Ready

I’m ready to pimp my wares at AWP:

 

And, hey. A friend of mine from undergrad started a blog where he’s doing writing prompts and posting them. I’m glad he’s tuning up his writing again. I always thought he was pretty good. Anyway, check it out for prompt ideas and whatnot: clayheld.com

Walter Doin Work

Walter has made this chair his chair.

He gets comfortable on that chair.

Really comfortable.

He also likes boxes.

Yearly sickness

If you didn’t hear, I’m sick again. It’s coming at about the right time. The cool thing is I’ve lost two pounds since last year. Can’t hate that too much. But, here’s the skinny. In case your wondering.

Wednesday night I stayed a a ovely young lady’s house. Thursday morning she said she wasn’t feeling well. I had to go to work Thursday 1-5. I felt ok. I stayed in Thursday night since i had to work Friday 9-5. I find out friday that the lovely young lady has H1N1. At this point, I was starting to feel a little ill. But I figured I was being a hypochondriac. Saturday night I had to work 5-1. I started to really feel bad that night. Not horrible. Just bad. Then I had to turn around and open Sunday morning at 10. I was 5 minutes late because I couldn’t get out of bed. And I ended up begging the manager to get someone else to come in so I could go to the doctor. She got someone to come in.

The doctor told me the good news is that I don’t have H1N1. The bad news is that I have Bronchial Pneumonia.

Yay. So I’m taking a few days off to recuperate. And hydrate. And take lots of baths. My current bathtub sucks. Royally. I don’t have a drain stopper so whenever I want to take a bath I have to duct tape the drain closed. It works.

I’m going to go lay down.

Another Stencil

I made two more stencils while at work today because it was dead.I haven’t cut them out yet, but here they are:

Old Pictures

I was going through old pictures and I found this. I don’t know if I’ve posted it before. Hope no future employers find this blog.

New Site

I’ve started relearning my web design. And I started redoing the press site. For a sneak peek at the test version (only the home page has been revamped) go to this link: rocksawpress.com/test

Artsy Fartsy

I done made myself a pretty little thing. Sorta. Katrina and I were making stencils. Hers is pretty bad ass:

See, hers works well as a stencil. I haven’t even tried mine yet. Because I have this problem. I’m ensy. I put in ridiculously small details. Details that won’t translate to stencil work. The spray paint will just fill in the holes. So I was thinking that I might put some translucent paper behind the cut out, mount it on a box, and put a light source inside. Make a little light box. Here it is:

And then there’s these that I had made:

Who wants one?

Doors

I found this door by a dumpster last night. I thought I might be able to replace my front door (which is cracked and breezy). Turns out this door is also cracked. But it’s solid wood. And the lock on it is pretty freaking awesome.

Chris Burton

(This is an essay I wrote for humor workshop. It’s not perfect. It’s far from it, actually. But I like the story and I like Chris Burton. When I revise it–to something completely different from this, though still staring Chris Burton–I might post it here. This post is mostly for my mom, who always asks me when I’m going to update this blog thing again.)

Chris Burton

Chris Burton is your average middle aged white male who still lives, probably, in his mother’s basement, wears shirts he bought from Wal Mart (and proudly remembers the great deal he got on any shirt), carries a RC Cola can for his chew, and likes to have a few beers while he’s in town.

Chris Burton is a good son. He drives from Fairmont, MN, to Mankato—about an hour and half one way—every weekend to see his mother at a retirement home in a little town just outside Mankato.

Today, Chris has come in to the store at his normal time—9:00 pm on the nose. He’ll shop for a few hours, then he’ll head to the bar downtown where all the young, available women are supposed to be hanging out. The bar is a dance bar. One of those places where you’d be likely to find half dressed women in the dead of winter sprinting to waiting cars at closing time. It’s not a strip joint. The music is always too loud, the people always a little too drunk, and, come closing time, a little too busy for me to push my bike through the crowd as I head home from a bar a little less to Chris’ liking.

When I first started working at the porn store, I spent my first two weeks in training. I was working with the assistant manager three night shifts the first week and the manager three day shifts the second. It didn’t take long for them to fill me in on the regulars. But don’t worry, they said, there really aren’t any super creeps. The three nights I worked during training were Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Not a Saturday. Not a Chris Burton night. I discovered him on my own.

