An Zhu

Years ago, a friend of mine told me a funny story. When he was a kid, he went out to the forest one day to cut up some wood. As he was chopping away on a log, a large animal suddenly jumped out of a tree and landed right next to him. He jumped back, startled to see a bobcat staring up at him with a similar look of surprise. The cat let out a low meow as if to say, "My bad." Then my friend's dog sprang from the bushes and chased the bobcat away.

The funny thing about bobcats is that, although they only weigh about 15 to 20 pounds, I've seen one go after a deer near my house and a few weeks ago, one tried to tag one of my neighbors. It seems that my neighbor was hunkered down in a thicket early one morning hunting wild turkey. However soon after he used his turkey call, he was pummeled by a large cat. He sustained a slight a scratch on his arm before the bobcat realized he had taken on a substantially larger turkey than he had expected, and sprinted for the woods. Silly bobcats.

I worship Hasil Adkins. This short documentary is gold.

Shane Hillard, a 29-year-old who works at the same factory as Wilcoxon, said, "I don't understand how you're supposed to be able to buy a house and live the American dream when you work for one of the biggest companies in the United States and it's paying you just $12 an hour."

More on the faded American dream here

Well there you go. A few months ago I was bitching about my eight dollar an hour temp gig at the multi-million dollar corporation Parker Hannifin and if you didn't know, it's not much better for full time employees. It's like my friend Carl, an 80 year old retired UAW worker often tells me, "America has sold off its tools. How can it progress?"

Watching cable news coverage of the 2008 campaign makes me angry. Reading about the real issues makes me depressed. Trying to change the world through my own little gestures makes me feel hopeless. Thinking about the future makes me feel all of the above. Some therapy is in order.( Read more... )

My friend Ben from Andrew's Brewing in Lincolnville just sent along this email to his list. Let us take a moment and give thanks to some of America's heroes. I know where my rebate check will be going this summer (and all of the rest of my earnings, for that matter).

Rebate From Uncle Sam...THE REAL TRUTH!




As you may have heard, the Bush Administration says each and every one of us will get a nice rebate this year.

If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, all the money will go to China .

If we spend it on gasoline, it will all go to the Arabs.

If we purchase a computer, it will all go to India

If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will all go to Mexico , Honduras, and Guatemala .

If we purchase a good car it will all go to Japan.

If we purchase useless crap it will all go to Taiwan.

In each of these cases, none of it will help the American economy. OPEN YOUR EYES!!!

We need to keep that money here in America , and the only way to do that is to buy beer, since that's the only business still in the US .


YOU HEARD IT FOLKS....SO GRAB A RACK OF ANDREWS AT YOUR LOCAL STORE. EVEN IF YOU DON'T BUY MINE, BUY BEER AND KEEP THE MONEY IN THE U.S.A. THANKS TO THOSE THAT SUPPORT US!

BEERBOY :)

Sometimes when I sit down to write about one topic, I find myself going off on a tangent about something totally unrelated. I started writing this entry about applying for food stamps and somehow it became a story about my parents. So I scrapped it all, interviewed my mom and dad, scanned some old photos, and here we are. I have to say, going back into that album with all of the photos from my birth made me pretty queasy though...


A snapshot of my dad (taken by my mom) and a snapshot of my mom, (taken by my dad) from across the kitchen table at my mom’s first place in St. George, Maine( Read more... )

This American Life contributor Jack Hitt uncovers a strange practice within the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. If a foreign national marries a U.S. citizen and schedules an interview for a green card, but the U.S. citizen dies before the interview takes place, the foreign national is scheduled for deportation with no appeal—even if the couple has children who are U.S. citizens. Jack talks with Brent Renison, a lawyer who's representing over 130 people in this situation, mostly widows, who are seeking to overturn the Immigration Service's rule. (20 minutes, start time 0:30)

This story is really messed up. It shocked me to hear how our immigration service has been fighting really hard in the courts, using tax payer money, to deport these women using terrorism laws as their justification.

LINK

Another day at Hannaford...

Actual call:

CALLER: Hi, I'm calling about the class action law suit...

ME: Against Hannaford?

CALLER: Yeah. I had to change my credit card because of the security breach and I decided to take a day off from work to handle it. I was on the phone for a long time talking to my credit card company and it'll take seven days to issue me a new one. I use my credit card all of the time, so this is a big inconvenience.

