Working Class Corner, More, More Jobs

    During my Junior year of High School in Chicago, I did have that bag boy job for three weeks, but then I broke my ankle, and there was this play, and then the Writing Program, and I guess school was my job, though it didn’t  pay very much at all, and I would have starved if  family hadn’t feed, clothed, and sheltered me.

    Sometimes I look at it as a cruel joke that I got all my rewards and status from things I wrote, pictures I took, or performances on stage.

     Of course the War was going on, and when I graduated from High School I went directly to Toronto, for even if I went directly to college in 1971, I would still be up for the Draft.

     Foolishly my Canadian teachers at my scholarship summerschool in Bloomfield Hills had told me that they would put me up.  They worked for the CBC, and had a summer job at Adventures in Creativity.   Ron and Diane Chudley were their names.

     Well I took them at their word, and hitchiked to Toronto with 150 bucks in my pocket to flee the war in Viet Nam if I had too.

      Three weeks is a long visit.

       In otherwords I showed up at Ron and Diana’s place in Toronto, and stayed in their apartment for three weeks doing things like buying Frank Zappa records and borrowing the record player.

      They finally took me to Rochdale College and left me there.

      Somehow I paid for a month of a place to live in the building, and went out selling poems I had written on the streets of Yorkville.

       I remember getting extremely hungry and eating an entire box of donuts in a stairwell once.

       The Rochdale newspaper printed the poem I was selling on the streets without my permission and I had a meeting with the Vice President as a consequense.    He offered me a job either as a maintainece man, or as a Security Guard, and I took the Security position.

        I also started another newspaper.

        The Security Guard job involved a good number of fist fights, and other conflicts that ground many of my views as far as real enemies, and real threats, and I do not worry that much about people who simply say bad things about me.

       A real enemy throws you out a window and says you jumped.

       Some jobs are like that.   

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More Jobs/Working Class Corner

     I remember taking a long walk in the woods  after successive failures to find a job.   It was a nice damp dull day easy on the eyes and really comfortable farmer jacket weather.

     You never knew what you might find on a woods walk around Greensboro NC.

     "How did this car get here?"

     If I’d had a rifle I’d have shot the rusted brown beauty just sitting there out in the woods of no road as if dropped there by a helicopter or part of a long ago bank robbery story impossible to do more than imagine.

     Seems I got a job selling cameras at the downtown camera store somewhere around then.

     Selling cameras is a lot like selling cars from what I can tell, since you deal with "trade ins.", plus there are professional camera men same as professional drivers.

      Last time I took a job selling cameras I got fired for taking a job for a few days at 3 times the day pay.   Didn’t work again for 3 weeks, so it worked out even.

      The Raleigh News and Observer wouldn’t buy Digital Nikons at 5 grand a piece at the time because the staff reporters got free film for their side projects.

      If I was to sell cars now I’d really only be interested in Fleet Sales.

      In the High School Days Camera Store Job there were cigar smoking salesmen with real personalities and all sorts of experience and guile.  There was junk in the dark all over the place and you could spend all day with a pencil eraser cleaning contacts for the batteries in Kodak Instamatics.

      There were boxes and boxes of photographs upstairs developed and printed and never to be picked up or seen long now in the landfills of America.

       Back then some of us bought it that cheap film, and Super 8 were worth the effort and money for us artists.   I tell my interns not to bother with anything but the best equipment, though I’ll use whatever I can get my hands on.   In that was I am an honest hypocrite and my interns know it.

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Working Class Corner/Jobs

Russell Scott Day

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Work, the Spiritual Quest for the Material Necessities.

At age 11 in 1963 I started my paper route.   That business was run till I was 13 or 15?.   Summers of when I was a Boy Scout I was a Camp Counslor, and Assistant Commisary Director.

When away working at camp my younger brother and mother delivered the papers.

My brother embezzeled money from the business and I folded the business.

Later in my twenties I worked for awhile as a Circulation Manager, which is great grist for a Comedy Movie in consideration of what young paperboys in their first jobs, might do.

Certainly back in the day as is the case with most cash businesses there is an element of crime that arises out of the facts of cash.

Juke box businesses, and vending machine businesses, and cab businesses have colorful histories.

A job I had early in my working career came from my desire to build a Bomb Shelter.

In our Garden Lot I was observed digging a deep hole and an old man in the neighborhood offered me the job of painting a house for 30 bucks.

Whenever I was running out of paint he said, "Put more water in it."   30 feet in the air I got stung on my eyelid by a wasp.

The 4 foot deep and 4 foot square I had dug into the ground filled up with water and drowned rats, so one day I poured gasoline in it and threw in a match.

At the Boy Scout job, I and some others got fired for insubordination.

Oddly enough this was due to us who had fought out a terrific water battle with the Initiation crew of older Scouts, of our first year, still wanting to continue the tradition in later years.

What had been standard prior to our "administration" had been that the new crews were assembled in a room and taken out one by one to be tied to trees naked overnight covered in shaving cream and some like torture or humiliation.

We, came together and grabbing all the fire pumps fought back the superior force en masse.

It was a glorious battle.

Anyway the next year it was prohibited, and we felt cheated, and got fired.

Of course by that time I was a really good shot, and the guy that had trained me to shoot really hated the Camp Director, and they may have had some sort of fears I wasn’t aware of.

After that I think I moved and when in Chicago going to High School did about three weeks as a bag boy at a grocery store.

Got a scholarship to a Writing Program and they gave me some cab fair money I used as my allowance taking the El instead.

Did have to take a cab once due to extreme cold and had a terrific high speed curb hopping ride in a Checker Marathon.