The first shift on my own, since we work alone when not training, was a Saturday night. It wasn’t Chris’ first Saturday night. His first sentence to me was a question: Brando not working tonight? I didn’t know who Brando was. We had a Brandon that worked at the store, but he didn’t seem like a Brando—he seemed like a clean Minnesotan, a Brandon—and I’d never heard him called Brando. I’m just the new weekend night guy. No Brando tonight. I might have been lieing right there. But it made sense to me. Chris didn’t hang out too long. He didn’t buy anything—sometimes he doesn’t.

An average customer at Risque’s is either a middle aged, lonely male, a young (18-20) male or female or couple, or a middle aged couple. The younger crowd comes in as a novelty. They come in because they haven’t been able to come in before. We’ve all done it in one way or another. If it isn’t an adult store, it’s a liquor store or a smoke shop or a rated R movie. And sometimes they come in too young. A week ago, two girls came in.

“Can I see y’all’s ID?” I asked over the counter, behind my fortress of solitude. I’ll ask anyone who looks under 28. Not because that’s our policy. Not because it’s safer incase the cops are doing a sting. I do it because I find amusement in people being put off. No one expects to be carded at the porn store. They assume that, since they’re in the adult emporium, they’re among mature adults.

Sometimes I card people obviously over 18. And I do it because 1) it makes some people feel good, and, mostly, 2) some people get really upset over it. They are insulted to be carded. If they are insulted, I know I’m not going to try too hard to sell them things. I don’t want to talk to them. If they’re flattered, I know I can push a few more items on them: toy cleaner, lube, batteries, etc. I’m getting off point.

“Can I see you’re ID?”

“What?” she responds. And I think she’s serious. She doesn’t know what I’m asking for.

“You’re ID. Driver’s license. Something to prove your age.”

“I don’t have one. Do you have to be a certain age to come in?”

“18. It’s on the door.”
“Oh, I’ll be 18 in two months.”

 

I’ve never carded Chris. He’s not the cardable type. If I were to card him, though, I think he’d giggle. And he’d show me his ID. He’d make a crack about how I check young girl’s IDs to get their address. He’d show me his ID, then we’d talk about some facet of it—it’s probably old and nearing expiration or the picture, I’m sure, is ridiculous.

There are some people I won’t card: crotchety old men who I know are going to look at the straight porn until they feel comfortable in the fact that I’ve decided they’re straight to then go look at the gay porn, when it doesn’t matter—a sale’s a sale to me; muscle clad younger men who have a chip they wish was the size of their cock on their shoulder who come in to, eventually, buy enhancement pills that probably won’t work and will just give them the placebo confidence they need; and Randy Kyler.

Randy Kyler is the your average, middle aged, won’t marry the girl he’s dated for the past 10 years, white male. He’s got long hair and a Harley t-shirt. He wears a belt with some leatherworking on it and at least five different holsters—cell phone, keys, knife, work cell phone, and, what I suspect is, breath spray. He’s the kind of guy that will break into someone else’s conversation because he has something funny to say, though no one finds him funny. And he’s the type of guy that won’t leave the conversation until everyone else has left. He’s the type of guy to drop racist passages into his little speech bubble as nonchalantly as milk into cereal. He’s the type of guy that won’t let you get your work done until he’s decided he’s bored.

Chris will stand at the counter, somewhat awkwardly, for up to three hours a shift. He’ll talk to you as long as you talk to him but he’ll also hold down the fort while you run to the bathroom after making poor eating decisions. And he’ll do a good job of it.

Tonight, Chris is in at his usual time. He’s got his usual RC Cola can and he notices I’ve started drinking RC. He finds this hilarious. “So you’ve seen my RC can and you had to get some, eh?” Yes, Chris. Yes. Even though you spit into yours, it made me want to drink some RC.

There’s an awkward silence. There are always awkward silences with Chris. But it’s not a bad awkward. It’s ok. It’s a time when we try to think of things to say to each other.

