Surreal Estate

HINJFCA Part XX2: Culinary Combat Continues

2012-02-27T11:58:00.003-08:00

As they say, one door opens when another shuts. So Door #1 has shut on the first phase of the Salvation Army culinary course. Tonight I (and 14 other students) enter Door #2, aka garde manger. From what I've heard this final (thank God) phase is supposed to be less cooking intensive and demanding that the first part of the course. I like it already. Of course, I'll give you my thoughts and ruminations on the whole shebang later.

In case you're interested, these culinary classes are held at the College of Southern Nevada (CSN) located in North Las Vegas. (All of which seems a bit geographically challenged when you think of it.) It's a smallish campus but I find it easy to get around. The atmosphere is friendly; it's the kind of campus where everyone seems to know your name, ala "Cheers". The faculty is helpful and the students are usually nice enough to help out middle-aged fellows such as your humble narrator, who don't always have the greatest sense of direction.

It's been quite a while since I was on a college campus as a student. For some reason, I don't feel completely out of place regarding the age gap between myself and the young ones. Maybe it's because the generation gap has narrowed since the 70s-80s )I'm sure there are many scholarly dissertations on this social phenomena). Or maybe it's because I'm too preoccupied by my current situation re homelessness to really give a damn. Whatever. I can you that the female student body is much more appealing at CSN than at SA. (And fairly open-minded as well. When I told one young coed about my life situation she didn't immediately sneer and flee.)

Considering that many of these girls are young enough to be my daughters -- or granddaughters, yeesh! -- sometimes I feel a bit guilty about checking out their supple, nubile bodies and their firm round ... eyes. I never really imagined myself as a dirty old man leering at young women, but I expect it was inevitable. In a way it's something of a natural progression for me. After all, I started off as a dirty young man and have been sliding down the evolutionary scale ever since. In all honesty, CSN is turning into a great place for research since I can access their library and computer rooms. (All provided by a student ID at no cost to yours truly. See, sometimes it pays to be poor!)

I thought I'd share a few odds and ends about me, my stay at SA and some of my culinary compatriots -- not necessarily in that order. As you may recall the class is composed of 15 students divided into five 3-man teams. My experience with Rain Man and Pitbull was hellish enough that I informed RM I wanted to switch teams. He, of course, replied that he had been thinking along the same lines. (This was somewhat akin to breaking up with a girl; you always want to be the first one announcing the break-up)

RM said he was cool with that. In fact he said I wanted to split from PB except no one wanted to work with the guy. (I've described PB before. For newcomers, he's short and built like a fireplug with a moody, short-tempered disposition and his opinion of black people veers slightly to the right of Hitler.) As it turns out many students want to switch teams. We're scheduled to have a meeting with the caseworkers in which it's expected that names be drawn out of a hat. I'm hoping that PB's two teammates are black.

The Enigma That Is Rain Man

He's a big guy standing app. 6'3 and built like a linebacker (albeit with a paunch). RM is a mathematical wizard, supposedly pegged as a child prodigy -- I actually can believe it. I call him Rain Man because he is so adept at spinning numbers in his head. It may be why he's such an accomplished cook as well. As I've found out to my everlasting misery, cooking incurs a lot of mathematical formula. (By now, you certainly know how I feel about math so I won't belabor the point.) At any rate you can tell the guy has some education (from his vocabulary) and some smarts. In fact you'd have to say he has a lot of potential for success, having managed restaurants like the Olive Garden and several other establishments.

So I ask you: Does this sound like a guy who just came off a 7-year bid in prison for armed robbery and is now on parole? Does this fit the profile of a guy who has been banned from entering two states of the Union? Does this fit the image of a man who has spent most of his adult life behind bars? Guess what? In this case all of the above does apply. RM, as they say, has been into some heavy s**t in his lifetime. Despite his facility with numbers and his cooking acumen, he's considered a hard core felon (some of his mug shots are online. Apparently he has no problem about this as he directed me to the websites.)

While we share a mutual respect for each other (probably because we're among the handful of SA clients who can speak in words of 2+ syllables), the guy does scare me. First, there's his intimidating height and size. Then there's his manner; usually quiet but he has a propensity for telling dirty jokes and using a lot of profanity (this is an infraction that can incur a write-up if overheard by the wrong set of ears.) I think his demeanor can be too quiet, almost dispassionate at times. Like a calculator, he can come off as cold and efficient.

