THE NEW WAVE

I used to have a camera collecting problem. I also used to make a lot of money riding a bike, smoking pot and drinking coffee and somehow serving papers in the between. My weekends were spent combing thrift stores, flea markets and spots like Urban Ore for random cameras and other shit I thought would shape the house/room that identifies me.
I also shot a ton of film that still sits undeveloped in a zip lock bag(s).

I began to sell the cameras off in a pinch for cash. Mostly old Kodak Brownies in boxes and some old Land Cameras that were spotty and inconsistent at best. I kept the half frames I hoarded from my friends and continue to do so.

Today while distributing fliers for a big trash day in China Town my friend calls me over to his truck in Spanish. I don't speak a lick of it but have been told that I look like a "Mexican man", I have yet to find anyone to back this up other than the ones whom spoke it initially, so I do as I always do and walk over the source of culture. He says something about cameras and points inside the hopper where there are almost 30 Motts brand promotional Looney Tunes "toy" cameras. I grab the least nasty bag in the hopper and jam as many as I can in it.

I intend to keep some for the Magenius to smash while learning to capture what she sees, but if you want a soda can shaped 110 camera, get at me and we can arrange it.

MAY OR MAY NOT BE ME

If you were to go to the Italian Heritage Day parade this coming Sunday you may or may not see someone that looks like me dancing around with a can on his shoulder getting paid double time. I'm just sayin'.

PIRATE? WHAT PIRATE?

You cannot explain to these guys (my co-workers. Not the "My body is my temple now fuck me" guys on the cover) just who Tom from Finland is and why you tried to hide a book of this content on the utility box of the truck and then proceeded to hide it, now covered in grease in your lunch bag.

You just can't.

I am still trying to shake the nick name I obtained due to my subtle similar appearance to a certain 8 time gold medalist.
Tall and big ears really get you places in this world.

So imagine me being the guy who smuggles gay porn reading material home. Try shaking that. It may only make it worse.

Now I fight some battles at this job i.e. cyclists rights, vegetarianism, gay rights, cultural rights but trying to convince a knuckle dragger that I am not a "fag" seems like a waste of time and effort to me.

I just like Tom of Finland, I really enjoyed the article in the last issue of RVCA ANP Quarterly did on his career. I also tend to enjoy Homosexuals in whatever dose they come in.

There is a crude couple of jokes in there somewhere.


rar!

SHIN SHOTS

If you see me around in the next week or two ask me about my grade A shinner (not the eye) that I got from my partner who, after showing him the series of pics I found of this gal in various stages of dress and her peoples rolling blunts with six-pack abs a flexed threw the entire stack he watched me fish out of the hopper back in the hopper and proceed to run the blade. I told him to stop the blade and reached for the pictures when he the raised the tipper bar which took me out at the shin. Damn near put me in the truck.

Gripping my now larger and bleeding shin and the sole survivor (up there) I thought half heartedly to myself "this dude must not like black folks...".
Later in conversation he dropped the term "Jungle Bunny" and referred to a Mosque
as a "Taliban Church"...
Pretty much summed up my assumptions.

HIGH HOPES

When you see polaroids you get all jumpy and shit like you just found a gem that will
live on your fridge and instigate conversation at the party you have every three years for your birthday.
And sometimes they are just shots of houses in the Sunset.
A little art school placement and shit works out ok.
Still no party in the kitchen.
Not any more any way.

MAGENIUS!

Every asshole says that their kid is magical.
This asshole has proof...

RECENT FINDS.

The family is feeling this in full force right now so it hangs in the kitchen where the majority of the action and neglect take place.


Maybe with the documentary coming out soon I can get some internet cash... Then again it is my size and could very well get me into some awkward conversations with over zealous fans out in public especially after I tell them I fell asleep on the floor in the middle of their last show in SF.


This raised a ruckus when it was sold at good old Urban Outfitters. The maker was sued and shutdown, you can see the site, which is little more than the bangers from below is still active in the UK. It's pretty bad...
You may be saying "This is so 2004..."
and my reply? "trash is timeless."

YOUR EYES!

I found this in a truck that belongs to someone else. He had it tucked away and I did not feel as if I should own it, nor would I want to be the one someone thinks scratched the eyes off of Miss 2.5" landing strip as was the case with my Mother who caught a glimpse of it as I scrolled through photos on my phone of my daughter with a face full of my green smoothie.
Now it is I with green upon his face...


I should also mention that the eyes appear to have been scratched on the negative which causes one to ponder the scratchers intent a bit further.

Deep...

SQUASH SHOPLIFTERS

VIA SFGATE (Which sucks nuts these days! What do they hire the Yearbook staff from high school to write some of the shit that gets put up? Because it's online does that mean that you no longer need to edit for flow, typos or content? I know I am but a caveman with a degree in bullshit but I can still read, despite not being able to write...)

Michigan authorities say a shoplifting suspect died after being crushed in a trash compactor where she was hiding.