ME: Um...ok. So, did any unauthorized charges appear on your statement?

CALLER: No, no. I just changed my card to be on the safe side. I'm not going to let my credit be tarnished.

ME: Well, a case of credit card fraud will not affect your credit history. So did you have to pay any money for the new card?

CALLER: No, but it was such an inconvenience, so I wanted to get in on that class action law suit...

ME: Riiight. Well, we are the company you want to sue, so you're probably going to need to call a lawyer about that.

CALLER: I was hoping it wouldn't have to come to that. I was hoping you would offer me some compensation...

ME: For...?

CALLER: For my time.

ME: Uh huh. Well, my card was also one of the 4.2 million that was at risk in the breach and I also applied for a new card...but what kind of compensation were you looking for?

CALLER: I was thinking that $200 would do it because I had to take a day off from work and that would also compensate for the stress I endured.

ME: Personally, it took me ten minutes to change my card. Anyway, we're not offering any compensation for this kind of issue.

CALLER: Fine. I'm going to get on the phone with my lawyer and I'm going to tell all of my friends and family to never shop at Hannaford ever again!

ME: Ok, we're very sorry for the inconvenience. Can I assist you with anything else?

*CLICK*

I just noticed that the King Blues put up their new video for Music Man, which depicts the glory of squatting. I'm actually curious to hear from readers about this subject because in my experience, it's a pretty damn hard thing to pull off. We did have a squat for a little while in Taipei until the cops came and shut 'er down. I think that the authorities are a little more vigilant up here. I guess it's more of a European thing. Ah Europe, where you can live pretty well off the government tit (in some countries), you can actually get health care, and you can pull off an affected Jamaican accent without getting ridiculed out of the biz. Remind me why I came back here?



But anyway, I'm a big fan of the King Blues, both for their music and for their activism. There need to be more bands like them around. Bands that will play anywhere, anytime and for anyone.

To all non-livejournal people,

It slipped my mind to make this announcement earlier since I forgot that a lot of non-livejournal people used to read this blog. Then I got an email asking if I had died. This blog is now private for a number of reasons, but I've been making posts for months (you just can't see them!) If you still care about what's going on down here in Portland or with my race for the legislature, post an email address and I'll tell you how. Or you can just email me at gotmahmojo@gmail.com

Cheeahz!

I somehow hit all five red lights as I'm driving home from work. By the fifth one I inadvertently pop the clutch and lay the biggest burn-out I've ever laid in my entire driving history. I hate this fucking job. I hate the horrendous tasks they give me. I hate waking up at 5am so I can head out for eight and half hours for a shitty wage that barely pays the rent on my shithole apartment. I hate the gritty, greasy combination of steel dust and oil that gets into my hair, my fingernails, and into the tissue when I blow my nose –whether I wear a respirator or not. I hate the fucking human resources department whom I'd relish lining up and curb jobbing one by one – right after I sentence the little bubbly, cheerbot agent who sent me here in the first place. But I like my coworkers.( Read more... )

The following day after I punched in, George took me aside and said, "Andy! We're gonna train you to do some duties so that we can get Don back in the machine shop. Go see Don. He's in the oil room."( Read more... )

Right before I went to bed last night, I watched this really fucked up horror movie. I ended up breaking into sweats and tossing and turning for hours with images of these vile demons tearing apart the lives of the young and/or poor.

It was called Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders. The film reminded me of Bud, one of my former coworkers. Bud is in his early 50's and he just finished making his house payments a few years ago, but as he's gotten older, the doctor's bills have been piling up and fuel hasn't gotten any cheaper. Being uninsured, he's had to pay out of his pocket - except for the time when the dentist bartered a root canal for a finish coat of paint on his barn. Since Bud depends on mostly seasonal work, he usually has to choose which debts he wants to get rid of before the start of winter when the majority of his work dries up and he has to hustle for gigs here and there. As he explained to me one day, "I'll be floating on plastic for the rest of the winter and I'll be financially fucked if I come down with an illness." Then he added, "But when the big day comes, fuck 'em! Beware of the man who has nothing to lose!"