Sometimes I feel like I'm talking to a machine that's making an effort to seem human. he makes the right gestures and responses, but something isn't quite ... right. It's as though he's composed of wires and circuits more than flesh and blood. But I've seen evidence of very human anger flash across his face, and something tells me when he flies into a rage it doesn't end until somebody is crippled or worse. He doesn't seem like the type to back down from a fight.

I've often found it interesting that intelligence doesn't preclude the propensity for making stupid decisions. After all, many criminals -- including serial killers -- are considered above average in intellect. You would think RM could have easily walked the straight and narrow and found a legit career instead of turning to crime; started a family instead of enduring two busted marriages (he's attempting to track down the second wife); would have followed the example set forth by his family, who are apparently successful and well-to-do (and law-abiding). Obviously, RM was motivated by other, darker forces.

One last reason why I stay friendly with RM but still keep a respectable distance: He was talking about some of his prison experiences when he stopped and looked at me. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, he said, "You know something? You wouldn't've lasted five minutes in the prison I was at." Like I would want to?

From his very detailed approach to things you could call him a control freak, trying to anticipate every possible contingency. When things go wrong, he doesn't take criticism very well and becomes stone silent. His face is not a pretty sight. Still, he is the undeniable star of the culinary class. It'll be interesting to see how he fares when it's time to seek work.

Time is winding down, so let me just say that in my time at SA I've totally lost track of the TV shows I once followed. Chuck and Nikita were two of my favorites. And I'd often watch the Oscars. Do you I had no idea the Academy Awards were shown last night? Didn't even know it until this morning. And you know something? I don't feel like I missed much,

For now, that's a wrap!

Quote of the Day:
"I bet if I brought a cow into (this classroom) and slit its throat, there'd be a lot of vegetarians tomorrow." -- Chef X

HINJFCA Part XXI: Days Of Our Knives

2012-02-24T05:35:00.000-08:00

Well friends, it's over. I did my best and that was all I could do; my fate now rests in the laps of the gods. Hopefully they're not getting a celestial lapdance as I await the outcome of my efforts.

Of course I'm talking about my final exam for the culinary course I've been taking. It was a 2-part exam with the practical (cooking) portion a couple of days ago and the written part yesterday. How did I do? Still won't know for sure until next week, but I'm not optimistic about my chances. I guess I didn't do myself any favors when I didn't study for the damn thing. Yes, I actually do have an excuse -- I was overly tired from an excessive schedule of work and school -- but that doesn't change the fact that I likely screwed up.

There is some good news, believe it or not. The written exam accounts for only 30% of our grade. As it stands, I hear that everyone but two students had A's (don't know who they are, maybe it's me) before the final. The chef is evidently a lenient grader and the curve must be off the charts. Whatever, I'll take it. But I wonder how the best students feel knowing that even the underachievers will get passing grades? Kind makes me think about that parable in the Bible about the merchant and his prodigal son.

Friends, there are times when things become so fouled up they can only be referred to as a clusterf**k. That is the term I would use to define my experience thus far with the culinary class. It's not a bad course; it's simply a round hole and I'm a square peg. As I told Chef X upon turning in the written final: "I've learned a valuable lesson from your class. I'm much better at eating food than I am at cooking it."

Note that while he chuckled at my comment, he didn't disagree with me. At least I didn't utter a sappy "thank you-I've learned-so-much" line as did most of my classmates. I'd like to think Chef X will remember me as a laconic realist; or at least a disgruntled loner. Sometimes I think they're quite similar, really.

And as we close the cookbook on Chef X, Monday we begin a new chapter with the garde manger phase of the culinary course. How that will progress is anyone's guess. But rest assured your humble narrator will be here to chronicle all his food-centric experiences with alacrity and enthusiasm (depending upon how much Red Bull I've guzzled on a given day).

In the meantime, let me give you a few quick hits re other stuff going on at the Salvation Army Vocational Center:

I spoke with my caseworker recently about whether or not I must get a job as a cook upon graduating from this course. The official line is, yes; the job must involve cooking. Unofficially I'm told the graduate my get a job in a "food and beverage establishment." I expect I'll go the unofficial route. I'll also likely hedge my bets and look for a gig outside the culinary field. Who knows, I might work two jobs just to build up savings all the more quickly.

Some new women moved into the building recently, apparently still in their prison blues. Really, this place is like a halfway house. Some of the prison/street behavior has gotten so out of hand as to attract the notice of higher-ups around the campus. This is evidenced by the behavior of M. who is a large black woman, 35ish and on parole.

It's not uncommon to hear her shouting profanities at the top of her lungs while she works alongside us in the kitchen. She's often saying these things in a joking manner, but it's still jarring to her things like, "Boy if anyone try to steal my money I'll knock the f**k out the motherf**ker!" This comment she blurted out of the blue when no mention was made by anyone about stealing money -- hers or anyone else's.