The Eaton County sheriff's department said two women fled a Lansing-area TJ Maxx discount store after spraying a security guard with Mace. A deputy found one of the women behind a trash compactor.

Deputies say the woman wouldn't say where the other woman was hiding.

Shortly afterward, authorities got a call about a woman trapped in the trash compactor. Tyree Monique Tate of Delta Township was pulled from the machine by rescuers and taken to a hospital, where the 26-year-old later died.

READER POLE

Remember the reader poll about recycling sex toys?
That was my secret exit strategy, I was going to let the idea germinate/percolate/marinate for a bit and just fire it up and be rich off turning
pocket virginias into neoprene knee braces and the like.

I have been beaten to the punch.
I feel as if I have been penetrated at my very core.

As of right now it seems that I will continue to sweat and curse in the bowels of other peoples buildings until my rap career as MC BIGGA-MORTIS jumps off.

OBSERVEDED

En route to work I can eat an entire bowl of oatmeal from the toll plaza to the end of the bridge while steering with my knees.
Not to worry, no one drives well at 4am.

Upon entering a building that is assumed to be covered I feel water hit my head, knowing full well that it is not raining I scratch my now moist head and look upward to discover that the building in not covered, it is In fact not raining, and I am being wetted by the off spray of someones shower. That alone causes some mixed feelings...

You smell a lot of folks making bacon and/or coffee. Which makes me want breakfast foods in the worst way. Make my bacon fake please.

This job would be a good one for a thief of womens underpants. Not saying I do, just sayin'...
We work in and near a lot of laundry rooms and folks like to leave that shit on the top. Secret message? There is also this possibility.
Not my chair, not my problem.

Working on Pine street at 5:15am, for those of you that don't know Pine and Bush streets are the mini freeways of the city running east to west, that being said people drive like fugitives on these streets at all hours. So we need to get these streets early to avoid blocking traffic and being killed dead. Before we service the first customer a gentleman fully dressed whom appeared to have been up for some time starts in on us about coming too early and how he has called the company time and time again to request a later service time.
What he doesn't understand is that we are not an airline nor a cineplex, the fact is that it's Monday and right now is his service time.
What I don't understand is if you are outside at 5am walking to get your coffee, crack, blow job or bus why does our being here bother you as if you were asleep? Granted he could have a baby...
"I just must live in the city! But simply cannot do so with out the comforts of our summer house."
Noise complaints are killing this job slowly. Old timers say the company used to tell folks to get fucked and if they did not like it they could try to find a different garbage company in the city.

An article in the NY Times on "San Men" quoted an NYC garbage man as saying "We are only noticed on three occassions, when we make noise to early, block traffic or don't pick up someones trash."
Me thinks that sounds about right, as we are ignored by and large.

It is easy to become jaded.

Go here to listen to folks much more eliquent and smarter than I fill your ear holes with more talk of trash.

Time for the 7:30pm phone call to find out when I go to work tomorrow.
followed by push ups, chocolate cake and BSG.

NOW THAT'S A SHAME...

There is nothing wrong with some Michael Cera.

THROWING AWAY A PERFECTLY GOOD WHITE BOY

Amid a shit ton of packing peanuts as if it were never seen...
You can learn all about what goes into making what gets tossed out here.

WIT ESCAPES ME MOST DAYS

If anybody were to sing your theme song wouldn't you want it to be the Simpson's?

ILITERACY IS NOT SPELLED WITH TWO T'S

Crappy photo of the new stamp I had made.
When I find a book, basketball (not too sure how well that will work, doesn't matter anyway, the dog gets all the balls I find and her reading level is way above rubber stamps and shit) or in this case a moleskin journal, I will stamp it and set it back into the stream, unless of course our household can put it to use, in that case I will stamp it as well and every time I use it I will give myself a reach-around sort of pat on the back that says "You really do have half a brain son." and roll through life knowing that I know how to make a rubber stamp come to life.

Then one day, years later, after I have broken my neck falling down 30 stairs with a 300lb can or burlap sack of trash falling upon my paralyzed body I will angrily demand the stamp be thrown in the trash and some other young chump will find this and crown it the highest point in irony and the world will fold in on itself and we will start all over again like the intro to the Simpson's that has Homer evolving from cell to caveman to caveman with a job.

This thing has that much power.

Touch it.

SOME GIRLS MOTHERS

Trying to laugh about John Lithgow's part in The world According to Garp with a gentlemen from Mezcala does not work out loud as you would imagine it would in your pop culture addled head...

That did not stop us from cracking up over this rather husky trans-dressed individual that climbed into the back of the hopper (where the trash goes before the blade scoops it into the body of the truck) to get a skateboard while the truck was running, of course I had no Idea that she was going to need to climb in to get her roll on.

Check the sweet sequence I shot of her bstgbs....
Pulled it clean, I think it is the overcoat that really sends the message.

