knocked off they will be crossed off the list and shown here in some form of image capture.

So be realistic. Please. A hooker eating a real Philly hoagie while jamming it up on a pogo stick may be the best site ever seen it isn't always that easy to come by while hanging off the back of a truck.

This shit is free form and I am open to suggestions.

Now fuck right off. I intend to so the same.

SHOUT OUT!

My days are made so much better by these, you would think that they are unnecessary but when its laundry day and you are stuck with these the difference is clear and a lot less chaffed.

And now more recently my days are made brighter by these, GOD DAMN! THESE ARE THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD! It has been along time since eating something has made me smile when I am all alone. Not cheap mind you.

Trapped in the closet

Today, one of the highlights, other than the phone ringing several times at 4:30am saying they need me at 5:30am instead of the route I was previously assigned to which started at 9:00am was being three stops from finishing the newly assigned route under slept and under enthused and being hit with the sudden and very very very urget urge to pee. Now I don't know about ya'll but when I have to go (ahem! small bladder syndrome is the not the ideal condition for this job) there is little else I can think about, let alone do. So, being the slow moving quick thinker that I am I dig through the recycle can and look for a container of which no one has ever put their mouth to, preferably one with a wide mouth that requires very little aim precision because at this point I am shaking. Salvation turns out to be an old parmesean cheese shake 'em jar. I locked my self in the janitors closet, removed the nasty ass gloves and removed the issue my body was having with my brain. Feeling proud like never before I slink out of the closet cursing the metaphor with the warm jar tucked under my arm getting warmer.

There was a time a few weeks ago when I had to pee so bad, very similar situation as above but this time I was inside a nice building that was built shortly after the earth quake (huge wood plank floors), when I went searching for my urinal aide I was thinking jar, juice bottle, plastic bag.... what I found was a blender. Using the plastic carafe, hiding in the dark corner of this classic building the feeling of pride mixed with elation was quickly "pissed on" by the sudden and disturbing discovery that the carafe was being tossed out for a reason, it no longer held liquid. Thankfully there is much worse to touch my boots than my own urine. Now all I need is for Madonna to drink it in the shower.

THE HORRAH!

Imagine my surprise. 6:30am hustling a can around a tight confined space to get it outside (human-garbage-tetris) when the rubber rain shoe you have been dragging about beneath the wheels of the can and your own boots in the half-dark turns out to be a pigeon. Really? Not awesome.

Let yourself be knowed.

After neglecting all three of you with desk jobs that still read this clap-trap for so long I figured that the quickest way for me to highlight some new scores/finds (because not everything that I have drug home has been a keeper...) would be a short video clip.

While she-mom is off getting her hair coifed (me, personally, I have opted to let my appearance/self go, as having a baby tends to let the gawking strangers look past my serial killer-tweaked out trucker look while I scarf down iced coffee and vegan baked goods at the local farmers market and allow them focus on the kid with the dirty toe nails never once thinking thoughts of neglect.) (Jesus, that was a long aside) (do you even remember what I was going on about?) (better re-read some shit to get back in the flow, I move quick for a slow person... ... ... ...), like I was saying, mom gone, dad here and instead of paying the bills like I told her I would be doing (one armed mind you) I am here shooting snuff films of crap found in the trash. Enjoy.

We are off to watch Superbad (this will in fact be my third screening) where we can drink beer, bring babies, eat pizza and put our feet up on someone else's couch.
Ahh the benefits of working a shift that starts at 8:30am as opposed to 4am.

And tomorrow through Friday if you are downtown and/or south of market look for the asshole in the day glow top strutting his stuff, listening to books on tape, while collecting city cans full of dog shit, bum piss, your left over coffee and all the weeklies from last week because they get dumped in the corner cans when replaced with the new issues. Not a score for recycling Mr. Mayor.

Me in a nut shell

This is what the man (asshole) in the Ford with American Indian jewlery hanging from his rear view saw yesterday on Geary when he stopped short to block me from crossing the street. After throwing his hands up, I said "What? you stopping short on me?" he says " GO FUCK YOURSELF!!! You........ garbage....... man........." and speeds off as I salute him for his creativity in belittlement.

Cubisim?

Nancy showed me this link in the comment a few posts below and although I am super fucking jealous I didn't come up with the idea first the jealousy is superseded by the sheer feeling of amazement/disgust/befuddlement/confoundedness/agassesness that someone would pay $50.00 for a cube of trash from a tourist attraction. It has come to my attention in picking up city cans that its tourists leaving behind most of this trash and the idea that someone would want to commemorate their trip by paying for someone Else's trash makes me crazy. The kind of crazy that has dollar signs in its eyes! Who's with me here? Let us make some money selling garbage (made in china?).