He went on to tell me about a literal house wrecker party he had attended at a friend's house on the island last year. The term "house wrecker" is usually used to describe a raging staver in which all of your friends come over, consume mass quantities of alcohol and damage the house due to their drunkenly idiotic behavior.

As of late, The house wreckers I've been hearing about are when your friends come over, consume mass quantities of alcohol and deliberately cause damage to your house which is facing imminent foreclosure.

"Just before those cocksuckers took his house away, he invited all of his friends over, got right fuckin pie-eyed and then gutted the mothafucka from basement to attic!" Bud said. "By the time the caretakers hired by the bank arrived, the house was rubble. Hell, I'll one up them and pour fifteen gallons of fuel oil into the well and get the EPA in here to test the soil. HAHAHAHA. Beware of the man who has nothing to lose!" he chuckled.

It's taken me about six months to try to adjust to the "real world" life back in the US. Actually, I've spent most of that time hiding from it. Nevertheless, I've faced the fact that I've at least got to stay here another three years to get a higher degree and/or enough work experience so that I can get a better job which will allow me to get the fuck out of here again. It's taken me some time to recognize the fact that six years of overseas teaching experience might as well be six years of horn scraping experience as far as employers are concerned. It's not like they're just gonna call a buxiban in Taiwan for a reference. Besides, as a liberal arts school graduate, I'm not qualified to teach public school in the subject that I studied for four years and I have to pay for another two exams, then fork out another fifteen grand for a year long masters program so that I can take a slew of Mickey Mouse courses to "get certified." Meanwhile the fucktard who taught me six grade math graduated from a four-year community college with an education bachelor's degree and can jump right in. She couldn't teach without looking to the back of the book for the answers, but at least our children is learning stuff from a certified ayjookator.

So while I'm still making monthly payments on my five-digit student loans and have yet to change my "Property of Sallie Mae" T-shirt, I've been starting to wonder whether I want to pile on more debts for the opportunity to get a job that pays jackshit.

I've also faced the fact that getting jacked for money is just part of being an American.

Healthcare costs, insurance, more insurance, fucking more insurance, sky-high rents, buttraping school application fees, buttraping exam fees, undergraduate student loans, graduate student loans, the necessity of having a car that costs over forty bucks to fill the tank each time because public transportation blows here...

But I've sucked it up, signed the lease and I just moved into my new place on the waterfront next to the Shipyard Brewery in scenic Portland, Maine. Now, being that I've actually spent some time in a real slum, I can't exactly use that term to describe this place, but for $325 a month in a US downtown district, you get what you pay for. The apartment was advertised as "ugly building, quirky apartment" in the paper for the past six months, but when I first took the tour with my roommate, it seemed fine. The floors were a bit uneven, the stairs a bit broken, the windows and doors a bit cracked and drafty, and the whole place smelled of stale beer but other than that, it was just what we were looking for. Built into the bottom of Munjoy Hill, our third floor apartment opens right onto the hill - the perfect romping ground for my roommate's two enormous Husky/Samoyed-mixed dogs. The fact that she sleeps with both of those enormous dogs under two heavy comforters is probably part of the reason she didn't feel the affects of the sub-zero temperatures that made me shiver my nads off throughout my first night on my inflatable mattress. The one gas heater in the kitchen does nothing to heat this fucking apartment. Therefore, yesterday I bought a small electric space heater and plugged it into a big wad of extension cords we had run from the vacant second floor apartment after we realized that the power company shut off our power when the previous tenants moved out. Day four since we've called them and those Central Maine Power choadsmokers still haven't switched us on.

At this point I've got a hodge podge of part time jobs. I'll be doing some work canvassing for a political non profit running a universal health care campaign, I'll be writing for an upstart weekly newspaper that strives to actually report on relevant local arts and entertainment (and hopefully eventually drive that worthless splooge-rag The Portland Phoenix out of Maine and back to Boston), and I've just started working at the front desk of a day shelter.

Basically the latter job involves standing at the front desk and signing in people for the showers, phone service, and laundry, sign them up for interviews with caseworkers, as well as supplying them with clothes, toiletries and any other accessories that they may need for survival on the streets. I guess that's why they officially call it a "resource center."

The shelter consists of a large room with tables and chairs scattered around. There are five rooms for showers, a laundry room with four washers and dryers off to the side, and a counter with coffee and tea. We open at 8am and close at 6pm when it becomes a women's shelter. In the basement the organization operates a soup kitchen.

