TWO OF A KIND?

Although I found the photo of Miss Thang in the bath room at the pit (dump) at four in the morning out of my mind from lack of sleep and the other (space orange? eye xray? mammogram?) in the TL around the same time in the morning a year or so later I can't help but wonder if they are not connected somehow...

HAVE YOU SEEN ME BASEBALL?

All I got are these damn nepalese coins...

FOR THE DAYS OF 2 WEEKS OF SEPTEMBER

I often wonder what a newspaper would look like if it were never proofed or began with a draft. Then I read some of the non-feature stories on sfgate and I know it is not much difference than this.

EVOLOUTION OF MAN

I am at a loss here.
So many variables...

WHATS BETTER THAN FINDING 40 GRAND?

Well it sure isn't finding a photo of 40 grand.

WRONG SIDE OF LOVE

Oddly enough you see this often.
Usually a Tranny though...


Sorry about the boobs.
Perhaps this has just become that kind of blog...


Nah, it's trash related.
On so many levels....

WYLD STALLYNS!!!

I had one of those last summer.
My counselor brought me some cream,
I then applied it to the troubled areas
and all my squatters went away.

happy face now!

THOSE WHO CAN'T MAKE DO, MAKE IT DO

I know it's out of season but I couldn't help myself...

Is anyone else straight addicted to Battlestar Galactica?

You, with the office job! you can watch this whole rig online.
times like these I almost wish I was back in an office...

The above pic would be my Cylon face all up in yours with a neon green squirt gun covered in electrical tape demanding that you give me your electrical car and needing also to know where one would go about charging such an invention.
I would then throw a half eaten Clif bar to the curb, snatch your kombucha and give you the finger.

Excuses

Not that into it lately.
Got me a baby.
Trying to stay off the replacement for the TV.
Need to go for more walks with the family.
I don't owe anybody nothing.
Not convinced anybody is here anyway.
Just put in new grass and that shit takes watering.
And then there is this:



After the dust settles from May 9th I will be posting a shit-ton of found photos, notes and journals and once that dries up I will send them all off to Found Magazine and see where I stand with this side hatch ass project of mental pre-occupation.

Sanitary Invisibility Cloak

While the wife was making a cake for a wedding in Tucson, I was lying in our friends soon to be marital bed with my sleeping daughter. Since we had no sound machine with us to encourage her sleeping state to continue I turned to the clock radio and found the local NPR station where the show Hear and Now was just starting. Oddly enough the show featured a segment about an New York City Anthropologist that joined the Sanitary workers of NYC to study what trash say about us as a society.

The most familiar part of the show was where this woman who was acting as a garbage collector experienced the power of wearing safety yellow and remaining invisible to the public at large. You can listen to the program here, scroll down to the title "Garbage" and click on listen. That is, if you have time to kill or simply give a shit. Oh, sorry I couldn't post the sound file here but I am a garbage man not some asshole from tech support that can hack your iPhone on his lunch break in exchange for a red bull and your password to adultfriendfinder.com...

And after that, you can read an article from the New York Times here that talks about trash slang, most of which I am unfamiliar with but will be doing my best to work my new vocabulary into conversation with regular folks at the store, post office etc. to assist in making the days go by a bit stranger and or confusinger. (thats not in the article, but you can have it for free.)

In closing I would like to highlight a quote from the New York Times article that summarizes this job and the invisibility cloak that comes with it:
"There are only three moments when anyone notices us: if we make noise too early in the morning, if we block traffic, and if we don't show up.''

Digital Claptrap

Muslim? is that like linen?

Did you vote?

Yes I did.

All I know is that I voted for the white one.

Which one?

I don't know.

Mccain?

I Just know that we can't have the black one because he is a Muslim and they are the enemy.

You know, there are radicals in all religions that cause problems around the world and create tension for peaceful participants.

I guess you're right... which one did you vote for?

The black one.

I might have guessed.

You do realize that you and I can't talk about politics right?

Yeah, I know...



***this happened between a co-worker and I, the ringer from the majority of the gems previously quoted here: http://thankyoume.blogspot.com/2007/02/close-your-mouth-dear.html

Talk amongst yourselves

Comments are back on.
Not sure why, but they are...

This is a test. I can now post from my cellery phone. Prepare to see photos of dead rats, over blown trash rooms and the like.

We are counting on you

On one of our weekend rides I had confessed to my friend Karl that I wanted a Pedometer to measure just how many steps I take in a given work day. Weeks pass and two of them show up on my mail box. they were pretty basic, only measuring the amount of steps that one takes and not the distance or speed of which. I was pumped!

