OK, that's satire, but so help me God, this is real:

"I began to think about my options: I’d have to sell the cottage in West Palm Beach immediately. I’d need to lay off Yolanda. I could cancel the newspaper subscriptions and read everything online. I only needed a cell phone. I’d have to stop taking taxis. And who could highlight my hair for almost no money? And how hard was it to give yourself a really good pedicure?
Then there is my jewelry. I’ve always collected nice watches and pearls. In the back of my mind I’d think, “Buy good stuff because if you're ever a bag lady, you can sell it.” It might have been a rationalization then—but here I am now: The nightmare may be coming true.
Before I reached for a bedtime Tylenol PM that night, I Googled the Hemlock Society. I wanted to know a painless way to die. Would you believe the Hemlock Society no longer exists?"

Oh the humanity! I'm sorry this moderately rich lady got hustled by her even richer friend, but her story just doesn't add up to sad. Thanks to the inimitable Princess Sparkle Pony. You know what they say, "You can't cheat an honest man." (or woman)

I still ain't got no class

Something for Christmas that isn't depressing

Thanks to the fabulous SFist.

I find Christmas depressing. I'm not close to my family. I have more things than I need, so do most of the people I know. The people I know who don't have enough, they need more than I can give them. They don't need slippers with little flashlights in the toes. They need healthcare, or decent jobs, or decent places to live, or love and community. They don't sell that stuff at Wally World. In fact what they do sell is the antithesis of what so many of us need.

This little video gave me some heart for Christmas. And, I should point out, it was made by religious people. I can get as cynical about religion as I can about Christmas. Religion, as an institution, seems impossibly corrupt. Priests and ministers function as bureaucrats. People only come to church looking for what they can get.

There's just no way around the fact it is human to seek meaning and purpose in life. Some people find it in art, or family, or work but, despite everything, many people find it in religion. Me, I'm still looking, but I keep coming back to religion. I guess I find "the world" as some Christians would define it, deeply unsatisfying. Except for ukuleles anyhow.

Having said that, I want to back up a few posts and talk about my friend, HD, from Hagar's Daughters. She was kind enough to give me a "Superior Scribbler's Award". I mentioned the award, said something about not following the rules and hastily moved on. I'm still not going to follow the rules, oh I'm such a rebel, but I am going to take some time to thank HD.

HD and I have one thing in common: The Episcopal Church. I grew up in The Church, and I can't say I was mistreated there. I find church politics maddening, and I usually end up walking away from them. I've made a couple of attempts, as an adult, to get involved with The Church and none of them have worked out. One of the things that keeps me orbiting around the fringes of The Church is the knowledge that there are some real good guys there. HD is a good "guy". In a very small but meaningful way she's been ministering to me for a while now. She's also given me a window into a world that I have great respect for. Rather than recommend any of my friends for "Superior Scribbler" awards, I'm going to recommend that you go to Hagar's Daughters and follow her links. HD and her friends are wonderful, thoughtful, kind and generous African American clergy, most of them women. They are intellectuals and scholars who calmly and patiently insist on having their voices heard.

That, I suppose, is what HD and her friends have in common with a lot of my friends here at Poetry is for Assholes. I want to hear what sawmill workers in Canada, and stay at home dads in Scotland, and recovering ex cons in California, among others, have to say for themselves. I admire people who insist on speaking up. I'll admit that some of friends are, like me, plain old white men. You know, the folks whose opinions "count" in America, but none of us are the kind of mean, chickenshit people who take up so much room on the internet.

If I have any gifts from God, curiosity is surely one of them. By the grace of God, I'm much more curious than I am scared, and I am often scared. I want to know what religion, especially Christianity, would look like if it was taken out of the hands of angry old white men. I think I might feel a lot more comfortable if people like HD were running things. HD, thank you for speaking up. Thank you for giving me a window into your world. Thank you for the "Superior Scribbler Award".

When I was a youngster, I worked rotating shifts- twelve on, eight off. My Days off were Tuesday and Thursday. If I came in at 11:59 PM on Monday and worked until 10:00 AM on Tuesday, they still said that I'd had a day off. Then they'd bring me in at 3:00 AM on Wednesday.

I thought all of that was behind me, then I found myself forced onto a schedule of twelve on twelve off for ten days in a row. That was last year. I was 54. This year I'm 55 and working an "easy" fourteen hour split shift. I've got six hours off in the middle of the day, and I get paid for most of the split. The trouble is, I'm not off work. I'm stuck sixty miles from home.

I spend two and a half hours working in the yard, parking buses. That adds up to almost nine hours when I am "not in revenue service." I get to change out of my uniform for nine hours and facilities have been provided for me to "sleep" fitfully, if I can find space in the tiny, noisy crowded sleep room. If it's not too hot or too cold, I could sleep in the back of a parked bus. Trouble is, I can't do that anymore. Like I said, I'm 55. I have a permanently damaged shoulder, an equally mangled knee and hip joints that are starting to pain me. If I twist myself up to sleep on the narrow shelf that passes for a back seat, I wake up with my back killing me.

Lately, in response to complaints about overcrowding in the sleep room, management put out a memo "reminding" us that they are not obliged to provide sleep facilities at all.