She's gotten into arguments with customers about "ain't no special orders, sir. Why don't you take your skinny little ass to Mickey D's before I slap the piss outta you!" And talking about her busted relationships: "I got five kids with four different men. They all some deadbeat n***as. Broke-ass motherf***ers won't do a goddam thing to help me. I am so tired of these dead-ass n***as, I will never f**k another!"

I overheard a supervisor telling her she had to tone it down. When she looked confused, the supervisor explained there were complaints about her profanity, and that she had to ease up on the "street s**t. You ain't on the street now and you ain't behind bars. People out here don't understand that s**t. It won't fly out here."

Her response? "Who did the complaining?" The supervisor said, "It-doesn't-matter. It could've been anyone. Just tone it down." He mentioned that he had a couple of other people to talk to as well. Not surprisingly, all of those he mentioned are here on parole. It's odd, but it seems like a lot of these parolees here seem to believe they're entitled to bring their prison-centric behaviors and attitudes into society regardless of how offensive they might seem to others.

(Note that I'm picking up writing this blog after several hours due to a server malfunction. Pardon me if there are any lapses in syntax or any other terminologies I don't completely understand. Then again, that might be par for the course.)

all too often -- it seems to me -- society tends to tolerate certain, shall we say, faux pas from one segment of the population that would be deemed inappropriate if committed by another segment of the population. A case in point might be the use of the n-word. (Btw if you can make any sense of the preceding drivel, please drop me a line an explain it to me.)

Some might argue this has something to do with the 'liberal agenda' or somesuch. All I can say is that insofar as such an agenda wants to level the playing field to make things "fair" for everyone, I'm all for it. So long as it suits my objectives, of course. A case in point would be the generous grading curve afforded us by Chef X.

Then again, maybe it has more to do with we students being associated with the Salvation Army; maybe there's a different grading system for us. A system that takes into account our hardships and travails and whatnot. Maybe the powers that be figured, "Hey these SA folks have it tough enough without getting a D or F on their transcript. Give 'em a break and pass 'em all!" Yeah ... and maybe monkeys might fly out of my butt.

So with that visual, I'll leave you to enjoy he rest of your day/night/whenever you're reading this thing. More fun stuff coming up ... Not here of course, but somewhere -- look for it!

Quote of the day:
"I'd never eat in a restaurant that would hire me as a cook."
-- Your Humble Narrator

HINJFCA Part XX: Stick A Fork In It

2012-02-21T13:38:00.000-08:00

First, allow me to apologize for not maintaining a regular update for this blog; I know how that must upset all my readers (both of them). But you must realize that your humble narrator has been quite busy of late, what with all the schoolwork and full time work sked keeping me more occupied than I imagined (or desired).

This really will have to be a brief post because in a mere 90 minutes I go to face my destiny. I go to look the into the abyss eyeball to eyeball. That's right: I'm headed to school for part one of a two-part final exam. What is the general feeling of the students as we careen toward this penultimate showdown with destiny? Let me sum it up with a quote from my roommate and fellw student: “Life's pretty much over for me, man.”

Well, after surviving a mental breakdown and a bout of nearly losing myself to the mean streets of Sin City, my outlook is not that dire; not quite, anyway. If I fail this thing, it won't be the end of the world so much as a challenge: That being, how will I rectify the epic f**k-up that I've created?

As I've mentioned before, taking this cooking class has confirmed for me the fact that I hate cooking. There, I said it again. Thankfully, I've discovered that I am not the only one who feels that way. So I feel a bit less like a loner in that regard. I have also discovered that I'm not the only one dissatisfied with his team members.

Working with Rain Man & Pitbull turned into a nightmare. They both have an aptitude for this stuff and enjoy it. Honestly, they're very good cooks. When they saw how bad I was, they decided amongst themselves to do ALL the work, including mine. I essentially turned in and was graded for work I didn't do. The upshot is that I didn't actually learn to do the work for myself. And that's what will likely sink me in this part of the final, which involves preparing several recipes.

Somewhere along the way my teammates decided this was a competition, not a group effort where everyone was supposed to support everyone else. I'm not crying about it because I should have said something before. But it was kind of cool to have other people do my work for me. Well, I've learned a valuable After School Lesson, haven't I?

