Crappy Jobs...

In an era where you are supposed to be happy with having a job at all, I have been reflecting on my past jobs I am glad I don't have. I have been at my current job for 22 years so we have to go way back in my past.

Age 15, my first job was at Frank's Nursery. They sold plants, potting soil etc. They also had a corner on the crafting market so they sold Styrofoam, balsa wood and stupid stuff you could assemble to make more stupid stuff. The job wasn't all bad but there were no clear lines on what my job actually was. There were like 10 of us kids that basically did everything from stocking shelves, cleanup, unloading trucks and assembling the stupid stuff that people were too stupid to assemble. So most of the time I just wandered around the store looking for stuff to do until I got yelled at to do something else. I think I made $3.25 an hour.

Luckily at 16, I got a job at the Mr. Wigg's department store across the street from Frank's. I started a couple months before Christmas. They hired three of us and I don't know why I remember the guys' names but they were Chuck O'niel and Wylie Lymon. We were told from the beginning that 1 of us was going to be let go after Christmas. I started in the departments of toys, lawn and garden and trim-a-tree. So I got to handle Christmas trees, garland and ornaments. Also I had to put the toys away that little kids played with and left out. Two of my friends Mike S. and Kelly H. already worked there in the automotive department. To make a long story short, Me and Chuck made the cut and were allowed to stay after Christmas, but me and Kelly got fired a couple months later for "conspiracy to shoplift". They swore we were going to steal something, but we used to just play with the stuff that was returned as defective "to make sure it still worked". I think I made $3.65 an hour when I got fired.

What luck, there was a Sambo's restaurant right down the street that need a dishwasher. So at 17 I donned a plastic apron, a clip-on bow tie and paper hat and took another job that rated pretty high in the suck scale. The only good thing I remember was that for the summer I got to work 3rd shift. I remember the radio blasting "Back in the fast lane" and taking New York strip steaks home to cook for breakfast. One funny story from there was one night when I was mopping the floor at around 4 am and some drunk guy kept making fun of my uniform. I am generally pretty easy going, but this guy just kept going on and on. So I went in the back and dumped in about every chemical I could find in the mop bucket. I came back out and parked the bucket across from his table. Now it is a boiling cauldron of probably deadly chemicals and I started mopping again all around his table. He got pissed and asked me what was in the mop water. I told him it was the same thing that was in his coffee, but we have to dilute it to mop the floor. He stood up like he was going to punch me, but I told him to go for it; there would be nothing better in the world at that time than for me to get assaulted on the job. He backed off.

To end my career at Sambo's, they hired a new manager named Lenny. I called Lenny Berkowitz; "Son of Sambo's" This was during the time of the Son of Sam serial murder case if you are not familiar. Anyhow Lenny was a dick. I was on first shift and scheduled to work a Sunday, Sambo's busiest breakfast day. When I got there at 6 am, there were like 20 full bus trays lined up on the dishwasher and as soon as I got in the door the cooks were screaming for stuff they needed. Evidently the 3rd shift washer did not show up and Lenny did not think anyone needed to cover for him. Fuck that, I quit. $3.75 an hour down the drain.

Now a 17 year old bullheaded cynical teen, I applied for a job at the local Brunswick bowling alley. I got hired to clean ash trays, empty trash and sweep floors. I really liked bowling anyway because bowling was only 50 cents a game and this Brunswick center was one of the first to have automatic scorers. My brothers and I found a way to use the score sheets in such a way that we would bowl 1 or 2 games, then remove the score sheet and insert one we would find in the trash and bowl like 20 more games. When we were done, we would take our sheet with 1 or 2 games on it and pay for it. They never caught on and we got to be pretty damn good bowlers at $2 a sheet. (As a matter of fact my brother Ron is still pretty damn good HERE).

That job went pretty good, I learned to work behind the machines as a pinsetter and got free Bowling alley from "Flo". (Her son Buddy won one of the first Indiana lottery drawings for like 11 million). They then hired a new manager Joe Shemenski. Joe was one of the coolest managers they ever had. He was the first boss to ever trust me with money. He let me work the cash register when they were not too busy. Joe influenced me to make one of the most important decisions of my life.