I mean isn't that what commerce is all about? Showing someone that there is a hole in their life and filling it.
In this case their life is the land fill and I am still the God damned garbage man... So cyclical its nauseating.

Also, the guy calls the cubes-o-trash "scupltures". Who is this guy? Marcel Duchamp's great grandson? Would he call him Great grand-DADA?

Mine own two eyes.

Cable car turn around at Powell and Market.
A blind Asian man sings "the sun will come out tomorrow" for spare change into a microphone that plays from his travel case (the kind the business class uses).
A young Urban person approaches him mid song and axes/demands the mic.
The blind man gives the mic up like a shell shocked folk singer at his first open mic night while young jeezy (shoes untied, laces spread out a foot on either side of his feets) begins an over the top R&B song directed in the direction of Blonde's Pizza.

Saw the blind singer yesterday singing his own version of an Air Supply song changing the lyrics to "I can't fight my feeling anymore!". REMIX!!!!

Service with a smile.

Jack in the box.
Mission at 4th st.
street "individual" holding the door open for patrons hoping to incur the endless amounts of spare change folks are all too ready to give out if someone would just hold the door open for them when they enter a building.
Sporting a half assed smile beneath a full beard (I have come to learn he is called the wolf man, I'm guessing for the beard and not what he does in the park at night),
his looks chiseled by the streets, or speed (Same thing?).
His Steed (bike) leans against the wall with a custom paint job in purple, black and silver paint pen that simply states all his views in three simple letters: FTW.

Woke up drowning in chatchkie hell.

A few weeks ago I was picking up city cans in Union Square. I opened one on Stockton Street and found a twenty staring back at me. Now I have been fooled before, many times by 9-11 bills, some promo add for a dry cleaner desined to look like a bill, even a poo dollar has caught me off guard. But this was the real deal and it was Friday so I was pumped and now more so. The remainder of the shift was spent driving around picking up more tepid coffee remains (thanks Starbuck) and dog shit (these two are the majority of the contents of city cans), my anniversary was coming up and I was going to drop some cash on knives and other such food-nerd supplies for the wife and this would certainly help the ding be a bit less loud, then again I could get dinner or beer or gas. The mind gets busy quick, like when you are about to get a settlement and you have mapped out what the cash is going to.

It always ends bad. Always.
This instance was no different.

The victory lap of my shift was Market street between Stockton and North 5th st. and I could feel the fucker flutter around in my right pocket where I had shoved it hastily upon discovery, when I came upon this punk or crusty or train hopper or whatever and she had a dog and her clear cup was empty and I started to do the math of what I was making per day, per hour etc., I eye balled the dog and thought about mine and how important it is that I make sure she eats. So in a thought full/less instant I turned to the girl and said "look what I found in the garbage" as I handed her the Twomp (that used to be "street" for a 20 sack, K.I.R.!) she sprang into what I thought was going to be an inspired one woman reenactment of a scene from Bill and Teds excellent adventure as if she was doing "street theatre".
No. Not so lucky. This was her style.
"DUDE! THANKS DUDE! REALLY?"
I almost said no, not really and took the shit back. It was obvious that this chick was a junkie and I saw exactly where my money (mine?) was going as she carried on with "I JUST GOT INTO TOWN... HOW DO YOU GET THIS JOB? THAT'S COOL! MAN! REALLY? NO WAY! YOU ARE THE COOLEST!"

I couldn't hear her anymore. I was seeing red and rehearsing how I would never tell anyone about this, just like the time I was taken for $20 by the dude wearing a stethoscope saying he worked at the hospital and he was late for his shift and that needed a ride to his sisters house and in a moment of vulnerability, human kindness and whole hearted foolishness i gave him both the ride and the 20. Fuck me running! I just did that?
yes.

As her "old man" approached she phased me out and I stormed back to the truck watching her dance around the blanket they had layed down I suppose in an attempt to avoid getting dirtier, waving the money as if she were singing "we gonna get high tonight".
So bummed. I shut it out. Completly.

until...
I found a tenner Monday in the recycling, I stopped the blade from taking it into the truck with all the junk mail, FHM mags, Yachting digest and other non recyclable items like power chords, dvd players, toaster ovens, mattress pads, pots and pans, the occasional bumper from a car (its endless the kind of shit people think you can magically recycle just by putting it in the blue can "well it has metal and plastic right?"), at any rate I grabbed the ten repeating "not this time" over and over again out loud.
This one bought drinks for my partner and my self for two days. Not tye-dyed rolling papers, chore boy brillo pads and butane lighters.

In recent weeks I have found:
Mole skin journal that I left on the roof of my car, only to remember it on the bridge.
A shopping bag full of Diesel jeans and some other expensive denim brands that the women in the marina think that once they are done with it that it should just be trashed. "Banana Republic cashmere when combined with stripper shoes will decompose right?" (LETS GREEN THIS CITY! LIKE REALLY!)
Cell phone holster still in is package.
Sorry ass love letters.
A lamp shaped like a tree that need the wiring replaced.