Another fun occurrence today; I pulled a can up from the basement in a TL building today and once i opened the lid there was a fresh yet dead pigeon staring back at me with it's hollow, hollow eyes...

IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S ME, NO IT'S YOU, REALLY...

With the new aggressive campaign the city has taken up I am surprised that we have yet to see one of these pop up stateside.

I have caught one before, I can catch one again.
I got my mitt, coach, put me in!

THROW IN THE DUCT TAPE AND PERSONALIZED LICENSE PLATE AND WE HAVE A DEAL

Oh citizens of Cow Hollow...
You used to roll so hard.

THE SHIT YOU COME UP WITH

Imagine if it were dark and you had to step between two containers to push this one out for service... and the above is why you push from the ends and not the middle.

I believe the term for this is "Wall Shits" but you may have to adapt the title to the location of the actual shit.

Maybe I should ditch the blog and start the "Wall Shits Journal", there are so many examples in the city, perhaps that is the first off-shoot blog.

I need a staff to bark orders about shit at first tho, the possibilites are endless:
WHAT IS THIS SHIT?
WHAT IS THIS SHIT DOING HERE?
WHOSE SHIT IS THIS?
I DID NOT KNOW YOU COULD WALL SHIT A FIRE HYDRANT?!

G IN THE AIR

Been reading this while working nights in the area it takes place. This guy is the best and it's no wonder you hear the name Dashiell being called by three to four different set of parents, it's like Django but possibly cooler.
I am hooked on crime novels lately. I do not look forward to the day my man dies...

So I think Wikipedia owes me a coke or some shit.
That's what the kids do now-a-days right?
Coke?

its 3:30AM, I'm showering and sleeping until I cannot any longer....

HEY DILDO!

Check the new poll to the left to the left...

Yesterday was my first day back after a week and a half of being off on family leave, I was sick the whole time, still am... wahhhh!

The call came to report to the yard at 4:30am Thursday morning and I will be going somewhere and doing something. Its difficult to go to bed at 8:30pm when you have been staying up until 11pm watching BSG for a week and a half...
I finally got to bed at 11 and rose at 3am...
Pretty Sweet!

I went on a food waste route, got home at 11am and continued to do shit around the house and yard to ready it for our daughters first birthday.
No nap, and that usually leads to me being called in at night.
So when the phone rang at 7pm telling me to come to work at 9:30pm I was not surprised, a bit angry at God, but not surprised.

So in my first 24 hours back to work I slept 4 hours, worked 11 hours, and paced for 12...

STYLE C.H.U.D.S.!

>
Two great tastes that taste great together!
I dont know why it posted twice ( I FIXED IT BITCHES!!!), the tech support guys are not in yet and I have to be at a meeting in the Sequoia room at 8:30 with Dan from accounting...
Besides I am a trash man not I.T.. ad besides again, this video is that good that you will watch it twice or maybe even mash it up for a club mix you lady pants wearing chud!

Also, and so on, this appears to be a series go here
to see the rest.

THIS GUY WALKS INTO THE DOCTORS OFFICE AND SAYS "I'M A TEE PEE! I'M A WIG WAM! I'M A TEE PEE! I'M A WIG WAM!". THE DR. SAYS "RELAX, YOU'RE TWO TENTS"

Now this is the second tent I have found while working.
Every so often there are trends in what folks are throwing out, sometimes I toss out five dog beds in one week, other times its dvd players or bread boxes.
The universe is a funny place.
I should start a freelance demographic/trend tracking/marketing company, I see the shit you throw out and I see the boxes of the shit you just bought...




Should it come as a surprise that the dirty foot prints on the door are Birkenstocks?
Would it be any different if they were bare feets?
Do you think broseph pulls them out only when he goes camping or to Cochella?
would I be a sharper person if I did not crowd my head with such crap?

On a lighter note:
Some asshole threw a ground bloom flower (firework) at me one night a few weeks back while I was working in China Town, he then got stuck at a red light as we approached.
I suppose I was more grateful than I was angry because it got the heart pumping a bit and distracted me from the thousand of pink bags you tend to see go in and come out of the truck when working in China Town at 1am.

WICKER MAN

Not to sure how recyclable this dude is, but he was posted face down at the pier where we dump the recycling.
I proceeded to bury him in Russian Hill's finest recycling.
Among the debris was some rich folks big assed box of vacation photos marked "Dubai" "Egypt" and my favorite "Poor places, Etc.".
I'm sure he dug looking at those as he rode the sorting belt....


**those are not my tire marks...

CAN YOU SAVE ME ROCKY DENNIS?

I am thinking about making these.
Best mask ever!
As we drove through Cow Hollow I put this on and my co-worker honked at folks, mostly women (hence the mask), it was humorous though to see some of the stuffy money ladies crack up as they walked into the coffee and smoothie spots. I think I shed a few funny tears during this trip...

SERVICE WITH A SMILE

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...