I really wanted this class for the college credit, not to be a cook. There's still the written exam tomorrow where I can make up some lost ground. And the second part of the program (garde manger) sounds more interesting than the misery I've been dredging myself through. As if that's not enough to buoy my spirits, how about this (a true story):

A few years ago, a Latina took the same courses I'm taking. However, she spoke little to no English. She apparently mucked up the cooking final. And for the written final she answered every question with 'Radish'. That's right. And she got her certificate of completion. (Not sure about the college credit, but I wouldn't be surprised if she received that as well.)

I'll share my miseries and/or triumphs with you later. For now, that's a wrap!

(Btw, I'm typing this on a netbook a dedicated reader sent me. I'm still learning how to use it, so do forgive any typos, etc.)

Quote of the Day:

“I've never known anyone that died and lived to talk about it.”

HINJFCA Part 19: Tales of Entrails & Full Moon Fever (w/Video)

2012-02-14T11:43:00.000-08:00

It's Valentine's Day, so your humble narrator wishes you and yours the best V.D. ever shared with a loved one! That out of the way, let me quickly recount my epic experiences from last night's culinary class. We continued our evisceration of dead sea creatures and their attendant carcasses (or is the plural carcassi?) and even performed a live execution upon 2 innocent lobsters. Then again, how can anything with claws that big be "innocent?"

We started off with demonstration on how to shuck oysters and clams. Prying open the shells of these varmints is tougher than it looks; they literally clam up as you try to invade their space. The tightness is so pronounced that it provoked several untoward sexual comments from guys and gals alike (none of which I'll share with your delicate eyeballs; your minds are dirty enough to come up with your own double entendre anyway).

And the reward for all that effort? Well, oysters provide you with a half shell full of what appears to be a huge glob of snot. And of course people pay high prices for the privilege of swallowing that crap after dousing it with Tabasco sauce or lemon sauce or whatever. Cover it with hot fudge and whipped cream, and it still looks like some guy hawked a loogie in a shell. But that's me. Maybe I just don't give a shuck. Rain Man actually did swallow that raw oyster and said it had a slightly metallic aftertaste. Yum. The clams presented the same difficulty in opening their shells but for some reason these disgusting little globules of sea life are not consumed raw. Go figure.

We also learned how to prepare shrimp and squid. Shrimp is fairly easy to clean. Until you have to extract the intestinal vein. That is, you have to clean out the creature's poop, which comes out in a long, thin line. Doesn't that whet your appetite?

I just had to ask our instructor, Chef X, if shrimp sh*t wasn't considered a delicacy by some demented gourmands. He had no comment, so I take that for a 'yes'. And if it isn't it should be. For some reason, some of the world's delicacies also happen to be some of the most repulsive foodstuffs I can imagine. Fish eggs, frog legs, escargot, ousters, liver, kidney, and so on ... It's amazing that people will pay big money to eat this crap. Hey, any bids on a recipe for fresh, steaming squirrel vomit?

(I mentioned we also cleaned and dressed squid but I decided to bail on that assignment.) Then it was on to the evening's main event: Live execution of 2 lobsters. Chef X informed us that the most humane way to kill the creature was to stab it quickly in the head, then slice it down then middle -- which he proceeded to do with frightening precision. As the lobster's legs twitched from nervous reaction, to turned it over and cleaved the animal in twain, lengthwise, obliterating its protective armor with meaty crunching noises.

Then he split the creature into two halves and provided us with a cutaway view of the internal viscera. Really, it seems that being a chef is as much about being a coroner as a cook. He scooped out globs of green and yellow organs, some of which were -- you guessed it -- considered delicacies. There was a thick, mustard-like substance that Chef X couldn't identify. He said it resembled sperm, but these lobsters were female. I conjectured she either had a late night tryst or was a hermaphrodite. Seemed reasonable to me. But as usual, I was ignored.

(Doesn't it seem odd that so many sea creatures seem to have an insectoid appearance? Lobsters in particular seem like overgrown cockroaches, which is one reason I can't imagine eating one. Seeing a lobster makes me want to grab a giant-size can of raid and spray it to death. Shrimp, squid, crabs all look like they could be distant cousins of our common household pests. Actually, my third wife used to refer to me as a household pest but that's another blog.)

All these dismembered species of the sea were eventually hacked, boiled, cooked, stir-fried, and formatted by the class for consumption. Alas, I cannot divulge details on this because your humble narrator was taken ill. No, not by the sight of mutilated animals. Rather, I was apparently bitten by a flu bug of sorts which, shall we say, kept me running. I informed Chef X as to my condition and he advised that I should stay out of the kitchen to avoid infecting the food.