Have I mentioned that the only panties you ever see are thongs? You never see granny panties or just plain old panties, always thongs. I guess you get what you pay for...

Anyway. I have rambled enough.
Perhaps I will find the motivation to connect the scanner soon and share some finds.
Until then I guess you will be left to read poorly written gibberish. Just be glad I utilize the spell check.
Until then I remain glowing in the pre-dawn light.

WILD STALLIONS!
-Socrates

Jesus. Is somebody mad at you?

the June July

Sorry ya'll (damn! I love the real estate pros) that I have been dragging such ass. But as most of you know we were waiting on a delivery of goods and the goods have showed up. I can't Say enough about this new product except that i sleep even less than i used to, so expect to see a Samsonite link at the side of the page due to the luggage sponsorship I landed due to the excessive luggage beneath the eyes.
I am back to work too early (a week off...) and I will try to get the scanner hooked up before too long and show some of the stellar notes that have blown into my path.

I did find this today and plan on keeping it in the bathroom to disturb company and most likely the wife. I also bought me these bitches so look the fuck out! now all I need is the grey shorts to go with my new hot bod.
nap time and then I will hold shit in various forms until I go back to work where I will again hold shit in more forms, perhaps shape some... it builds character.
I know no one is reading this and there is a sense of freedom in that. A feeling of peace even.

Back in your life

While filling in on a route Friday I opened the recycling toter to find a seemingly brand new North Face super pro camping back pack stuffed with a tent bag, sleeping pad and a receipt for some Tumi luggage purchased back in 1996 for $667.00. At first I had thought there was something to return and some money to come up on, then I realized that the receipt was for the one item that was not there.

I was, however both relived and disappointed to not have found a sleeping bag along with the rest of the booty. Disappointed because our household lacks sleeping bags yet relived because using a bag that belongs to someone you do not know let alone have never seen just seems plain nasty. Even if they are rich enough to be dumb enough to think that by placing their "old" camping gear in the "blue" can that it will find it's way to being recycled, which in a way it has. I cannot say the same for the PC hard drive that lay just below it in the same can...

Peep the jamming finds of Friday below. I am fascinated by the colorway of the tent, Miami vice goes camping with OP?:






Other recent finds include:
-Brand new sealed Griffin italk voice recorder for ipods.
-Copies of last months New Yorkers for the bathroom sessions.
-A Tyvek envelope with my first and middle name (the first one, I have two middles and the cops don't like it when they overlook that) printed in marker above "San Francisco", this caught me off guard because believing everything that my parents told me when I was growing up I truly believed that I was special and one of a kind. Now to find that there was a partial version of me living in the Marina (a few blocks away from where my grandmother grew up) and it took all my strength to remove my self from the breezeway floor wipe away the tears and continue with my job while my mind travelled through the alternate universe very similar to that movie Primer. I am sure that everyone has moments like these once in a while...
-A note that confesses to stealing money after complaining about being used as the scape goat for the stolen money. I will post this one soon as it is a real kicker.
-A note between two old women discussing the issues of ageing and deterioration of health that goes from detailing mothers day activities to describing sores and bleeding in places you only read about (ahem) to listening to Oak Ridge Boys records. All this done in four small pink pages.
-DVDS, all sealed and wide screen format:
Hitch
Take The Lead
March Of The Penguins
Four Brothers
-I also found a strong and permanent distaste for a co-worker that pissed me off to such a degree that I attempted to leave him behind. This is the individual that dislikes black men but lusts after black women (see one of the first few posts) and refers to his father in law as a "dirty Mexican". He "mad dogs" me now and I think that work is beginning to get fun. Just like high school was...

As soon as I get motivated to connect the scanner I will post some notes that have found me over the course of the last few weeks. That is unless baby comes like she has been threatening yet failing to do for the last two weeks. Until then, your friend in reflective safety yellow clothing.

Also, if you enjoy reading about other peoples work life I recommend this book:
Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States
It used to be a zine and now it's a book. I am enjoying the hell out of it.

Also, the links used in this post only serve to identify the items I am referring to. They are not meant to encourage you to utilize them anymore that you are motivated to do on your own.

I should hope that I never have that much influence over any ones life.

Again, glowing and reflecting in the predawn light.

Man Survives Garbage Truck Crushing. or ahh ha!

You would think that this guy would know better. Then again as you think you realize that the dude probably doesn't read the paper much seeing that he is homless and all.


(05-08) 09:19 PDT West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP) --

A homeless man who had fallen asleep in a trash bin to escape the rain was dumped into a garbage truck and survived being crushed repeatedly before a worker saw him.