You will have to tune in tomorrow to find out what that was....

Gullible Warming..

That's right; gullible warming as opposed to global warming. The temperatures for the last 5-6 days have been hovering around 0 degrees Fahrenheit. Friday morning in Fort Wayne, Indiana, it hit 19 degrees below 0 Fahrenheit. We tied an all time record. If the globe is warming it is not happening around here. If it weren't for reports of the ice caps melting, I would swear the whole global warming thing was something made up by a bunch of tree-huggers to try to make us feel guilty for driving 4 wheel drives.

And speaking of tree-huggers, I don't feel the least bit guilty. If you want to get on somebody's case, get the damn Chinese to quit polluting. Same with Mexico. How green can we be with the rest of the world burning fossil fuels willy nilly? I am tired of all the propaganda already.

I am sure that the weather has cycles within cycles within cycles. We have only been keeping records of the weather and temperatures for around 100 years. Now the media would have us believe that within 30 years the planet will be so hot that we will all be dead from famine.

And if that's not enough the freakin' swine flu is coming...

Reicarnation?

Regardless of your religious conviction, the finality of death is foreboding to say the least. I am not going to preach my beliefs because I am really not sure what I believe on any given day. I have trouble accepting that death of the body is just the absolute end of the soul. It just seems so usless for such a phenomenal thing as a sould just to end forever at the time of death. I would like to believe that the energy of the soul is at least released to return to the great gathering of former beings.

Some days I think that reincarnation would be a logical way for the soul to learn all the things needed on it's path to become enlightened, and join the other enlightened souls in the great hereafter. One lifetime is not enough for 1 person to experience all the trials and triumphs offered by this world. I imagine that 10 lifetimes may not be enough, and some people may be cursed to repeat the same mistakes and never move on.

Here is my offering in this great debate. I find it hard to believe that just being human with every incarnation would allow one to learn all the lessons available. Seeing a horse proudly grazing carefree in a pasture would lead me to believe that being humble would be a great lesson learned from being a horse. A seeing-eye dog dedicated to it's owner would be a great lesson on the benefits of not being completely self centered. The whooping crane that will not take another mate for the rest of their life if his (or her) mate dies could teach us something. Even being a dung beetle with only one task on his mind could be a useful attribute.

I do not even think that being a human would be at the very top or last stop before becoming enlightened. The last step may be any of the great creatures that have a trait that the soul would require. Some animals have a much more beautiful honest existence than many people I have met. So the next time you see a robin turn his ear to the ground to listen for an earthworm, stop for just a second and absorb the greater picture and it may save you a step.

Paying for the upkeep of schools..

About a year ago, the Fort Wayne Community School system said they need $500,000,000 (that's right 500 million) to maintain and repair their schools. The budget submission was rejected (by referendum) and they are having to make do with what they get. As buildings age, the maintenance cost increase and the older the equipment, the less efficient. With the cutbacks in municipal spending across the nation, it is just a matter of time until the bottom drops out. I really don't care about that, but I am just setting you up for my idea.

Why not take the brightest Juniors and Seniors and let them stay home and home school via computer. Accept only those students that have an outstanding GPA and WANT to participate in the program. With a webcast and webcams, there would not really be much difference, other than we don't have to pay to transport, house or feed the student. If you look at the big picture in the long term, it is antiquated to bring kids from all over the biggest county in Indiana to buildings to educate them. It is inevitable that one day there will have to be some type of BIG change.

As a pilot program it would have to be closely monitored, but I think it may actually give younger students something to try extra hard for. Not having to go to "school" after age 16 may make kids study a bit harder. It would also save a ton of money and time for "snow" days. Let it freaking snow, class is on! How about saving the heating of an old schoolbuilding when it is 0 degrees outside and then they cancel school. That's MY money. How about maintaining the school all damn summer when the building is empty?

Computers ARE our future and the KIDS are smarter on them than any of us adults, so why not put them behind one for the 11th and 12th grade? You may say that the human interaction amongst children builds character; screw that! Wait till the bird flu finally hits and they close schools for weeks, or months at a time and screw up the whole system.