Actually, that is common practice among food handlers: At first sign of potential diarrhea or vomiting, a worker is sent home or told not to report for work. Now, some might find it odd that I was so stricken on a night in which I had absolutely no interest in the subject matter. Some might think, 'Hm, that's awfully convenient, isn't it?' But I tell you, o my readers, that I speak the truth. I honestly forgot I would be forbidden from completing the night's assignment due to such an illness.

Frankly, the notion that I couldn't stay in the kitchen never entered my mind. I spent a few hours wandering around the campus and eventually joined the rest of my classmates for the trip back to the Salvation Army shelter. Oddly enough, I had no further intestinal discomfort.

There have been some other issues swirling in my brain, but I'll save that for a future column. Suffice to say that you might not guess one of the things I miss most about having lost my domicile. Was it the privacy? Not necessarily. The freedom? More or less. No, what I really miss is playing with my XBOX and Playstation 2. Those were the days ...

Now before I get all weepy and misty-eyed, I promised to tell you about some of the full moon fever that hit the SA populace recently. It seemed to start last week during out culinary class when some teammates had a falling out about tasting food made with alcohol. Several of my classmates are in alcohol recovery programs, so they can't eat food made with booze. One girl took exception, and that instigated a loud argument between her and a male colleague who called her a "fat bitch" then seemed to take some menacing steps toward her while growling, "Step off". Which prompted Chef X to intervene and admonish them for bad form, since another class was gawking at us.

That wasn't all. My roommate B. who has a dry sense of humor at best called his teammate (a dotty 60 year old woman) "a freak", whereupon she started caterwauling about calling the cops on him. (She showed up in the kitchen the following morning to confront him saying "This isn't over!" to the amusement of those assembled) B, also incurred the wrath of my teammate Rain Man when he commented that anyone could take our equipment because "These p***y fa***ts won't do s**t about it!" B. said he meant it as a joke but when he tried to apologize to RM he was blown off with a gruff "F**k your apology!"

As if wars on two fronts weren't enough, B got into it with a large black woman (AJ) on the van ride home. AJ was outspoken enough, shouting that she was going to "kick y'alls asses"; not sure exactly what set her off, but she was off and running. B happened to bump her as he moved to the rear of the van and she shouted, "You don't stop that, I'm gonna bitch-slap your ass." He told her to shut up and she replied, "Boy, I'd be afraid of you if I though you could beat a man. You couldn't beat this woman, I'd knock your ass down."

And B said with a grin, "I would smash your f**kin' face in. I would beat the living s**t out of you, AJ." She shouted, you hear how this motherf***er is talkin' to me? Bitch, you better stop before you get a beat down." Things seemed to quiet down when someone either kicked her seat or started throwing things at her repeatedly. "All right, whoever doin' better chill or I'm gonna slap all y'asses!" The warning didn't take and she yelled, "I done told you to stop it! Or else you gonna find out real quick how this lady can fight like a goddam straight-up motherf**kin' n***a!" Say what you like, she does have a way with words, no?

(Later in our room, B vented on his true feelings toward AJ and black people in general. Let's just say he won't be voted the NAACP Man of the Year anytime soon.)

All this activity resulted in a flurry of emailings about the incident from the Chef to the SA caseworkers (the arguments in the van were reported by the driver). The upshot was a mandatory meeting in which all classmates were scolded for our behavior. It was a hand slap, really, delivered by JF our EES instructor who must have seen "Stand and Deliver" one time too many. He said that those who caused the disturbance should be ashamed of themselves. And so should the people who "stood in the weeds and let it happen." Let it happen?

I thought it was gutless to lump everybody in with the troublemakers including your humble narrator, who has dome nothing but follow the rules from day one. It's like certain caseworkers who tell you, 'If you see a crack pipe in your brother's hand it's your responsibility to take it away'. Right. And what happens when your brother sticks a knife between your ribs? If I got involved with the dispute(s) of others, don't I effectively become a source of disturbance? Sometimes makes you wonder why you try at all.

I see my time is winding down and I have to prepare for yet another challenge in culinary class. Fear not brothers and sisters, the end is in sight with only the final exam looming. Yes, the journey can be painful but sometimes it's best to follow the teaches of Peaches. Click here and she'll tell you how to deal with the pain. For now, that's a wrap!

Quote of the Day:
"How do you deal with overpopulation? Start a war every now and then, drop a few big nukes and wipe out a few hundred million people. Problem solved." -- Chef X

HINJFCA Part 18: Cutting (and Gutting) Comments

2012-02-13T10:57:00.000-08:00

Oops! I notice it's been a while since I last posted (I thought about have adding "anything of note", but that claim might be debatable"). At any rate, fear not; your humble narrator is still alive and kicking. Still fighting the good fight against homelessness and struggling to regain his honored place in society. And still marveling at how little human nature changes even when confronted with the most dire of circumstances.