Robert Baswell, 44, said he screamed as the load of trash was crushed against his body at least seven times and was sure he would die. He tried to cushion one blow from the truck's compressor with a dead opossum, he said.

"I screamed one last breath," Baswell told the Palm Beach Post. A trash collector finally saw him as he tossed in a box and called for help.

Firefighters spent almost a half hour pulling pieces of trash out by hand to free the man.

"I want to find this gentleman and have him buy my lottery tickets because he is one lucky dude," said West Palm Beach Fire Rescue spokesman Phil Kaplan.

Baswell, who had bedded down in a brush-filled trash bin Sunday night to get out of the rain, suffered broken legs and ribs.

"I'm so happy to be here, as bad as I'm hurt," he said.

"I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast!"

This past week the guy I ended up being paired up with normally works a one man route but had gotten something in his eye and didn't feel safe driving. He did however feel safe wearing sunglasses at 4:30 am as we entered the basements of buildings in the fisherman's wharf area, he also felt safe putting perscription eye drops in his eye that had apparently expired and subsequently made his eyes sting. alot. Also, he did not move the truck once. Not once...

When the dispatcher told me who I would be working with he said "he is an uh... interesting guy..." and left it at that. When I saw him I had faint memories of other guys telling me he was nuts. He in fact turned out to be nuts. It got so bad I would spout off insane shit back at him and he would not even register that I spoke. His narration to his sunglassed life at 4am was that strong.

We were taking a break and reading copies of the Examiner that they literally just throw on random door steps. I had breezed through the paper not really very interested in the lower than tabloid crap they feel the need to print, I just wanted to keep working and get the fuck away, when my partner would read things to me with the reading skill of an inter city sixth grader and then pose questions like "what is your honest feelings about the veto and don't say anything that would make me think that you are lying" but imagine really long pauses in the middle of each word...

After that query we were off politics (which I try to stay away from after being asked I told a Chinese chain smoking Right wing nut that I supported gay marriage and thought that some limitations should be placed on who gets to own a and use a gun, he then told me though his FM head phones and filter less camel cigarette that I was a liberal and proceeded to tell other guys my views in the coming weeks, you oughtta hear what one other guy said back to him about my views on critical mass... two peas in pod), like I was saying off politics and on to the stimulating topic of entertainment. uh oh! looks like Boy George is in trouble again for tying up a male escort and trying to force his way inside uninvited. My partner and all his insight says that he never would have guessed that back in the 80's individuals like Michael Jackson, George Michael, Boy George and Prince would turn out to be gay. I suggested that he might want to remove his sunglasses because it was pretty obvious about all but Prince, he rambled on and in my efforts to ignore him I came up with this little puzzler:
BOY GEORGE MICHAEL JACKSON
and this banger too:
BOY GEORGE BUSH

Oh the fun never ends...
I ramble, I know.
It's casual.

Once we got back to work he began to talk to me very closely about "George Michael" spanking guys against their will and illustrating it on the lids of garbage cans and yelling very loud threats to them (the cans) as if they (cans again) were the male escort that Boy George wanted to gorge.

In three days this guy did and said some of the strangest shit I have ever seen and I am not talking Crispin Glover weird. This was some other shit.

Working alone can be good or bad depending on your mental state in the first place.

Oh, he was about 42 or so and made little sense if any at all.

Phsycology Today

Today in Cow Hollow (the neighborhood that is the financial warm up to the Marina) I found this little gem in a can above a MAC store:




There were two of them (get at me if you want the other one, seriously).
My favorite part is on the bill of the hat where it says "Toxin Type A", further rubbing peoples nose in what exactly (or not so exactly) they are willing to inject into their body to look/feel good. Just like tattoos! ("it's different though with tats bro cause this is like a bible cause of Jesus and stuff and this is like a crest of my family and this is an eagle for freedom and its all wrapped up in a tidy little blankie that makes me a unique individual") same shit different dollar/location. I hate my skin.

These shits are brand new and were sitting on top of a copy of Psychology Today along with a pharmaceutical company promo t-shirt printed on an American Apparel shirt. So much money to waste on people with so much money to waste.

Internuts!

Seriously, I hate the internet right now.
we have had the worst connection in the world the last month and a half.
It begins to feel like the lottery, or payday. Once one of notices that the airport has a green light we dash to our computers and pay bills, read the paper and scoff at the idea of wasting valuable time posting to a blog.

I almost quit this thing, then the internet went wonky and I began to feel as if it were out of my control therefore I could not simply quit the blog unless it was on my own standards.

In the next few weeks things may slow down due to the pending delivery of our little one, and they may not pick up until she moves out. So check back periodically. I will try to post at least a minimum of once a week after the baby leave is over (two weeks from delivery).