Joint injuries, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, respiratory infections, alcoholism, divorce and cancer are as much a part of the job as bullshit and coffee. Management is not responsible for any of that. We "choose" to drink coffee and talk shit in the break room just like we "make bad lifestyle choices." The truth is that most of us work incredibly hard to take care of ourselves. Drivers bring healthy food to work and cook it any time facilities are provided. They walk, or go to the gym on their breaks. They meditate. They play music and write in journals. They get together in little informal groups and encourage one another to follow their diets, take their meds and exercise regularly.

Still, "coincidence" and "bad choices" have resulted in a group of workers who are chronically sick and injured. Management has taken steps to deal with the problem. They recently issued a memo restating the guidelines for doctor's notes in the event of absence. Failure to comply will result in "discipline up to and including termination." That takes care of that.

What's amazing is that we are "labor aristocrats". We have excellent health care for ourselves and our families. We can retire "young" with life time medical benefits for ourselves and our spouses. We are union members. We can't be fired without being put through an elaborate arbitration procedure. We have a guaranteed "fixed benefit" pension plan. The pension board has fifty percent labor representation.

We are constantly reminded that millions of people would love to have what we have. Hell, why not remind us that India and Pakistan and China are out there, wanting our jobs? Make it billions. Billions of people want what we have.

That's the problem with workers. We are greedy and ungrateful.

The Blessed Virgin

Friday was the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe
I lit a candle. I didn't even know why

Our Lady keeps showing up in my life.

The Hypocrisy of Disco

I just finished a really good book, The Hypocrisy of Disco by Clane Hayward.

There have been way too many memoirs by young people lately. Would you please do something worth remembering first? I'll make an exception for this little memoir. Clane Hayward is only 41. She wrote her story when she was barely 30. The whole book takes place when she was 11, 12 and 13. I'll have to admit that I started out reading this book because a lot of it takes place around here. I ended up fascinated by this story of a little girl who grew up malnourished and lonely and somehow made a person out of herself.

Her parents were, I hate to say it, the worst kind of hippies: self centered, self righteous, lazy and rigidly countercultural. Actually, they remind me of the squares they claimed to be rebelling against. Maybe they were too busy trying to figure something out. They sure didn't have any time for their kids.

Somehow or other, Clane grew up to be a wise person and a good writer. Go figure.

You can learn more about her at her website.

This might be the worst Christmas song I've ever heard

Christmas Time Is Here Again - Crawlspace

Oh hell, don't get me wrong. I know lots of people are out of work right now. I know it's a damn good thing that I have a job, but that's because my only choices are a soul killing 70 hour work week or homelessness. That is not a good set of options. I know a lot of people who are out of work. If I could give them some of my hours, I would.

Click here for a really good book about work.

Click here for some strong words in defense of people who work. I mean really work.

This is so cool

How We Celebrate Christmas

The guy with the sign is a famous SF crazy person. He is clean and and walks around with his sign.

There are lots of filthy miserable crazy people suffering on the street, but in SF there are a fair number of well cared for crazy people. There's the guy who commutes on the ferry from Marin every morning. He sits at the end of the California Street cable car line and shouts gibberish.

There used to be the guy who walked up and down Lombard Street and cursed the buses. One time I was sitting in traffic while he stood by the door to my bus and shouted. I opened the door and listened to him, "You suck!! Your bus company is shit!!!"

After a minute or two, I said, "That's not true. I'm a great guy. We're a wonderful bunch of people." After that, he still screamed curses at me, but if I caught his eye, he would nod to me.

I'm so tired of getting up in the dark and coming home in the dark and spending all of my time at work. I think I might like walking around being crazy as a change of pace.

Thanks to the good people at Big Rock Candy Mountain, here's my new favorite Christmas Song.

A Heartwarming Christmas Memory

It was Christmas 1963. John F Kennedy had been assasinated a few weeks earlier. I was a kid. I don't know what the "mood of the nation" was, but I'd imagine Walter Kronkite would have called it somber.

The neighbors across the street had done the house up for Christmas in a big way. In addition to the usual lights, plastic nativity scene and 2 dimensional rooftop Santa with sleigh, they had installed speakers on the outside of the house. Starting late in the afternoon, and continuing long into the night they would serenade the neighborhood with Christmas music. As i recall, they favored Bing Crosby and Burl Ives.

It had snowed and the lights twinkled on the pristine whiteness as the neighbors sat in the living room, drunk, and listened to their Christmas records. The whole street listened as the needle was roughly jerked from the vinyl, abruptly ending the Xmas songfest.

Then we all heard various stereophonic fumblings as a new record was placed on the turntable and cued up. They played side one of the Vaughan Meader "First Family Album". My mother sniffed and said that was "tasteless". I expected some responsible grownup to go knocking on the neighbor's door to remind them that the outside speakers were still on. No one did that.

After a while, the record ended. The neighbors must have fallen asleep, because I lay awake in bed and listened to the needle bumping up against the end of the record, "sssssBump, sssssBump, ssssssBump" etc. Everyone else had turned off their Christmas lights, but the lights across the street continued to shine until I fell asleep.

Nothing was said about it in the morning.

Christmas is here

I watched Bad Santa today. I was going to put up my Elvis Tree, but I never got around to it. I'm so full of the Christmas spirit I could pop.

Click here. It's cool. Really, it is. I'm doing without badly needed sleep to post this.