Let me start by telling you that there's been a full moon over Vegas recently, and that may have led to a spate of uncivilized behavior that has suddenly swept across the Salvation Army campus where I reside. We'll get to that shortly. In the last week or so, I've gotten my official Nevada Health Card. The process for doing this is extremely complex and harrowing: You have to go watch a 15 year old video (transferred from VHS) with a group of other aspirants. Here, you learn all about the dos and don'ts of handling food carefully and all sorts of arcane info about maintaining a sanitary work environment (wash your hands after going to the bathroom, for instance. Who'da thunk it?)

The video lasts about 50 minutes. But that's not all; you also have to complete a quiz that goes along with watching the video. How tough is the quiz? So tough that even when the presenter gave us the answers along the way, some people still couldn't get them right! Your narrator nearly screwed the pooch because of attractive 20-something sat next to be and kept distracting me with her amazingly tones legs and seductive perfume. Sheesh, I have cavities older than her. Anyway, the presentation ended I had to get a shot for Hep B (was an honest to God old-fashioned needle; I didn't wail too loudly -- kinda). With the quiz passed, yours truly was presented with his very own official health card. Complete with photo that makes me look like I'm pleasantly buzzed on near beer.

I have also been attending culinary school classes at night along with 14 other SA participants. As I've said, I enjoy eating food more than cooking it. Recently, I had the pleasure of filleting a couple of fish. Apart from the offensive smell, I found it repulsive to cut open fish flesh (and nicking my fingers on scales and bones (bet the fish was laughing in fish heaven) and handle deep sea guts and viscera. It was especially distressing since it was a female fish and I had to extract the ovaries. Then again, that's as close as I've been to female ovaries (of any species) in quite a while. Maybe I should brag about it.

Frankly, I think it's all a waste of time, and have even less respect for the "sport" of fishing than I had before. Who the hell wants to clean these things? Why do people want to eat food that has eyes, for God's sake? I don't know about you, but I don't want my food watching me while I eviscerate it, let alone eat the damn thing. I got through the nonsense surprisingly calm, even joking about it ("Tonight this fish sleeps with the fishes"). Maybe I just didn't give a fudge. Others, like the guy next to me, were venting their frustrations by shouting, "Man, this a goddam nightmare! I don't believe this sh*t!"). Others complained that the sight of fish innards was making them ill. There merely verbalized what i was thinking the whole time.

Of my teammates, only Pitbull really had the hang of cutting and gutting fish; maybe he's the Gorton's Fisherman. Even Rain Man had problems with this assignment; you could tell he wasn't used to having difficulty with preparing food, so I imagine he was a bit put out by the experience. As for me, I pretty much butchered the assignment -- literally. I was told this when I asked Chef X for help. I merely responded, "Yeah I know it's all f**ked up. Just show me what to do so I can get through this thing." He graciously demonstrated the fine art of filleting out of concern for time constraints more than concern for my actually understanding what the hell I was doing.

Which is fine by me. At this point I merely wish to get the whole sad, sorry business over with. The good news is that we're more than halfway through this course. The bad news is that there's another 5-week course to follow in garde manger. And oh yeah -- we get to cut up a chicken tonight. Guess who can't hardly wait.

One nice byproduct of the classes, however (yeah I do actually have something complementary to say about the experience) is that the students get to eat their own cooking. Actually, I think Chef X looks forward to this more than we do. Over the last two classes, we've enjoyed various beef dishes and fish entrees like Sole Vin Blanc or some Frenchy sounding name. Whatever, it was made with white wine, so it must be good. I say this because I didn't try any of it even though my team made it. I don't generally eat fish. I did try the battered fish (ala Long John Silver's) and it was pretty good.

Frankly, from my experience thus far about reading of beef cuts and filleting fishes I'm finding it ever more difficult to eat the flesh of these animals. When they talk about cutting here and taking out veins and whatnot, it sounds like we're training to be morticians, chefs. And when they talk about preparing internal organs like hearts, kidney, sweetbreads (thymus) or tongue, forget it. By then I'm halfway to the nearest toilet to pray to the porcelain god. I may well come out of this a vegetarian!