As I type this on a pirated connect from a neighbors apparent dial up connection my wife is ripping AT&T a new one. This tension she is displaying may speed up the forthcoming delivery of said child.

See you on the other side.

OOO that smell...

The truck I was on this past Thursday smelled alternately of Zesty Italian Dressing and dog shit.
I actually thought it was me for the first few hours. It is very possible.

Repetition is the master

Some days you see things that are baffling, like a purple acrylic finger nail stuck inside the weave of a discarded cowboy hat. Other times things come in patterns or they just set a them for you to follow. Today I threw away at least three terry cloth robs. There must be a calendar called "Out with the new me and in with the new me" that the assholes at Chronicle Books put out that has April 4th marked with some crazy font that its "Time to change that old terry cloth rob out for a new one day." I hate Chronicle Books. Really. Anybody want a "Day of the Dead" coffee mug? Why not?...

Shirly you must be joking?

I are not bad at founding this things.

Night time is the right time?

There are some drags to being new. The main is working in the morning from, say 4am to 10:30am and only getting a half hour nap in during the day under the assumption that you would be working the following morning and could "marathon" it until bed time at 8:30pm.

Upon calling in at 7:30pm (this is mandatory Sunday-Thursday) to get your route assignment for the following day you find out that after eating a huge dinner that you have to show up for the next days work at 9:30pm that night (it took me a long time to wrap my head around that one).

This happens more than I prefer.

I have learned that eating Ethiopian food or Indian food is not conducive to bending over or carrying huge sacks full of trash down 30 narrow stairs in the rain with no toilet in site. I have also learned that eating these rich foods are pretty much a guarantee that I will be working that night. Bummer.

On this particular evening of enchantment, after eating two substantial boca burgers and an entire bag of garlic fries I found myself whoring in Union Square.

Hanging off the back of the truck as we moved from pile to pile (garbage man slang for a group of cans) when I noticed what appeared to be a neatly dressed middle aged Asian woman talking up to the driver in the cab. The exchange was brief and he continued moving the truck up, time being so valuable at this job guys have little patience for chit-chat.
I hop off and start in on the cans. The lady then heads over to me and starts talking before she reaches me, she still looks neatly dressed but has that loon look in her eyes that I learned to spot growing riding a skateboard in the city.
I motion to her that i cannot hear her (these trucks are fucking loud. deaf by 40.), she then says:
"I want to give you something."
"Oh yeah, whats that?..."
"Put out your hand."
I show her my nasty ass glove thinking that she is bat shit and what she has to give me is a lit fire cracker or some shit. It could happen.
"No take that off, put this in your pocket"
"No, you put it in my hand" the glove is off by this point, yet she still tries to stick her hand in my pocket. Now I don't keep much in there but lip balm but I would prefer it if randoms would keep their hands out of my pockets uninvited. I grabbed her hand gently and told her to put "it" in my hand.
"Here." she says as she drops the tiniest piece of a reefer nugget ("nug"?) in my hand.
"It's for you and your partner, you work hard."
Did I mention she was wasted?
"No thank you ma'am, we cannot partake in this sort of activity."
"Not even at home?"
"Not even on the moon, they drug test us."
I placed the contraband back in her hand and told her to take some of the tobacco out of her cigarette and smoke that shit.
She began to walk away and stopped short, turned back and asked me "what do you call this stuff?"
I ran down the list as she walked away and slumped in a doorway where I assumed she would spend the rest of her bender.

Rough(age) draft

I was under the impression that I would be awarded an "excellence in Excrement" certificate if I were to crap on your desk...
You know, you really ought to update your employee handbook to avoid this confusion in the future Sir.

Terror attack survival kit

These hail from the same trash can.
I am sure that if I dug a bit deeper I would find spent No2 cartridges from weekend whippit binges as well. I figure you can imagine this individual pretty well without the incriminating evidence... then again what is all this?

Gurl...

This is pretty much how all my dates used to start.
I guess you can imagine how they used to end...

There are other pages to this song but they read like the rest of the "club bangers" (i.e. "shouting" out names of other rappers etc.) that are out there. So obviously I chose this jewel for its innovative lyrical content.

If I did..

Not that I do, but if I did work here (ahem, cough) this
is pretty much exactly what it is, or would be like. Only taller, much taller. thankyouverymuch.

p.s. some awesome found items updates coming your way, that is if your are still standing in front of this site waiting to be hit with it.

THA FUCKIN' UNION. IT WORKS FOR YOU!

Seriously. Watch it.
Last youtube video. maybe...

Sur name again?