By the time I got my act together it was Monday (a day that is reserved for being fucked in our field and pretty much any other one) and they put me on a route that most floaters fear to do alone or even with the guy who's route it is. they call him the animal. He is over weight, dirty and appears to never wear gloves. Did I mention that he runs for his entire shift? When they give him and extra man he yells at them to hurry it up and cusses at them in Spanish.

So, back to the pedometer. I put it on when I was getting dressed in the morning and it began to count steps from then on out. By the time I dropped my pants at the yard to make sure I had emptied the contents of my soul before I find myself in a nasty situation in someones garage where the only option is an over sized coffee can I had already taken 595 steps. Amid the confusion of getting the shaft on this route I had forgotten that I had been wearing the pedometer until an hour into the route, sweating in the pre-dawn light and breathing heavily I looked down at my belt to see where I was step-wise only to find that I had lost it in the hustle of cans. Pissed because I botched the experiment yet at the same time not pissed because I got it for free and had an extra one at home.

Fast forward in a very slow way to Thursday where I had been taken off routes that posed any sort of challenge or chance of getting off early and had been placed on a city can route that serves some of SOMA, all of Union Square and portions of Downtown via a small truck that I refer to as the Ice Cream truck, except you dont want to line up for what I got in the back of this rig... I had the pedometer in my coat pocket for the first few streets and remembered as I walked a few blocks from the truck with my collection can. Sure that this type of route (forced to stay out for 7 hours) was far less physical than one that collects residential trash with the option to go home once done I was confident that I would have a solid measurement of steps taken in a days work, or walk as the case may be.

With the small truck (ice cream truck) you can dash about town and pick up cans while the truck is parked next to them rather easily, due to its small size it does not block traffic or threaten to run over passers by.

So along I go working my way down Kearny St. when I ran into a friend who found himself in trouble a while back, we shot the shit while thr truck idled and then died, which means we were shit talking for more than 5 minutes (the truck has an auto kill timer on it) so I handed him a couple bucks for the sake of being friends at opposite ends of the spectrum and I made my way to service the cans that sit on the corners of Bush and Kearny. Upon my return the ice cream truck wouldn't turn over, just click click click. I tried turning off the battery switch and letting it sit for a bit. Once that did not work I called the shop for a jump and a professional assesment of what the fuck. After the jump the mechanic said good bye and left me to finish wrapping up downtown before lunch time. The truck dies again and I have to get another jump on the same block, only this time instead of saying bye he says in his thick Italian style that I have to drive back to the shop, he will follow me and that I need a different truck all together. This sucks for me because we have 3 brand new ice cream trucks on hand yet non of them are ready to start servicing, what ever that means.... that leave me with a regular rear loader that needs to be guided throughout downtown and Union Square at lunch time. That means people, lots of people. Folks are so selfish with their lunch hour (understandably so) that they will not give you an inch of room, be it on street or sidewalk.

Now back on the road with a full sized regular assed garbage truck that has right side drive I coach and calm myself with this mantra "Slow while in the truck, run like hell while out of the truck.". I become a hawk, seeing spots that I can park the beast while I service x-amount of cans then dump my collection can (or pack can as they used to say) and walk on in a separate direction to service more cans. The goal was to walk more, drive less.

At this point I was more concerned with not killing people yet working efficiently enough to get done with the entire route in the allocated 7 hours than I was with the fact that I had been wearing a pedometer.

Once the truck was dumped and parked back at the yard I took off the pedometer to see where I was in the column of steps taken. Much to my surprise I had taken 22,187 steps through the course of the work. Now this day was different in the way that I was using a mobile death machine that travels the very same streets but only at night due to the over crowding, and I walked much more than I imagine I would normally.

On Friday I hoped that the truck would be fixed and I can get an idea of how many steps I would take when using the right truck for the job. I made no attempt to walk more or less, just be efficient and get done within the 7 hours and read The Onion
while I eat a sandwich in a shady alley that hopefully does not smell of urine. So once the truck was dumped and parked I looked down at my belted region to see 16,498 looking back at me. I was dissapointed that I had not walked as much as the day before almost, well not almost, exactly 5689 steps less.

Now according to Wikipedia a person with a healthy or active lifestyle takes on average of 10,000 steps a day. I don't make any claims about what kind of person category I fall into, other than maybe the "a little doughy" category, but I smashed the active lifestyle number be a few and now it was time time to drink some beer and walk laps around the living room in soft soft slippers while the little one slept and wait for the same to come for myself.

Now in closure I want you to glance up at the picture of the cat and wonder just how it was that this image showed up while doing an image search for a pedometer...