And so I'll conclude this episode of my blog -- for now. Why so short an entry? Well, judging from some of the feedback I've received, some of you think I get a bit long-winded at times. In an effort to appease my readers (both of them) I've decided to shorten some of this purple prose and hopefully make it more pleasing to the eyeballs (of which I could use more, so do spread the word). And no, I didn't forget about the wild behavior that's been going on about the SA campus. But that's what we in the entertainment biz call a "cliffhanger". In the meantime, check out one of my favorite graphic novels, soon to be a major motion picture.

Quote of the day:
"People do some strange things for a little bit of change!"

HINJFCA 17: Cooking Up Food For Thought

2012-02-03T11:58:00.000-08:00

It was the best of times ... well, you know the rest of that quote. Suffice to say that it fairly sums up my recent experiences with the culinary class I've been attending. As you recall, I have no experience in the food service industry. What I may have neglected to add is that I also have no experience in cooking ... period. That's right, your humble narrator is a chap who never found the time -- or more importantly, the inclination -- to buy ingredients and prepare them at home.

To me the idea of cooking seemed like a waste of time; still does. Why bake a cake, broil a roast, fix various cookies, etc. when you can buy all that stuff ready-made? To me, the idea of cooking simply represents a hassle, one that I can easily avoid. While this might make James Beard turn over in his grave (or giant-sized rotisserie as the case may be), I find cooking to be a tedious and needless task.

Seriously, I cannot comprehend the fascination of standing over piles of raw ingredients, measuring them out (makes my brain hurt just thinking of all the damned math involved) and chopping stuff into microscopic bits with razor-sharp knives. If you've read anything about my experience with sharp objects, you know why I'm antsy around knives and/or other sharp objects. Unfortunately, kitchens are crammed with sharp objects (although some of the cooks can be dull) and other various machinery that can cut, maim, crush, pulverize, or otherwise send an unsuspecting worker to the hospital, if not the grave.

And getting back to the standing around bit: I'm talking about hours of standing, with minimal movement except for the upper body. Your legs tend to stay put. I've found that whether I'm cooking something, standing in the serving line, or working the dishwasher, the result of all that standing is the same the next morning I wake up with a sore lower back and feet. It takes the better part of a day for the pain to recede and by then, guess what? Right, it's time to go back to work.

These are just my experiences since last November working in the Salvation Army kitchens. I can't imagine the toll such standing around would take on my body were I employed in a "real" job (ie, one that involves a paycheck). These are some of the reasons I don't like the idea of working as a cook of any sort. I don't like the work because its very nature strains my patience to the point of breaking. And because of the physical discomfort, you'll forgive me if I refer to the process of cooking as a literal pain in the ass.

Yet, there are plenty of people out there who do love to cook usually, these are the same people who love to eat, and can appreciate fine food as befits a true gourmand. Notice you don't see a lot of svelte cooks out there; my guess is their customers would questions the food quality of a skinny chef (that is, unless they specialized in healthy cuisine). Such people view dining out as an experience. So be it. They live to eat.

I'm not here to say they're wrong. But I've always been more of a 'eat-to-live' chap. Give me the basics and I'm fine. I don't need my food to look like a work of art; it doesn't have to look like a tiny sculpture. Anyway, the shape of food has never influenced its taste, at least not for me. Maybe some people are susceptible to a form of 'culinary hypnosis.' Or maybe they just want to be thought of sophisticated. I guess it's no accident that so many food shows like Hell's Kitchen are so popular.

Anyway, why am I ragging on (and on) the culinary industry? just to put my viewpoint in perspective for you as I now rag upon the culinary class I'm taking. Last Tuesday was a good class as I managed to follow along with my 2 teammates in making carious basic soups. Our consomme turned out very nice, very clear. It's yellow clarity prompted Pitbull to comment, "It looks like fresh, steaming piss." While I doubt it would be described as such in a menu, his observation was accurate. (In fact, it makes me think of how odd it is that so many foods and ingredients tend to resemble human bodily fluids in color and texture. Remind me to comment on this in detail in a future post.)

Our teacher, Chef X, was pleased by our work, saying it was "fine." That's about as good as it gets from this guy, trust me. Some students find Chef X to be a prick because he's so blunt and direct. Personally, I don't mind being told the truth, even if it hurts. This chef is also very demonstrative, using his hands whenever he talks. He has an accent that I pegged for Eastern, perhaps upper Midwest; but he says he was born and raised in California. He spent a year in Oklahoma and "my dad said I came back talking like an Okie."