I told him my name. It was 5am so I can forgive anyone missunderstanding a mumbler who was awoken about an hour before by a phone call instructing him to get to the yard for work, perhaps not my finest hour of orration. He repeated it back to me and through his thick accent it sounded right, again it was 5am and the truck is fucking loud.
As the day moved onward at a very rapid rate (this guy who has worked here for 45 years is the fastest sonofabitch I have ever seen go) he would yell out "KREES! KREES!". Now my name is clearly printed on the shirt of my uniform, and I have come to understand that some of these guys are not the best at reading or writing english, hence the job, but I was not about to start taking offense to the name misshap as it was nice to be someone else with a more common name for the day. As I climbed out of the truck I informed him of my actual name so that he could put a good word in for me with the managment, if things like that even happen.

I came as a rat

As it turns out rats will run the opposite direction that they are being moved.
So, if you ever find yourself in the position that I was in and its 4:30am in China town and you can't tell if its a dead hamster, chinchilla or a live rat masquerading as a stuffed animal inside a pink shopping bag remember to pull the can behind you. Opposed to the easier to steer and to manipulate method of pushing it in front of you.
Further more. Do your best to not mix up the direction the rat will jump, things have a way of confusing themselves when you are not there.

Thanks for the stamp

This postcard is so old you can still see the World Trade Center.

What's good for the goose...

So do you uh...work out?

Garbageman

Paint. Balls.

Is this from your mom?

Where does one sign up?

I found this in a nice area.

What's underneath...

The morning regiment is often done in a hurried stumbling manner. There are, however some things that must not be done in such a rush. The above are a few of the folks that I have gotten very close with over the last year. From left to right:

-Daily usage, so long as there is movement there is baby powder on the floor of the bathroom in the morning.

-I had not opted to use this ass saver until the end of a 13 hour day in extreme summer heat. I haven't had much use for this in the last few months but will be re-upping the tube in the next few weeks. Again soon I will be touching my cheeks before I can even see straight.

-For when it hurts (usually the knees) and I don't care what I smell like, old Chinese man anyone? I used to use paper towels for application but even then it would find its way burning at the edge of my eyes. Now I have wizened up a bit and picked up some latex gloves. Sort of like a self administered proctology exam just far far away from the region. I will not relive that nightmare again.

-This is a tool of good faith. I find it to work very well, but without the foul smell and burning feel there is not the direct connection when it comes to convincing the brain of that. Just ask a hippy.

-Notice the cheap brand. The amount of this stuff I can consume when things are bad it starts to make more sense the pay the $12.99 than the $24.99 for the name brand.

Not pictured: Lava hand scrub, fingernail brush, moleskin, second skin blister relief and band aids.

So next time you see me and dodge the hand shake, rest assured that I am a ardent hand washer, so much so that I tend to feel like I need help.

Update?

honestly, there are five or so updates planned. I have been working tons and finishing up a project that will be all done friday night (maybe I see you there). So, this weekend I will have some images and yammerings for you. As for now, I am off to work on Treasure Island. hooray!

also, my friend Brain Palmer showed me bloglines where you can make a list of the websites you visit most frequently (that may not be updates and often as you look) and it will collect the update and let you know. So instead of checking 15 sites you can check your bloglines page and see.

I shut up now
I go work.

This week in summary

I think that this may be the better way to keep this blog not boring. updating with an itemized list that contains specific and brief gems from the week.
what say you? I mean after reading the post below this one think about it and let me know. I could have just said: "lost my phone in Chinatown in the rain and basically the $340.00 I made that day will more than likely go to a new phone..." right? Anywho here are a few "touchers":

Remembered that I should have included this "winner" in the "close your mouth dear" entry: "Instead they should be celebrating the guy who shot Martin Luther King. HA! Did you hear what i said john?! i said that 'they should be celebrating the guy who shot Martin Luther King!' huh?" John (some dude at a coffee shop) then says "Martin Luther King day is not a holiday" shaking his head with his hands full of fresh baked bread (its 6:30am) he repeats "Martin Luther King day is not a holiday". I bite my tongue and say over and over in my head "try Arizona".

Told at 7:30pm that I was to show up at 2am for work which lasted until 1pm, three truck loads, two guys, no breaks.

Worked the Presidio. Amazed by how much nature there is just outside? inside? the city. I was all pumped to set up the family in the shitty apartments that over look the pacific in order to live among that many redwood trees.

Then the next day I worked Treasure Island. That name is very misleading. There is no treasure there. Its almost as if it is the land that time forgot and will continue to do so as the begin a plan to integrate the homeless in with the rest of the residents there. If you have ever read Virtual light by William Gibson or have had any doubts that Science Fiction writers predict the future, rest asure that they in fact do and in no time the bay bridge will be closed and folks will be living on it and the island that it rests on.

"It's all in the reflexes..."