The Stars at Night

This gentleman has broken down most everything you can encounter when picking up trash is a suburban setting. Not all these things pertain to slinging trash in the SCO, but it provides a different perspective. Plus this guy tends to keep blog about shit other than his job further breaking the stereotype/judgement that you are summed up by what you do for a living. Or perhaps that is my hang up at the moment...

MORTONS ALT

I can't say that this binge on posting will last. But this weekend has found me not working and doing alot of trash-hole interweb related searches. Which brought me to this article on being "one of us" via this blog by a former garbage man.

Smokin' that rock

Do you remember Fraggle rock?



Marjory, The Trash Heap
The Trash Heap is a wise being, similar to a shaman, that is the garbage dump of the Gorgs. She and her heckling heralds live near the Gorg's garden, and she gives the Fraggles guidance and advice, which the Fraggles regard with reverence, but not worship. She also appears to have some magical abilities (specifically telepathy and the ability to teleport items or Fraggles), though she doesn't use them often.


Iagine if trash had the power of telepathy and would give you advice. You wouldn't even need the internet....

Stay in the NO!

If you are still there and want to be notified when I drag my ass up to the computer send me an email at the address to the right somewhere and I will fill you inbox with garbage related emails. Really care...

Halfway House to Heaven

Recent excellence in my work day:

-We were working on 6Th St between Howard and Folsom, the truck is near full capacity as we head toward the on ramp for 280 and head for the dump. This area has a lot of low income housing, SRO's etc. and the trash is an exceptional blend of old jeans, pornography, shoes, automobile oil containers (empty and full), soiled photo albums, bibles, to go food containers and of course: booze bottles!

So when the truck is full and you run the blade to bring the trash from the hopper into the truck body all the previous trash you have been collecting tends to rush out in a feeble attempt to escape and get back to the life it once knew. There is also "The Squirt" or "The Spray" when large volumes of liquid, usually from a restaurant or a plastic bottle become compressed and the only way for them to go is out the back or sometimes the sides if the truck is really full. When one is hit by the spray its often referred to as "taking a garbage bath". These are all signs that you should have headed to the dump some time ago.

With three more stops I hop off the back of the truck and grab 2 cans from one of the above mentioned low housing complexes, while the blade was running the contents of the first can into the truck body I was futzing with the second can's lock (why would you lock this stuff up?)(I know its to keep it from being strewn about, but I still call IRONICAL on it), just as I turn to set the second can against the tipper I see a wave of liquid, much like the one I glimpsed as my daughter threw up on my eyes a few weeks back, you see it, you know its gonna suck yet you are more inclined to draw a knee up in disgust/recoil than to duck or throw the baby across the room, the former being the wise choice and the later being the difference between happiness and prison. Grape! it was all I could say as I threw my hands up for my partner to stop the truck so I could douse my face/mouth and eyes with water in the middle of 6Th St. at 6am. While fearing contracting that resistant Staph infection that is going around or some rouge form of Hepatitis I come to the conclusion that is accompanied by a faint memory from vomiting in my teen years that I was hit/splashed in my facial orifices by someones left over MD 20/20. The whole way to the dump my partner complained of the grape scent emitting from the passenger side of the truck.

In summary I could/should have said: I got splashed in the face by someones discarded bottle of MD 20/20 and it was not as fun as it could have been provided I was not working at the time it happened. And even that might be too long...


-An uncommon utterance when working at the back of a garbage truck is "Something smells and it is fucking nasty!"

It is not that garbage doesn't stink. It does. But it is a universally similar smell, I suppose you could say that it is the smell of rot or decomposition (it's not a body buddy!) but it rarely varies. Trash rooms have a smell all to themselves. It is a mix of the general garbage funk and stale old heated up simple green or some other cleaner that the super sloshes on the floor when the room is at its hottest.

Depending on how long the trash has been sitting is the deciding factor when determining whether the smell is the inclusive trash stank or the individual items in route to the smell of oneness. Ones that stick out are: dog shit, adult diapers, soiled medical chux and reefer to name a few.

One this particular morning I came out of a garage on Clara and was immediately hit with the heat and smell of something wrong, that is the only way to describe it, I, being the one who was inside the building state to my partner "Something smells and it is fucking nasty!" with a mild/soft question mark on it with hope that he has identified it and could very well stop me from stepping in it or touching it or perhaps point out that I am "it".

He points to the ground about 4 feet behind where we stood and asks "can vegans eat rat?". And there it sat, the culprit. A wet dead rat that had been sitting there being run over time and again emitting a smell that I would imagine a dead body would provided it sat in the rain with its innards exposed to so many tires. Unlike anything I have encountered thus far...

