Bean Counters

Last night at work we had our annual inventory. For anyone who has ever worked retail (which is damn near everyone), you may well have been lucky enough to endure one of these freakshows.

Basically, your company hires an external company that specializes in inventory to come in and literally count every single item in your entire store. In a bookstore this is a very tedious and time-consuming event. I mean, if you worked at, say, Home Depot, it would be even more dicey as every single nail would have to be counted in that fucking hell-cave. Still, with us, this means coming in at 6 PM and staying to about 3 AM. Worse, the work is very slow, dull, repetitive, and unbelievably unrewarding.

Having sold my soul to the devil many years ago, this means that I have had the pleasure of working an inventory every year but one, back since 1991. Brutal.

Mind you, there have been inventories that have lasted for over 12 hours, and have been veritable cluster-fucks from start to finish. These are the types of events that push me to the brink of homicide.

Fortunately, over the years, much improvement has been made on the procedural end of things, with both our staff and the respective staffs of the inventory folks gaining a great deal more experience in how to maximize effectiveness with as little agony as possible.

Unfortunately, agony in this sense is fairly relative. This is because even the best inventory is still no better than getting ass raped in the polar bear pen at the Baghdad Zoo.

Bring the lube. That’s all I’m sayin’.

I guess my point here is that whenever these people descend on our store I am always amazed to sort of stand back and take in the, uh, spectacle of the whole thing. The people that are hired by inventory companies to conduct these things are real gems in the raw.

At any given night you will get a large mix of any and all of these characters, and all of them are stories unto themselves.

Here are a few totally unfair and tarnished caricatures to throw your way:

You’ve got the boss. This guy is always balding, middle-aged, wears thick 80s glasses, smells fairly mothball-ish, and acts as though when he gets home someone other than his Fleshlight will be fucking him to sleep. This is the guy who wants everyone to respect his authority, when in actuality he is as authoritarian as, well, as a white guy who looks like Groucho Marx, only goofier and a thousand times less confident, and who is about as threatening as one of the Wiggles.

Then, there is a group of about ten or so semi-heavy black ladies who invariably have real bad tattoos, gold fronts, long, curly, and very creepy nails, suspiciously unnatural looking hair (often tinted a questionable shade of silver or gold), and a strong apparent urge to go, “Pssssst...” across the aisle to their friend whenever something really important comes up, like, say, when it’s break time, or if the other person remembers who was giving who a ride later.

Then there are the Hispanic people who usually can’t speak much English, tend to ask weird questions about books you’ve never heard of, and yell louder than necessary for a “SKU-check!!” every 12 seconds because they can’t seem to figure out how to find and scan a barcode to save their lives.

Then you get a whole group of people who are too old to be doing this, seem otherwise perfectly normal and competent, and leave you wondering if maybe this isn’t some sort of cosmic penance for some sort of crime against humanity for which doing this godforsaken job is the only retribution.

Finally - and this is my favorite group - there are the “others.”

These are the undefinable oddities. These people are the ones who speak with speech impediments, have few if any teeth, appear to never have brushed the few that they might have, smell terrible, walk with a limp or some sort of other physical trait, or combination thereof, that is simply impossible to not notice and wonder about. Last night, despite some heavy competition for the award of Most Curious Inventory Person, it all went to the guy who never said a word, worked diligently, appeared to be very accurate, and also happened to have something that looked like a large gray button that was plugged directly into his skull. From the button hung a wire that went right into the the guy’s earpiece, which I assume was a sort of hearing aid that for some reason has to be plugged directly into the guy’s brain.

He won, but it was close.

I’m not slagging the guy, no reason to, just commenting on how in every single inventory there is at least one person, often more, who have some quality that grabs my attention and leaves me wondering for the rest of the night.

I’m pathetic, I know. Just love me for who I am.

At this point it would be best for me to point out that I am in no way advocating that I am somehow immune to this sort of scrutiny. I can only imagine what they were thinking about us, and thus about me.

I guess that’s all part of the fun. The humanity of it. Why, it’s downright impressive to be cooped up with 30 total strangers, in a hot building the size of a football practice facility, in the middle of the night, deliriously exhausted, all of us doing something for someone else we can’t stand, just so we can live another day and do it all over again!

So here’s to next year. Unless death finds me first.

Clam Shells

He was running through the neighborhood. He was young. He felt he was young. He wasn't sure who he was. He could see he was skinny. He was wearing a long t-shirt, but no pants, no shoes. Just the shirt and his underpants. It was night. He was in a little corner tucked into some tall trees. The wind was blowing through the tops of the trees. He felt like it gave off an oddly menacing hiss. He found himself around the back of an older building. Set off from the street, the building had a wall surrounding it, with built-in glass windows. He peered through one of the windows, trying to get a closer look at the building. Just through the trees he could make out some lettering along the top of the building. The letters, once red, now were faded and worn down. They were in Swedish. He noticed his reflection in the window. He didn't recognize himself. His hair was very curly and black. He couldn't be older than 15. He worked his way around the wall to the front of the building. The building was decades old, fairly worn, the white brick facade was graying. Inside was a sort of courtyard. It looked abandoned.

