Working Class Corner

Among my correspondents two have admitted that they had been depressed.

Some young girl told me she would really hate me if  I killed myself.

Things ain’t goin’ so good for me either.

When it’s my job to look for a job,

How come I get no respect if I call somebody on the phone?

How do I really know if they got my email?

Is writing now reserved for stupid gossip and pictures of  vacations,

or sexted offerings?

Job offered:  Write to this address: Don’t call.

Thanks Yahoo!

Google sends love.

WLSP stands for WLSP Literary Agency.-Or Writers Literary Screen Play Agency.

I sent these people money, to critique my work.

I sent these people the work in formats they demanded.

I sent these people money for "postage".

I sent these people the best package, hard copies, and CDs of recordings of the table reading of the screen play.

After a couple of years they couldn’t  sell it.

They said they were thinking of dumping me.

I said try one more month, and then fine.

I asked them to send back to me COD my best package.

I got a note saying they had destroyed all I had sent them.

Well, overall, they are very limited and not of much use for people who work to contract.

Second when I sent them money to do what they called an "advanced agency" mailing.

I got two versions.

I think they made both up, since they had located to Florida, and  Florida, is of course an okay place to be, it is not NYC, or LA.

They failed to sell my screenplay.

Then I do have some evidence that they lied since I got a report that was reflective of twice what I paid for.

About two or three weeks ago I promised them that I would post to my website, this one, a badmouth of them, if I did not get back from my supposed agent all that I sent to them.

I have not, gotten the body back in its coffin.

This little thing really pisses me off, and I am forced to follow through, and post my report.

"Oh, Hey, Everything Is Great With Us!

We Destroyed every evidence of our deal!"

Okay, I know the rules.

I got something back from the New Yorker a week ago.

They are not an agent.

I sent them the stuff with a return envelope.

Out of the 6 or 7 hundred bucks I spent with WL, for them to not send back what I sent in hardcopy form, implies to me that they just threw it away.

The two different mailing reports I got imply they are slick.

In either case, whether they are upright or charlatians, they didn’t sell my work.   They are very limited, as far as what a working writer needs as representation, and reports of the destruction of whatever I sent to my agent, without even the ashes, do not  encourage me to recommend them to others, either more skilled, or more salable than I.

I wanted to write them a note that was a simple Fuck You!, you pathetic lying failures, but I restrained myself.

Working Class Corner/Torture

      Grown-ups do not torture either people or animals.   Torture is done by adolescents or children.   In my formative youth I tortured two creatures.   One was a turtle, asthma and the other was a lizard.   Also I once shot a crow with my BB gun.

       In Rochdale College we once caught a guy who had beaten another guy over the head with a pipe.

       We had him in the Security office.

       He had beaten and robbed a Mesclyine dealer.

       We asked him what made him think he could come into our building and beat and rob one of us.

       He said somebody told him he could do it.

       One of us punched him in the face.

       Then infront of him we discussed what to do with him.

       One of us had long had the desire to cut off someones finger.   It was discussed how much he ought to pay for the privelged of cutting off one of this guys fingers.

       One of use wanted to give the guy 30 tabs of bad acid, and put him out on the street.

       30 tabs of bad acid at one dose would likely make a person permanently insane.

       Cutting off someones finger is pretty gruesome, and both things done would have consituted crimes from my point of view.

       However this guy had hit one of ours over the head with a pipe, and robbed him.

       We had victim  bleeding from his head identifying who we had caught.

       We had a woman running around screaming at us for punching the guy.

       I asked the guy how he got to our building.   Turned out his car was in the parking lot.

       I suggested that we get him to give us his car.

       We offered him the deal, that we would not cut off his finger, or make him permanently insane, if he gave us his car.

        He agreed to this deal, and we took him downtown to the motorvehicle bureau, and he signed over to us his Chevy Imapla.

        Then we let him go.

         My goal was to keep the building, and the people in it safe from attack, and I figured he may well tell that it was not a good idea to attempt to rob my charges.

         It is no wonder that I approve of Larry McMurtry receiving the Pultizer Prize for Lonesome Dove.

         It is very stressful to decide to hurt people as an adult.

         My goal is to protect and empower my friends, and in this case what I attempted to do was have the word spread that it was not a good idea to rob and hurt any of my people.