Working Saturday's is a perk, you get time and a half and usually you just pick up city cans in a specific area, they however are not that fun, full of gallons of outdated leftover coffee that usually goes down your sleeve or on your pants. You smell worse than other heavier days.

I was fortunate enough to work one last week when it was pissing down rain. I was also fortunate enough to get a truck that had right side drive and was low entry. Since the cans are all on the right side of the street as you drive, and because there is little worse than getting in and out all day long from a truck that is high entry and having to walk around to the can while dodging cars, it is a job initself.

On this particular route we have to do the (name removed) Street Clean Up. This is where at a particular time of day we drive down said street and pick up everything that the folks in chinatown put out or manage to throw into the truck when you are not looking or just bent over. It's pretty sketchy, boxes full of dead and spoiled sea creatures fly just at head level and at most times I am much taller than most of these residents so you can imagine the amount of close calls I encounter in three whole blocks.

Tword the time I was to begin the clean up, while turning a corner my mom calls, seeing that she was driving home from a solo trip from Washington I thought it wise to answer and make sure she was doing OK. She was, and in the rush to get back to work I put my super awesome, big buttoned, music playing cell phone in my shirt pocket without buttoning it.

After dodging crab meat and god knows what else I back into a super tight alley and collect more garbage, most of which has me bending over to pick up any and everything that may go. After the alley was done I took a look at my map to see what I had left, map was gone. Pretty awesome, right? Maybe I should call my friend that was also working who had done this route a bunch and ask him how much I had to go from where I was, phone gone too? Serioulsy? I have never lost a phone before and no matter how many times I patted myself down it never showed up.

Once one looses their cell phone they begin to realize just how much the have come to depend on it, sort of like breaking a limb. Then once you get over that you get to cone to the realization that pay phones are a thing of the past. It is like a scavenger hunt trying to find one.

Soaking wet, tail between my legs I ask the firemen at the fire house and they allow me to call my phone and leave a pleading message to whoever had it now. No recovery of course. Take a look at the list of things I have found (see below). I guess its time I make and expensive deposit into the Karma bank.

Please excuse the longwindedness, trying to make up for lost time...

UPDATE forthcoming

sorry about the lag/halt in updating.
still trying to establish how this will all go.
since they never work new guys on holidays (ahem! triple time) i will update on Monday. seeing as i will not be the guy holding the rake over the pile of money.
be patient.
for now we are off to the bike race.

Dead body/parts

For those of you that have asked, or will...
I have yet to see a dead body or any body parts.
If i do, I assure you that when I see or talk to you it will be the very first thing out of my mouth. I promise.

Close your mouth dear.

Usually the shift goes well. My partner and I work well together, understand each other and what needs to get done and then on the way to the yard or to the dump something happens, they relax and get personal. Sometimes its about their families and children which is nice and humanizing. Other times its so off character from what I thought I had been working with that I take a step back and remind myself to with hold off judgement indefinitely and remember that I am only paired with this guy for now and thankfully not living with them while cameras follow us around as we run through a series of challenges that the producers think would be character building.

These are just a few of the gems that have fallen from the mouths of a few of the guys I have worked with:
-He is cool, for a black guy.
-Get your monkey ass out of my fucking way! (said to a black guy)
-I cant stand dirty fucking niggers, can you?
and then by the same guy...
-Have you ever had a black chick? I bet they would be cool...
-I am not racist, I think everybody should own one.
-My girl says that I am racist, I tell her I am not, I just hate the chinks, niggers and most white people.

What I find most unsettling is that these individuals feel comfortable enough that they think they can share these comments with me. What does this say about what I appear to be? Do they think I concur? I fucking hope not.

Go Fish/Figure...

Once while working a route at my previous employer I jumped off the truck and approached the first can. I ripped the lid off the top to see placed neatly atop the trash, a bag containing water and a goldfish, still swimming mind you.
You know the kind, you make a ping pong ball land atop a saucer and you win the fish in the bowl below it?

I was baffled. what do you do? Stop and collect the fish and take it home? Risk being the new guy with a tear in his eye who pisses off his partner only to have the bag rupture in the front of the truck while finishing the route?

Memories came back of a fish my Mom and I had in the small standard plastic bowl (the kind you get with the fish at the pet store) that had gone forgotten for years behind the kitchen curtain. Only to discover amid our negligence the fucker had adapted/evolved to living on the algae and muck that had accumulated on the walls of the bowl. We then, feeling terrible, cleaned the bowl and the fish promptly died.

I couldn't imagine the scenario that would prompt someone to place the fish in the garbage can as opposed to flushing it down the toilet to fend for itself among the alligators, snakes and mermaids.

My guess was that the little guy/gal was asleep in the back seat when they got home from the fair and figuring that he/she would not remember daddy winning the prize they would later name and mourn, they placed the fish in the trash to fend for itself amongst the rats, maggots and bulldozers.