We talk about work a lot. He always wants to know stories of working the weekend at a porn store. I always tell him how quick you become used to the surroundings and it’s a good job just for the simple fact that the job market is in such a hole. Tonight, he tells me about his job hunt.

“I applied for a job at the Walmart, but I filled out a question wrong—you know they have those electronic application things, terminals? I answered it wrong so it took me out of the cashier job possibility. They set those up to see where you’d fit best.”

And he’s right. They do. The electronic terminals are set up to, first, take your application, then figure out where, if they were to hire you, you’d fit best. It takes about 20 minutes to push all the right buttons to find out you’re not a good fit for Walmart.

“I also applied at HyVee,” he continues. “I talked to the night manager, since that’s what I applied for—night stocking—and they sounded positive.”

“Yeah. It’s always good when you talk to the manager. They know your face then.”

“Right. Exactly. I talked to her for awhile. I asked her if holding a job for ten years would make the application more promising. She said it would, so I’m hopeful about that.”

“Yeah. Holding a job for a long time always looks good. Loyalty and all that.”

“Right. Exactly. I’m really hoping for that job. There aren’t a lot of jobs in the Fairmont area. I just need something to tide me over.”

I didn’t ask him where he worked for ten years. I didn’t know if I wanted to know. Where does someone like Chris find a permanent job that’s not in the service industry? He drives a Crown Vic ex-police car that he’s very proud of. So proud of it that he parks on the side of the building. He’s afraid someone will ding his car. He’s the guy who’ll park at the back of the mall parking lot.

“Why, if you don’t mind me asking, do you drive up to Mankato? That’s like an hour drive, right?”

“Hour and a half, actually. My mom’s in a home over in St. Peter.”

I feel like a heel.

“Oh. I’m sorry. That’s good you come visit your mom. I bet she likes seeing you.”

“Yeah. She had an brain aneurism a few years ago.”

“Jesus.” I feel like that tough skin on the edge of the heel.

“But she’s doing a lot better. She’s gotten her speech and some of her memory back. So it’s actually the best she can possibly do. But sometimes I wonder how much memory she’s actually gotten back. I don’t ask too many questions. I just like to talk to her.”

“So you come to visit her then come over here?” I’ve got to be the sock lint that gets stuck in the tough skin on the edge of the heel.

“Yeah. I come over here then about midnight I head down to The Haze or South Street for a few beers. Then I head home.”

“Really? You drive an hour and a half after drinking?”

“I only have four beers, tops. And I eat a big meal before. If I get to talking to someone, maybe I’ll have five. But never any more.”

Chris Burton is a scheduled person. He visits his mom in the evening. At nine, he comes to Risque’s. He will go to the bar at exactly midnight. He’ll have exactly four beers—he rarely has five—then he’ll drive home. Next week, he’ll do the same thing.

This isn’t a review. Yet.

I’ve read about 61% of Nicholson Baker’s new book, “The Anthologist.” Of course I think it’s awesome. But here’s why, other than the fact that Nicholson Baker wrote it.
It reads, sometimes, like a diary, sometimes like a text book (a good text book) on poetry, and sometimes like the words are just lifting from the page and running through your ears like an old fashioned stock market ticker tape.
The main character, Paul Chowder, is so much like me, it’s creepy. At the point of the book where I am, Paul has cut is hand several times and he’s thinking about how weird it is that he has all these little cuts. He’s a “three band-aid man.” Right now, I have a bunch of little cuts on my hands. It’s weird. It’s that weird feeling–and there’s more to it than the example I just gave–that I’m the main character. To a degree. It’s not one of those “I can relate to the writing” things. Because that’s bullshit. No, that’s not true. It’s not bullshit. You can relate to things. But usually it’s an emotional thing. “I’ve felt that before!” “I’ve done something just like that before!” But, in this book, it’s the guys thought process. It’s just like the way I think. The only difference between Paul and me is that he’s a somewhat accomplished poet.
Maybe things will change int he last seven chapters. Maybe it’ll end exactly where it began, like so many Baker books. But I know this: It’s going to go right up there with Fermatta and The Mezzanine as one of my favorite Nicholson Baker books.