Working the front desk is a serious exercise of multi-tasking and patience. On my first day, the shelter was packed with "consumers" (I tend to think "clients" is a better word, but the administration prefers this term for some reason) because it happened to be government check day. Throughout the morning, scores of people hovered around the front desk, some of them were friendly and jovial, others were stressed and impatient. One woman complained incessantly about the fact that people weren't collecting their laundry from the machines on time and put the blame solely on the staff who were "just fuckin lollygaggin around."

Because so many people collect their mail at the shelter, the administration has made it a policy to have the people sign-up for mail call at three different times during the day. On this particular morning, one apparently agitated man gruffly asked me to sign him up for the 11 o'clock mail. I told him he had missed the cut off and that I could sign him up for the 12:30. He paused for a moment then stared at my name tag. Finally he gazed up at me and said, "'Andy’ is it?" I nodded. He then pulled a ball point pen out of his pocket and proceeded to write my name on the back of his hand.

"Alright, if I don't get my mail, I'm gonna find you," he mumbled, putting the pen back into his pocket.

I'm finding it really hard to read people these days.

After I gave one eighteen-year old kid his mail, he turned to his friend and said, "Looks like they're still delivering most of my mail to the other address at the teen shelter." Then he stared at a statement he had just opened. "Christ, ten dollars for food stamps this week? Might as well friggin cut me off."

Later on as I was sprinkling salt on the sidewalk in front of the building two policemen strutted up and walked in. The kid with the food stamps grinned at me.

"That's Bingo and Mongo, the two local beat cops," he said.

"We call them much worse names than that," spat a pregnant girl about the same age. "They treat people like us like shit. They think we're all freeloaders, but many of us have jobs. We're just having a hard time."

When I came in, the police brushed by me, escorting a man out in cuffs. When I arrived at my desk, one of the staff members appeared distressed. "I really wish they wouldn't do that,” she said. “This is supposed to be a sanctuary where people can come and feel safe. We prefer that if the police have to make arrests, they do it outside."

We get all types of people. There are the late teens and early twenty-somethings who have spent a good part of their youth in group homes or at the teen shelter down the street. There are the folks with mental problems, physical disabilities, substance abuse issues or all of the above. Some of the people have a place to stay somewhere, but they come down to pick up items like clothes and toiletries that otherwise might have pushed them over budget. Part of my job is just to listen to people who need someone to talk to. One of my favorite people is an older woman with multi-colored locks of hair. She’s an aging rocker and often comes in with her guitar.

"I suppose I should introduce myself because I'll be harassing you a lot,” she told me one morning. “I've got a beautiful place but it costs two-hundred bucks more than my monthly check. So I spend much of my days hustlin' for the stuff I can't afford."

There's also the good-natured fellow who hangs out by the desk chit chatting about this and that. He tells me he hates hanging around and whenever there's any task to be done, whether it's shoveling the front walk, carrying in bags of donations, or cleaning up before closing, he rushes to do it.

"I'll do it free of charge for ya!" he announces. "Ya know, I just want a good payin job so I don't have to be here. I can't drive, but if I can get there, I just want to work hard."

By far the most disturbing are the number of new consumers who have been coming into the shelter. Middle class-looking folks wearing nice clothes and driving cars. People who timidly open the door and wander around the shelter looking self-conscious and unfamiliar with the surroundings. A man who could be anyone from a sponsor to the Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, who we've been expecting on this freezing subzero day. This particular man finally catches my eye.

He walks up, looks around briefly, lowers his head and says, "I need to talk to someone. My wife left me with stacks of bills. Credit cards, electricity, fuel, medical...I don't know what to do. I can't pay the fuel this month...I can't pay..."

He looks like he's ready to burst from stress. I tell him I'll schedule him an appointment with a caseworker. It's easy to forget how fragile our little middle class bubbles really are.

Cheeahz!

A while back a Filipino zinester asked if he could reprint a story about my tour of Manila City Jail which originally appeared in the most recent issue of Bloodstone. Basically the article contained the typical observations of a lily white American visiting a twenty-year old Filipino kid wasting away his youth in a dirty, overcrowded third world jail, waiting years for his trial to come.