Imagine that...

Items found and kept

Money, paper and coin- totaling around $11.00
Green lamp- currently in use in the living room.
Chair- currently getting wet in the back yard.
Bikes- i see so many yet have only gone back for one, a Schwinn that is just my size and in pieces in the garage. go figure.
a GBH record- had to let that one go, my partner was a jazz fan.
Photos- I tend to let thos stay in the trash, I had a problem with photos in the past.
A Bluetooth headset- brand new-ish, worked/great, I just have to deal with looking like a cyborg or a black dude at Ikea.
Clothes- a North Face Fleece, Work Pants, etc.
Cell Phones- Usually not the best conditions, but if they have a sim card i test em out.
Books- Cathcher in the rye, Johnny got his gun, Collected poems of Edgar Allen Poe and so forth.
Bad magazines- FHM, Blender, Playboy (good articles), Maxim (real bad articles).
Tyvek envelopes- in the hundreds. If you need some let me know, i can hook you up.
Paper clips in promotional magnectic container shapped like a house to promote health insurance.

What you dont see on the outside

If only it had been done in red, perhaps one would be more inclined to listen.

Blue Chips

I feel like chicken tonight

This is what one encounters when collecting food waste.
How long do you think it takes to amass 96 gallons of chicken leavens?
The good thing is that it is made into a paste that is then "digested" and used to power up to 1500 homes.
I suppose it's worth it...

Two great tastes?

Seriously?
I mean I am a fan of the Sheen/Estevez acting team and the double threat of Emilio writing and directing this 1990 gem, but when you edit it down add some Timex Social Club you have possibly shat upon my memories of years gone by.
Its kind of like dying and an angel who guards the gates at purgatory replays your life and shows a clip of you losing your virginity at age 14.

On a similarly alarming note there are videos on YouTube of edited tv shows (Lost, Buffy, etc.) that have been paired with music by The Smiths.
Perhaps I am the only garbage man that digs The Smiths...

ZA-HAM-BIE! BIE! BIE! BIE!

Tenderloin, in particular Mason and Eddy streets at around 4am toward the end of a shift that started the night before at 9:30pm started to look a little bit like the video for thriller.
You want 'em, we got 'em.

You can do it!

At my previous employer i was working recycling where the rich folk reside, i.e. Jerry Rice etc.
The recycling is collected in small buckets that are placed curbside in numbers of anywhere from 1 to 8 buckets.
So as I jump out to grab the bottles and cans bucket i find a DVD player, granted this has both types of plastic and types of metals but hardly clasifies as recyclable. Its hard to decide who is to blame, the rich or their uninformed/uneducated "help".
I am sticking to the rich.

I am sticking it to the rich whenever possible.
Mostly in merging situations while driving or shopping.
I encourage you to do the same.

Moons over my hammy

Often times there are small happenings in the job that redeem the early bed times, no sleep, lack of seeing/talking to friends, wearing high visibility gear, making any plans, or going to bed at the same time with my wife.
I am talking in addition to the weekly paycheck.
This one in particular was hanging off the back of the truck as we crested Telegraph Hill to see the sunrise over the Oakland hills, coloring the bay gold and orange. There was a time in my life (early 20's) that I had a hard-on for the occasional sunrise. I would take pictures, thank life for happening etc. now a days I am just "pumped!" to have a job of this caliber. I am also equally "pumped!" that this particular job can be so punishing on occasion because I lack motivation and self discipline and having the invisible drill sargent of responsibility in the back of my head places one foot in front of the other is a good tool for one such as myself.

"Pumped!"? you say?
yeah, I say.

Stair Master

Picture this:
4:30 am (shift started at 2am), Chinatown, pissing rain, dressed head to toe in high visibility yellow rain gear with the occasional reflective strip, size 14 wide steel toe boots (less grip than one who spends $150.00 would assume, see below).
Coming down from the second floor of a SRO (single room occupancy) building whose stairs were lined with linoleum and nothing else (i.e. no slip griptape (for better backside grabs), metal edges, etc.)
and there is me, my partner watching in bemused horror as i slip/slide/fall/surf/stair dive down easily 25 steps with a full 90 gallon toter cascading garbage, almost wave like, over my head and onto the bottom of the aformentioned steps. Stunning visual you say? yeah. I Say. I live this shit.

Occurances in garbage that can ruin any day

syringe
open condom
dirty diaper
panties (this has the potenial to go two ways)
some douches left over starbucks sludge splashed upon my person
whole fish (they seem to swim out of the can into the truck)
unidentifiable meat
tampon
bloody band aid
used toilet/tissue paper (any color)
baby rats
adult rats (i have had to toss both)
raccoon remains