         If feel I did the best I could, and that the punishment fit the crime, and advanced security in the building.

         The fact that in Rochdale where a certain set of drugs were legal, that were not legal outside of the 18 story highrise there at 341 Bloor Street West, did create a unique educational experience.

         I feel lucky to have both experienced these conflicts, and survived them.

         Truly I know that real enemies will kill you, and it is a good idea to make it known they need to know you know it is not practical for you to ignore that.

        Value your life.,

Working Class Corner/Follow Me!

     You are not going to change the world sitting on your ass watching the TV, or even writing on a blog.   This is a problem if you want to be a saint since saints get to be saints because they don’t really do anything.   If you don’t do anything, you don’t make any mistakes.

     Firemen and Policemen and Janitors sometimes make mistakes.

     Sometimes a mechanic will make a mistake.

     Anyone who knows me well knows that I think an awful lot of William Faulkner.   Truly I find it somewhat amazing that  right now there are people all over the world reading a book that William Faulkner wrote.   Faulkner was a serious guy who forced you to relearn even how to read.

     In The Fable you’ve got Jesus walking around on the battlefields of WWI.   In The Wild Palms the doctor kills his girlfriend by accident, because he is not a good doctor, and the dumb convict helps anyone he is in company with.

      Absolam Absolam is the greatest poem I have ever read, for two reasons:   One it is the grandiose achievement of a fully realized poet who did see the poem and the novel as the same thing, and it is simply the longest poem I ever read.   Two the point is that no matter how much stuff, money or fame you might ever get, if the ideals that drove you are simply wrong, your life is a wasted breath of tragedy.

     Oh, yeah, I was intending to encourage you to follow me!

      I’ve got some policies!

Hi, I’ve just appeared here…. I was having a cat nap and ‘pop’ here I am…maybe it’s all a pigment of my imagination? (Yeah that was deliberate)

Dunno why but I always seem to be saying ‘just’ not so much as an indication of lack of substance, more as an indicator of immediacy. Just a few words… or just do it, I just gotta say something but what?

What should a cat say? Too much negative stuff in my head so I just gotta kick myself up the backside and do something…Doing stuff is what I do….when in doubt … make something…mend something…refurbish something.

Ha yes, I’ll re-furb my old 275lb draw weight ‘light sporting’ medieval crossbow….

Hmmm the binding which holds the D ring onto the front is a tad perished, never mind I’ll re-do it, but first I’ll cock it using the ‘bending lever’…..BANG, PING, CLATTER. Oh bugger the binding has ripped appart and the Dring and lever have flown across the garage…. Now I’l got to tidy the garage to find the damn thing.

I always work in a total mess…

A place for everything, and everything in a mess, that’s what I say.

Still it will give me something to do to stop me thinking….

Anyhow maybe I shoulda been called Justin instead of Del….

Just for you guys in the US ‘Del’ is short for Derek…. it’s a Cockney thing (not that I’m a Cockney….)

When it’s all re-furbed I’ll post a pic… or maybe you guys could pop over and halp me look for that damn D ring.