Inside the building now, he was in a sort of huge lobby, maybe forty feet high. Dusty seventies modular furniture here and there. Offset on one side was the wide open entrance to a private residence. It was beautifully decorated in the classic 70s Danish style. More modular furniture, thick orange shag, numerous Asian rugs, large, leafy potted plants. And then he noticed that there were long-haired cats laying all over the place. Maybe ten in the large front room alone. He walked in and started wandering around. Towards the back of the entrance the room fed into more rooms.

The ceiling was at a standard height in this area. There were lots of rooms, all decorated in the same style. Lots of couches and inviting seating areas. As he worked his way through the place he came across a number of people in their 20s sleeping. Attractive people. And lots of dogs. Some of them looked up at him him as he meandered past. He was nervous. Eventually he found himself in the kitchen. There was dirty dishes and half eaten plates of food everywhere. He was looking through the cupboards.

He heard someone stirring in one of the other rooms. He panicked. At the entrance to the kitchen he noticed a large beanbag chair. Not knowing what to do, he quickly laid down on the chair and pretended to sleep. One of the people from the apartment entered the kitchen. Apparently they did not notice him. They stumbled around the kitchen, audibly moving dishes around, possibly beginning to make a pot of coffee.

Several dogs were now in the kitchen, a few stopping to smell his face. The person, a girl, was talking to them in Swedish. Then her voice stopped as she noticed him. She approached him carefully. He could sense her now, kneeling before him, peering into his face, undoubtedly trying to figure out who he was. She didn't seem too particularly alarmed.

After what seemed to take forever, she began leashing the dogs and eventually led them out of the room to take them out for a walk.

This was his chance to escape before eveyone else began to wake up.

He got up, worked his way deeper into the house. He passed several more well decorated rooms, each with at least one more sleeping young adult.

Eventually he found a room well in the back of the building with a door that led to the outside. There were couches lining the walls. To the left of the door was a couch with a young man covered in a blanket. He was fucking someone. His muffled moans just audible. Against the wall to the right of the door, another young man was rousing. He sat up and saw the stranger passing through.

"Hey!" said the guy against the wall. This caught the attention of the fucking man, whose eyes met the stranger. A look of confusion and alarm on the fucker's face, he sat up. The stranger bolted for the door.

The stranger was now outside. The building was well behind him. The sun was up. It was early morning. He was in a well-maintained suburban neighborhood. The air was crisp and cool. Dew coated the beautiful thick green grass. In the distance was a large school. He was in a grassy field just off the road. A large number of children were heading towards the school from all directions. He stood in the field and watched as they filed in around him, peering at him in his t-shirt and underwear.

He looked across the field to the school, and began to run towards the school along with all the others.

As he hopped and ran through the grass he noticed that there were patches of clam shells living within the grass here and there. He was careful not to step on any of them as he got closer and closer to the school.

"Sweden", he thought to himself.

He smiled. 

Turkish Titan

Nuri Bilge Ceylan is a Turkish filmmaker and photographer. His work is stark, emotive, intense, beautiful, and well worth the effort. Look into it/him, and realize the universal humanity in the work of those unafraid to see life in all its baffling, terrifying, and oceanic glory.

The Butcher is in. Chop-Chop, Motherfucker.

Two years ago I walked away from this project. I remained creative, even continued to write (albeit in a more personal and limited capacity), revived my band Project Grimm, made lots of art, took up creating comics, etc... But yeah, from this little corner of my brain, I stepped away.

Why? If you care for the why, here is the why...

A nuclear bomb of personal shit, an ocean's worth of heartache and heartbreak and disappointment, and all sorts of mundane Mexican telenovela mind waste of the like. And I got angry with my words. And yes, I got angry with you. I didn't want to share anymore. I got tired of baring everything in my various ways, both literal and shrouded in a stylized cloud. In short I needed a break.

I'm hoping the break's over.

And I need your help.

This project is no fun unless other people own it in their own ways, to suit their own need to express themselves. That not only validates our personal human desire to communicate, it also pours jet fuel over the fires that keep my ass from getting too cozy.

There's pretty much an eternal list of things I want to say, and I have virtually devoted my life to finding various ways to say them. My favorite, however, is through creative expression. Always has been. Always will be.

So yeah, let's get busy, motherfuckers. Let's burn down walls. Let's shine light into the darkest corners, the ones that resist all but the brightest of suns.

It's time to talk some shit.

Hit us up.

squidvswhale@gmx dot com

Riding the Escalator to Nowhere

Learning vs Being

I have spent the entirety of my adult life studying the human situation. When I was in college, I never really had a degree or a job in mind, so I took every social science class I could. Over the last few years, I have read, searched, written, reflected, and watched countless documentaries. I even took my long overdue first trip outside of the States. While I can claim to know a good deal more information than a lot of people around me, I cannot say that it has been altogether useful to me. Often times it is quite the opposite. I can think of a good number of people who explore life less frequently, read less, know less, strive for less, who lead lives that are a great deal richer than mine, and I do not mean that in a monetary sense. It's not even jealously really; just a thought that maybe, in my pursuit of knowledge and self improvement, I have lost part of my ability to connect and communicate with people. I am all for mindless fun, but so few care to speak of worldly things, higher ideals. Nietzsche stared too long into the abyss and lost his mind, and I worry that I might be heading down that path. There is a direct conflict between longing to know more and be better and running the risk of losing the ability to be somewhat normal, to have the warmth of human connection.