In summary I could/should have said: "I smelled a squished 4 day old rat and it made my nose hairs grow three inches" and that would have been fine...


-Worked 2ND man on a 1 man route the other day. Nice guy, hard fucking route. This guy services the curvy block of Lombard. He made $4000 in tips at Xmas. I am still working on replacing my jaw to where it sat previous to finding this out.

In summary I could/should have said "Some dudes make a boat load of cash in tips from the rich folks." and that still would have been too hard to digest. It would have also made this very late and inconsistent update much shorter, less riddled with typos and bad grammar and left you the reader not wanting you price of admission (valuable time) back....

FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF

Paid family leave is awesome. If you have a child and you have worked at your job for a year and have X amount of hours worked you can take up to 6 weeks off and get paid a percentage of your income 7 days a weeks. Its like disability, or it is disability without the pain and ducking insurance investigators.

Obviously, because this job is seniority based I will never get XMAS off having babies is the only way to make it happen. So we broke out the wand and the magic sparkled upon us and we spent the day Jesus throws his annual kegger on Maui jumping ATV's drinking more beer in one day than usually consumed in one week (still had to be sure I wasn't going to roll over on little one in the night) and introducing our daughter to "local-ism" (this was her 2nd trip there, I waited until I was 27, my mother went with us and she is nearing the decade in which one can retire provided one has played their cards right, and this was her first trip). I actually got sized up on the beach (post haircut) and it was rather entertaining. It has been a while.
Cereal is $5.79 a box and gas is only 20 cents more than here.

Within 48 hours of being back from island styles we drove north up 5 to Mt. Shasta and continued the beer drinking and replaced ATV action for spinning wheels in the snow and stand up drunken driveway sledding. This was little ones first trip to the snow.

Returned home on NYE and crashed early cause that's how we roll and we continued to roll through the week doing little to nothing and accomplishing none of what we said we would (i.e. shelves from Ikea that I just had to get out and buy one morning that are still in the boxes).

So that is where I have been hiding.
Well, there and teetering on the edge of scrapping this blog thing. It sits in the back of my head like neglected chores, bills and family members that fall to the wayside in the beginning of a new relationship.
There is that and the harsh reality that I will never be able to watch TV or read a book again unless the child of the house is sleeping and that only happens when I am asleep myself or gone. Her mobility is bittersweet.

So today was profitable in the "shit I done found in the can" category. First it was a Nixon watch that appeared to only need batteries and seeing that the wife has been wanting a digital wrist watch as opposed to her holographic Timex monocle that she has to be oh so gentle with I took this as a fortuitous sign. I also found a nice solid wood box that had a half dozen drawers that all seemed to be empty with the exception of the bottom one that had jewelry and such in it. I quickly stashed it in the side box of the truck to inspect later. So after the shower and the nap I remembered that I had some booty in the back of the Subaru and if I did not get it right then and there it would suffer the same fate as the tent I found (thats two tents folks!) a few months ago, roling around hitting the dog as we drive around trying to find a place to get coffee and play ball.

Upon inspection we discover 2 Fossil watches, a Timex and a ROLEX SON!!!!
Yeah I said it! R-O-L-E-X! The back of the watch is clear (like a swatch) so you can see the inner most intricacies of its Swiss made movements. This shit is real!

In my head I am freaking out thinking about my new truck and new boots etc. etc.
Now the wife she has one and tends to know how they work so she puts it on and the perpetual winding thing kicks in and the awesome truck starts driving closer to me in my head, meanwhile I am washing dishes so all I can do is salivate at my good fortune.

Until...

I Google "signs of authentic Rolex watches" and the first thing they say is "if there is a glass crystal on the back of the case, so you can see the movement, your watch is fake." Crestfallen! I was almost ready to call this guy and said "lets do this."

That got me thinking about the other items I have come across recently. Folks with money throw away the craziest things, while working Saturday I found a pair of these jeans and it was not the first time either. I'm thinking that I should just sell these on eBay and check to see what the signs of counterfeit jeans are, after a brief tutorial I inspect the jeans to see if the woman that was wearing them was dragging them under neath the heels of her Jimmy Choo's. Looks good, they are still somewhat stiff and showed no "real" wear until I looked inside the jeans, between the legs and saw exactly why she chose to throw them out. I did what no man has ever done. I cursed the thong out loud and with no hesitation ran back to the Google god and asked it how I can get blood stains out of $200.00 jeans.

The Nixon watch works fine with a new battery and makes a nice little beep when it touched upon an hour mark. Thanks for asking.

I need a Gordon Lish in my life...

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.