I am just proposing that we should do it voluntarily instead out of necessity. We would have time to work out the bugs and save money at the same time.

The magic of music..

I have touched on this subject before, but gosh, I know you wanted an in-depth explanation.

I have fond memories of when I was about 10. (I am 47 now so you can picture the time frame). They were developing the few acres near our house and were installing a long stretch of storm drain. It was probably about 48 inches in diameter and a run of several hundred feet. There were manholes about every 50 feet, and after the construction workers left, I would go down to the construction site and crawl in the pipe and just hang out and be a kid. The pipe had an amazing echo and reverb that made my voice sound almost pleasant. I would sit in there for hours and sing the pop songs of the day at the top of my lungs. The songs I remember singing most were House of the rising sun, Temptationize and Lay a little lovin' on me. I spent an entire summer on a world tour in my mind.

Of course at the age of 10 I had no formal musical training and had no idea what made up music. I was oblivious to the constraints of music. To me, music was almost a 6th sense - it had an untouchable indescribable quality that combined hearing, touch and emotion. It produced an euphoric response that took this 10 year old kid far from the pressures of growing up. The welcome escape was an addictive respite and took me places I had never dreamed of. It was something I could not touch but was enveloped by. That is why I thought it was magic - and with a personal touch.

Well years passed and the magic got compressed inside my little brain with all the other crap that a teenager has to deal with. At about the age of 17, I thought I would like to learn the guitar. Now we are in the age of Bob Seger and Neil Young. You could still pick out the acoustic guitar in the mix. I bought a $100 Yamaha on credit and signed up for lessons. Well I took 2 lessons and said "screw that", and quit taking formal lessons. I wanted to learn songs, not the etude crap a beginner has to learn. My older brothers had every Beatles record ever made so I thought I would start there - learn the simple songs like Love me do. I did learn one very imprtant thing from the 2 lessons, learn to tune your guitar and keep it and KEEP it in tune. Tune to 440 cycles (concert pitch) and you can train your ear to play along with records (and I used real vinyl). With the help of chord books and playing with the records, I thought I was making good progress.

In a couple more years, I moved off to college in southern Indiana with my best friend Kelly (Ken) Hicks. He played some guitar too, and we roomed together in the dorm. And mostly out of boredom and poverty we played a lot of damn guitar. We would impress each other regularly with new chords, combinations and progressions. It was amazing some of the stuff we came up with, and I am absolutely sure we would have been famous if only our voices didn't suck.

Well my point here is that unknowingly, music had gone from the magic of a 10 year old to the daily habits of a couple punks. Still rejecting formal music training, there are still some things that I picked up just trying to play with other musicians. Like what chords GO together, and what chords are used in the melody, and the predictable chords of the chorus or bridge. I learned the meaning of 5ths, 3rds, 4ths, minors, minor 7s, major 7s and a bunch of crap I stumbled on by accident.

Looking back now, realize that was the time music had lost its childhood magic. The more I learned about the formal structure of music, the tighter the constraints became. Music now had limits. It is actually like math when it boils right down to it. There are rules that cannot be broken, notes that just cannot go together, and just a buch of crap you have to think about that is distracting. That is (in my opinion) why a lot of school-trained musicians cannot improvise. They do not have it in them (any more).

Lets move forward 2o years to today. Yea, I still have my guitars, but I rarely play. It took all these years, but I am finally (almost) rediscovering the magic in music. I am sure it is not the feelings I had as a ten year old, but I do detect more of mysterious quality to music. I do not try to break every song down to it's least commom denominator. I try to just experience it. Of course I am not talking about today's freakin' hip-hop or techno. I have actually been listening to a radio station that plays a lot of the older classics (and I mean older). You can hear it on line HERE.

I guess the point of it all, is there a benefit to NOT being a musician. You can appreciate the art of it without the math. I would not change anything about my musical back ground, and you can hear a couple of my songs HERE. It took me a long time to get at least some of the magic back, or at least recognize the difference.