Hmmm hope you don’t mind my ramblings…

Peace and chill

Uncle Del

Working Class Corner/April Fools Speech
March 30th Draft
Russell S. Day

When I first decided that April Fools would be the Transcendian Holiday, it was because I had suffered a broken heart on this day. It’s been 33 years now, and I’m over it.
Most of us at one time or another, have somehow made fools of ourselves, or been made fools of.
Typically it is not a fun feeling.
We may even cry about it.
Cast about, run away, get angry, and even make more fools of ourselves.
Sometimes we get counseling, or hire an attorney.
As for myself, I did say the Lords Prayer so much that it was a mantra running in the back of my mind all the time.
My poetry was changed and became more simple.
I worked on improving my humor by learning to make others laugh.
Over the past year, an awful lot of people have been made fools of.
I have to admit it is hard to find the humor in it.
A broken heart may make you feel foolish for investing hopes and love and all that into a relationship, but losing your job, and all your money puts things in perspective.
Our governments are not supposed to play practical jokes on us, make fools of us.
The corporations and companies that we work for are not supposed to trick us.
The people we invest our money with are not supposed to make fools of us.
Mr. Madoff, AGI, Bush and Wars, gas prices, Mortgage loans, Bankers, Car Companies, everyday headlines and reports on the radio and Tv tell of how somebody somewhere has either been foolish, or made fools of us.
It has gotten awfully extreme.
Even rich people who are only supposed to make fools of us, have been made fools of!
It has gotten out of hand.
We shall have to do more together than pray.
The first thing to do is look around you, and see strength, and wisdom, and beauty, and humor in your friends, and encourage that in them, and in yourself.
Don’t miss a chance to compliment, those next to you working to live well, with integrity for the little things that bring us delight.
Sometimes I simply wish all we needed was a common understanding and constant use of simple good manners. Apparently we need laws and my wishes don’t fully get it.
But truly it is the little things you do everyday, that matter more than the big things you do now and then, for otherwise you don’t have a foundation from which to do a good big thing now and then.
I myself want to do a Big Thing.
-A grandiose big thing. I want Transcendia to become a real country.
Who the hell am I to want to do such a thing, make a country of airports welcome in every country!
I’m a nobody. I’m just another fool.
I think Mickey Mouse is important, that Disneyland ought to have the same standing as the Vatican at the UN, for instance.
I think there ought to be an International Minimum Wage, and that every citizen ought to have Whole Life Insurance policies awarded at birth, so Capital and Labor achieve parity.
I think working to create a heaven on Earth, is a legitimate and worthy goal, even if I rise being called a fool for imagining how that might be done.
I think there is plenty of work for everybody just cleaning the place up, making it run cleaner, and that if we need to fight for something, it is clear we need to fight for our right to Big Time Species Status in a Universe that is pretty much not an easy place to live in.
Mostly we live in jeopardy of complete destruction.
It is nearly insured, though some physics may mean eventually we could make Warp Drive Spaceship that would get some of us into another universe, but this will take some work.
In the meantime, I’m going to declare war on asteroids.
You know to create a nation you actually do need to start a real war, and I’ve decided that Transcendia’s most legitimate war to start, is with Asteroids.
I’ll need some money to advance this war with Asteroids.
First I’ll be giving money from whatever Transcendian accounts are created by your donations, or purchases of Transcendian flags, tee shirts, or passports, to the organizations that have been successful in identifying and locating Asteroids that threaten us.
Next I will work with the scientists and engineers to come up with the most practical Planet Defense System.
I am told that 100 Billion is a pretty typical ballpark figure for a new space program, but good and impressive work has already been done on the locating and getting at Asteroids that we can build on.
So your purchases or donations from or too Transcendia will be done in order, and with accounting, on this particular war with the environment, is my promise, though since I got fired, and my unemployment will not last forever, I hope you don’t mind if I take a little to live on.
So in conclusion of this speech, let us see if we can get a rocket off the ground now.
Let us do a little foolish thing together and launch another little Transcendian Message Rocket for the fun of it.
You know from my perspective if you have to pick a war, pick a fun war, and shooting asteroids and space junk, and even threatening comets is about the most fun war I can come up with.

Working Class Corner/Remembering College

     byline/Russell Scott Day

For me graduation was staying alive and free, as an important part of my College Experience.   I graduated from High School and went directly to Toronto.   Lionel Douglas, the President of Rochdale College, who hired me at 19 in Canada, accused me of "forethought".

Life happens fast when you are young, and I miss my youth since it is over and I don’t really want adventures anymore.

I was alway up for travel in my youth, and actually up intil about 1999.

How I ended up in Rochdale comes from other trips.

I think I groused about  High School  in Greensboro, NC, threated to drop out and got to go to school in Chicago with my cousins.

1969 and 70′ were politically charged times in Chicago then, and Hyde Park in particular was roiling.   There were a lot of speeches at the Shopping Center, and we went to Demonstrations for the Chicago Seven, and Fred Hampton, the great Black Panther was murdered in his bed.

War and Poverty, Civil Rights and sex and love, and hopes and dreams…

That War made a big difference to me.

The War determined what choices I made, and I left my country.

Now if my number had not come up 346, and I could return, there is some doubt in my mind as to whether or not I’d still be around.

I’m hesitant now to give you all the details, but I was on Security for Rochdale College, and well, there was some corruption occurring, and I objected, told some secrets, and was threatened with a flight with out wings from a high place.