Just recently someone from the Philippines, who must have seen that story somewhere, forwarded me these videos with the message:

"Next time you should visit the CPDRC! I'm sure they'd love it if you performed a number from Evita with them!"




Over 1500 inmates performing at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center

From now on, whenever anyone asks me why I love the Philippines so much, I'm just going to direct them to these videos.

Merry fucking Christmas!

Top knotch. I couldn't stop shaking my ass.



Cheeahz!

Alright everyone, it's that time again. Let's hear your endorements. You don't even need to say why, I'm just taking an informal blog survey.

Now as far as I'm concerned, all of them can bite the curb, but every cycle I pick one. In 2000 it was Nader (and we all know how that turned out). In 2004 it was Sharpton (wtf was I thinking), so while I'll probably vote for someone else in the actual election (leaning toward Doug Stanhope), between the big three, I gotta go with my boy John Edwards. He's the only one who is actually talking about the issues that I care about:



Yeah I know, Kucinich, but he's just too smarmy and destined to lose. I'm done with him like I was done with Nader in 2001. Besides we have a caucus, so it's not as if I'd have a vote that counts. Let's be honest with ourselves, when was the last time an election has been less about theater and more about progressive change?

Speaking of which, has anyone else been going through VOTERONPAUL fatigue syndrome? Christ I'm going batshit with all of the fucking Paul spammers and the Paulista proselytizers constantly calling up local community radio shows and any other forum that allows them time to spout off about their valiant defender of the Constitution.

Cheeahz!

Children Sucker have gone pop.



They deserve the recognition though. They're one of the most authentic Taiwan bands out there.

This has always been one of my favorite songs:


To think that when I first saw this band almost six years ago, they were called "Asshole" and they stormed the stage at Spring Scream to take another bands' slot, prompting organizer Jimi Moe to shout "Hey Asshole! Get off the stage! Your slot is tomorrow!" Now they're the headliners.

Ah, I miss those days when we used to play with them at DV8. Here's a pic of them with LTK's Xiao Ke doing some guest vocals and Wayno the Almighty on drums at a Christmas show three years ago:


Cheeahz!

I just spent six hours of my day driving back and forth to get fingerprinted by the state police so that I can get a job substitute teaching. Every week, the state sets up a designated center where any state worker who has contact with children can get their state-mandated fingerprints done. Last week the service was held six hours away near the Canadian border and this week it was held three hours away down near the New Hampshire border. So after spending about a hundred bucks, I am now officially registered as a potential child molester (ie: teacher).

Now I realize that more than half the states in the US require teachers to be fingerprinted, but can anyone explain to me why this is in any way necessary? I mean, they already do a fucking criminal background check. I propose that Maine's teachers show our hysterical lawmakers (who voted unanimously for the bill) that we have nothing to hide. Leave a steaming pile of DNA on the desk of your local legislator today.

Cheeahz!

Eric Alterman's summary of the CNN Democratic presidential debates perfectly described the fucked-up state of The Fourth Estate:

The night's final absurdity came at the evening's close, when a UNLV student was given the microphone and asked Hillary Clinton whether she preferred diamonds or pearls. Sitting in the audience, I was among those who thought her idiotic inquiry shamed both herself and her university. Yet it turns out I was being unfair. As she later explained on her MySpace page, she had been planning to ask a question about nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain, but at the last minute she was instructed by a CNN producer to switch her question to diamonds and pearls, which she had submitted in advance when asked by the network to provide questions of a "lighthearted/fun" nature. The folks at CNN apparently considered this inquiry to be such a stroke of genius they chose it as their lead story for the website the following day, under the headline Diamonds or pearls: Clinton wants both.

Is junk media making you sick???


These public advocacy videos are getting better and better.

Cheeahz!

One time I was listening to Lars Larson filling in for Rush Limbaugh. He was inviting listeners to call in and explain why Jesus would have been a Republican. One caller said, "Of course he would have been a Republican cuz the Bible says 'Thou shalt not steal!' The liberals are always trying to steal our money through taxes!" The host and the caller yucked it up for a while. So the hypothetical question I'd liked to pose is, if Jesus was selling crappy religious merchandise and he wanted to maximize his profit, what would Jesus do (WWJD)? And here we have the answer!