I think I sold cameras in a camera store as my next job.

It is apparently similar to selling cars.

Working Class Corner/  Buy a Car!

Since I don’t have any money coming in from this website, or a real job, and our two old cars are clunkers that limit my range of operations, the Cash for Clunkers program is of interest.

I figure that the price of the car will go up in relation to the worthless nature of clunkers, and that the whole thing is intended to create more debt that is put on the books as assets to continue the charade as usual.

Overall I consider all the propaganda about improving economic situations, nothing but propaganda.

It is too bad UNTV didn’t take off.

It is too bad Learjet, the TV Show hasn’t sold yet.

It is too bad Jet Beach hasn’t sold.

Upcoming the Poetry Section will be better, since soon the Fiction, will be separated, and in order.

It is too bad the UN has become paralized.

Forgive me.   I am having trouble rolling with things these days.

There is some good stuff on this website in the archives.

I think I’m  full of too many important secrets right now.

I’m going to get over it all tomorrow.

I’ve discovered a switch in my head, and intend to flip it sometime tonight.

Tomorrow everything I think will be perfect.

Tomorrow I’ll report every solution to every problem known to man.

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow.

                                                                               Russell

…

The King Is Coming!   The King Is Coming!

Mom  took me to the airport in Memphis to meet Dad who was returning from a job search trip.   I was 4, maybe 5.   It is an early memory.   The airport was a fascinating place for me.   So many people all moving around.   Out of the air loudspeakers announcing flights.   A bustle of freedoms now gone.

People just seemed to drop out of the sky, and then be on the ground.   You could see them  walk to planes on the tarmac, up steps to get in, or come out all like Presidents.

I was short then.   You are often looking up when you are a kid.   It’s hard to see what’s going on in crowds.

Back then everybody wore hats.   People dressed up as  for travel, or even visits to the airports in the same clothes they might wear to church.

Of a sudden I heard,   "The King is Coming!  The King is Coming!"

The crowd was moving, legs  pivoting towards one direction to which I turned.

My God, The King?   We shall see the King!

Not a King, but The King!

Somehow I found a clear view of the ramp.

Across the tarmac, came striding The King, Elvis in all his glory.

He was dressed in White, white shoes, white pants, white shirt with the tails out cut straight  as are the Christian Dior summer shirts.

Following him, and around him  it seemed there must have been 15 grey suited men, following him,  behind him  just enough so that you knew  they were with him, there to protect him, but following him.

Oh my God, its the King!   I’d seen the King!

Not a King, Not the President, but "The King".

The excitement, Love, and awe I felt was a powerful event.

I truly believe that it had a powerful subconscious influence on me, subility causing me to want to be a King myself.

Years go by and you wonder why you have done what you have done.

Well, I saw Elvis at the Memphis Airport, and the rest is History!

Working Class Corner/ Policy Paper

    byline Russell S. Day

The Policies, allergist and suggestions for consideration are intended to advance peace and prosperity, malady nationally, pill and internationally.   There are wars and potential wars going on in our world.   The finances  and wealth of nations and individuals  have been undermined.   Important institutions have been corrupted, and we are in deep trouble.

It is simply War, and Corruption that make people poor.   Bad laws make for a bad society.   In the US the long running Drug War has  recreated, and maintained and spread generally thoughtout the entire landscape, the worst of what Prohibition Era Chicago became.

This internal war within the US, has become an international war that has really done as much or more to diminish security, as the wars in Iraq, or Afghanistan.

The slaughters  in the border states and cities of Mexico are sickening.

As a simple practical matter ending the drug war, would separate drug smugglers, from weapons smugglers and it is recognized that if you have too many Fronts, and are at War, in too many theaters, you will lose.

So one my main Policy suggestions is that an immediate end to the Drug War, be done.

Now the UN was created with the mission of ending all war, and this is a worthy goal.   However it is more practical for the UN to be powerful enough, respected and feared enough, to enforce "The Rules of  War".   I encourage the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction, and feel of deadly conflict, murder, and assassination, this is the only area where I would give my support to bloody conflict.

It is an undue assault on the security of my class, the working class of all nations for us to suffer this threat, and really about the only thing I consider worthy of killings.

Details of how an Institution Transnationally would be composed, and charged are too much for me right now to delineate.

Now regardless of my self created dual citizenship in Transcendia, and the US, whereby I really ought to work further on independence, or gaining stature enough to be conquered and absorbed into the UN, I have a few recommendations for the US Federal Government.

In relation to War and Peace, I am strongly in favor of the Recreation of the US Constabulary Force.   It is too much for the US to ask the Army, or Armed Forces to do more than they are equipped or trained, or actually institutionally intended to do.   Their real job is simply to defend the nation through the use of deadly force.

The United State Constabulary Force did in Europe what we need it to do in Irag, and Afghanistan.   Without the ReInstitution of the United States Constabulary Force, the US will continue to spin its wheels, and get further mired in Afganistan, in particular.

The drug war needs to be ended there too, for that is what they can grow, and make, and attempts to change that, are a source of stupid violent deaths.

Now we are aware that there is a Financial Crisis.   Ironically I have come to see that to increase the wealth and security of the US, Insurance is the key.   Specificly I have determined, that awarding "Whole Life Insurance" policies to citizens at birth, would create a situation of parity between Labor, and Capital.

Further it would be a win win for the insurance industry, and the nation.

Further explaintion on my part, and the part of insurance professionals, is called for, but I am running out of steam in this particular writing fit.

I am also for an International Mininum Wage, in this era of globalization, and urbanization…   

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.,