In my studies and in my trial and error living, I have learned to treat people with kindness, sometimes more so than they might deserve, and to not weigh them down with my problems. In doing so, if I'm honest, I come off as particularly weak, because as our spines tell us, the world will take from us if we let it. Still, I lose nothing on account of being kind to people. Nothing, except respect. Don't get me wrong; I take great joy in being able to look at myself in the mirror and know that I am good, that I directly harm no one, that I have what some would call a religious or monk-like quality to me, that I give to my friends more than I receive, but in trying to only project my positive side and by almost never sharing my problems with others (paired with what I mentioned above), many of those I was close to have drifted away. Part of it could be because, whether we know it or not, we tend to like people as much for their flaws as for their merits. Some of the few people I am close to are as defective as they are wonderful, and without their flaws, I know I would not be as drawn to them. I have my darker side, but it is not often that I show people the wolf in me. Duality exists in all things, but perhaps I have been presenting too much yang and not enough yin. I save the darker side for when I am alone or for when I write. Even in daily life, I typically respond to the things that annoy me either with humor or with a stoic demeanor. A change would likely not go too well. My job, for example, is one in which I am surrounded by discontent sort of lot. I cater to the periphery and tend to their vices, and in seeming good natured, I have always been something of an outsider. If a wolf who has never growled suddenly bites someone, those around him might not know how to react, even if the wolf had previously told them that he did in fact have teeth for gnashing.

I tried to Google search “Intelligence/Disconnection” but after typing “Intelligence D” this article came up. While I am not a huge fan of Cracked, this one was pretty good. Don't get me wrong. I don't consider myself to be super smart of anything; I'm just a dumb person who tries harder than most.

Don't get so caught up in your ideal self that you forget who you are, for better or worse. There's a danger in trying to be better when it gets to the point that one cannot share his better self with others. Better to be flawed and companionate than perfect and alone (not that I am anywhere near perfect). Worse still is to be flawed and alone.

Knowledge vs Skill

For all of the things I know, I do not have any useful skills. For a while, I thought that writing was a skill, but no; it's simply a means of communicating, and once something is written, it's done. I even write better than I can speak. Writing is simply a display of what you know. While I do think that everything is a skill (as in, one has to do anything repeatedly to be good at it), I guess in this sense, I am speaking of what we call trades or crafts. I can typically express myself clearly, but I can't fix a car, build anything, play an instrument (well), fix plumbing, cook a complex meal, survive in the wilderness, you name it. If all of our skilled workers died tomorrow, or the apocalypse hit, I could not keep the world turning. I would be helpless. Since my pursuit of knowledge only serves to show me how little I know or have any hope of knowing, I may shift my focus to a skill. At least then I will have something to show for my efforts.

This article applies. I actually like the whole site. Interesting stuff.

(Edit - 4:15pm - someone I know posted another good Cracked article. I liked it quite a bit.) 

Learn lots, but make sure you can also do, create, contribute. 

Upon Gossamer Wings

There are bats about. They are persistent. And they carry with them none of the ferocious mystery we stamp upon their fragile, winged frames. No, instead they come emboldened with a whiff of the past enmeshed within their fuzzy backs. And they carry along the warm fall breeze a melancholy cry that reminds us of our youth, of a time when things seemed simple because they were so very complicated.

We stand on balconies, in yards, in fields of grass, and we cock our heads to their whispers. Because they speak directly to us.

It is time for the harvest. Despite the great droughts, despite the angry, punishing winds. It is time for the leaves to let go of their tentative holds and meander to the ground like the words that fall from our mouths upon the mossy ground of deaf ears.

There are fires being lit in hearths. There is soup in the kettle. There are lies to sort through, and a grey deception that tugs our hearts. Tonight, the truth will come. It will come, like an epic tide. And we are powerless before it. We can lie on the ground, in a ball, and we can succumb to the promise of our indifference. Or we can stand upright, stock still, and we can open ourselves to the warmth of our potential. And we can dream.

There are bats about. But tonight, the truth will come.

Shimmering Pools of Regret

I haven't posted much recently. Weep a bit. Now shut the fuck up and get over it.

Like poems? Feeling like shit? Share your favorite verse of this sort. Better still, write something on the subject. Consider this your forum for hurt.

Send me your pathetic poems via this email: johncramer68@ gmail . com. And if I don't hate it, you'll be immortalized in a blog nobody ever reads. I'll post it under our generic user log in. If you want credit, let me know, and tell me what handle you want to use. Pussies go anonymous. But if you happen to be of this ilk, so be it. Hey, It's like Christmas for morons!

Now get to work. Make my black heart proud. It's nice to have minions.