It is one thing to learn in College that girls like to have fun, and it is another to learn that you can quick make enemies who go further than saying bad things about you.

Real enemies will kill you.

You’ve got what I call "Luxury Enemies", and "Real Enemies".   – This is what I learned in college.

Working Class Corner/Planet Defense

    Machhiavelli said,  "Chance is like a woman, and sometimes must be taken by force."   – At least that is what I remember him saying.   I understood it.   Sometimes you just got to grab her and kiss her.

    Overall what he was talking about  was how it is a good idea to work at overcoming chance.

    I think he went on to say that since Chance may turn out either for the good, or the bad, it is a good idea to work to influence it .

     Machhiavelli also went on to say that a conflict with nature is not enough to create a nation.

     In my work of attempting to seriously influence world events without conducting a war, I have had to recognize it is not recognized by the great political scientist  as likely.

     Every now and then I declare a war as a nod to political reality.

     A few years ago I declared war on something, somebody, about something, but nobody noticed, and I have forgotten what war I declared.

     This last April Fools I declared war on Asteroids, Comets, and have moved towards including in the conflict, Space Junk.

      The successes in locating tracking and even landing something on an Asteroid by NASA, and Seti, and the Catalina Sky Survey have been nothing less than awesome.

      I’d like to follow some of the Obama strategy for getting money from  a website to support my war on threatening rocks.

      My plan is  to discover how much is spent by Seti and the Catalina Sky Survey, and get money for that as a foundational technology vital to the war on big rocks that threaten us.

      Then my plan is to in coordination with the tracking and locating system, develop a system for defence of the Planet from these threats.

      So far it appears that there is nothing much on the shelf  that will work as a practical defense for the planet.   My friends and advisors who know more than I about some of the hard science say ball park it would take about 100 billion to make a custom system.

      That seems like an awful lot of money to me, though I think the US DOD budget is something like 400 billion a year.   (These are off the top of my head figures.)   Corrections are appreciated.

      The systems most often endorsed so far according to my friends and advisors utilize robots and Ion Rockets.

       I have over the years come to value my life on Earth, and really not be all that much interested in living in outerspace.   I used to want to live in outerspace, but I don’t want to anymore.   I hardly like driving to the store anymore.

       Defending the planet is a good job for robots.

       So then,  I hope my readers and supporters willl work on Robotic Planet Defense Systems either as scientists and designers, or as contributors to the cause.

        All Righty then!    I’ve declared war, and asked for support.

        That was my job for today.                    Russell

Working Class Corner/April Fools is Coming Up Fast

The speech is not written. I am tense about it. I’ve been studying Asteroids. I’ve asked for help in determining a budget for a workable Planet Defense system. Ball park is reported to be 100 Billion.
My plan calls for parking appropriate missiles in orbit that can be repositioned and fired first as experiments to see what they can do to deflect whatever Asteroids found.
I recommend parking missiles in orbit so as to create a flexible Asteroid Protection Force.
I want Transcendians to help fund Asteroid Detection Systems that currently exist.
The Catalina Sky Survey at the University of Arizona detected and predicted where a small Asteroid would hit the Planet successfully last week.
As soon as I can I will find out what it costs for them to keep working at that sort of thing.
I approve of it.
Wednesday at 6:30 PM at the Southern Rail in Carrboro North Carolina, I am committed to giving my Annual April Fools Day Speech.
Last years went all right. We had a successful message rocket launch, at the end of my speech.
I do not like to give long speeches.
This year I do intend to ask for money.
I do intend to have some passports for sale, and also hope my speech this year will be filmed and put up on You Tube, or somewhere else.
Should you happen to be in Carrboro North Carolina on April Fools 2009, I hope you will come to the Beer Garden of Southern Rail, and watch my speech.
Last year we did have a successful rocket launch at the end of the speech, which was fun.

Working Class Corner/I’m OK, today.

I do not want to be famous. I want to be like Daniel Schorr.
Nothing went terribly wrong today.
Everybody that hit me, apologized.

Went by where I used to work and got a little check.
Got some tools I never want to use again.

Looked at property.
Made some suggestions about how to make it secure.

It is reported the crack dealers are pleasant.