Whatever. With his burly, overweight build, direct manner and propensity for cursing (upon leaving a stove on too long and burning one of his recipies, he shouted, "S**t! I f**ked it up, godammit!") he makes me think The Sopranos would've loved this guy. One thing that he didn't love was my effort(s) on Wednesday night. We had to work individually to make mashed potatoes. He said my potatoes were too thin, too cold, and didn't have enough salt (nobody's effort had enough salt, apparently). Other than that it was fine. The rice dish I made was undercooked and basically inedible (tasted okay to me, as did the potatoes).

A lot of the students were anxious about the grade he was marking down for them, and even asked what grade they were receiving. A check mark meant 100, which my teammate Rain Man received for his efforts. Then again, the guy has 15+ years experience in the culinary field and managed a McDonalds. PB is likely getting B+ grades. And your humble narrator? I expect I'm lowering the curve, to put it kindly.

The bad thing is, I don't especially care. And this plays in with my general lack of interest in the subject matter. I've found that in the past I did best with subjects in which I had a great interest and/or aptitude: Writing, art, history would be examples. I had some interest in math but had no aptitude for anything past simple algebra (even that was a hassle). With cooking, I have no interest OR aptitude in the subject; what should I expect would happen in such a circumstance?

This is a classic case of wrong student, wrong subject and wrong class. The overwhelming majority of my fellow students have at least some degree of culinary experience. In addition to RM, a couple of them attended the Cordon Bleu school (but dropped out for various reasons, like criminal behavior). Even those with no formal experience have done some cooking at home. As you know by now, I possess no such culinary background (if you listen closely you can hear the world's tiniest violin playing.

So why am I there in the first place? Because the SA caseworker told me that my culinary inexperience didn't matter. Yeah. And this was told to with a straight face, so I accepted it. This class might be called basic cooking, but some degree of experience is required to fully understand it (at least for me). I needed a ground floor class that assumes the student has no knowledge of cooking. As in, this is a spatula. This is a mixing bowl. These are eggs and here's how to crack them. Simple stuff, right?

I don't know what to do about it just yet, but I'll take the weekend to mull it over.Likely I'll have to plead my culinary ignorance to Chef X or my SA caseworker to see if I can be graded on a lower standard. Right now, the only thing I'm learning from this cooking class is how to cook my own goose.

Let's move on to another subject: Co-worker relations in the SA kitchens. As you know, your humble narrator is an easy going bloke, never looking for trouble when it can be avoided. I'm happy to say I've gained a rep for being personable and easy to work with. That in mind, I had decided to practice with a knife any try to become comfortable using it but cutting up a couple of potatoes. I took a spare cutting board and a chef' knife and went in the dining room adjacent to our kitchens and cafe dining room.

This area (known as the homeless dining room due to the free meals given out here) is always empty during my morning shift (5a-1p). With some downtime, I set up shop in the room and commenced practicing. About five minutes later a co-worker named Harry walks in and decides to watch me. Understand that Harry has some personality quirks that require strong medication. He has a tendency to babble, twitch and make odd facial contortions as a result of his affliction. I asked him nicely if he would move on, as I wanted to practice alone. He complied.

A few minutes later another co-worker appeared. This was a short, rotund black guy who looks like the late actor Godfrey Cambridge. He stopped by to watch as well. When I told him what I was doing he said, "Hey man, you doin' it wrong" and stared at me. I politely asked him if he would leave me be as his presence was distracting. He too complied.

A few minutes after that, yet another co-worker shows up. What is this, Grand Central Station? This is a middle-aged black volunteer named Jackson, who is known for wearing a cowboy hat. He walks over and advises me that the lead cooks will "kick your ass if they find you in here doing that." Now irritated I mumble something like, "We'll see" and continue cutting the potato.

Jackson walks over to inspect my work and says in a snide tone, "Who you makin' that for? It's gotta be for you."

"No," I say, "I'm making it for the troops overseas."

"You don't have to be a smartass about it! I only asked a question!"

"And I gave you an answer." I continued cutting the potato.

"You said it was for troops overseas!" Jackson said, louder.

"That's what I said." I made the reply as quietly as possible, not wanting to ignite a shouting match. After that I said nothing but continued practicing, ignoring him. He finally got the message and left without another word. While he likely thinks I'm an asshole, I like to think I successfully defused a potential problematic situation with my calm demeanor. My only regret is that I massacred an innocent potato while practicing upon it.

So that'll wrap it up for this installment. More fun next time! Y'all come back now, hear?

Quote of the Day: "Fat is flavor", Chef X

HINJFCA 16: Heads Will Shrink

2012-01-31T11:01:00.000-08:00

Periodically I go to a psychiatrist to discuss any problems or progress I've been having over the past several months and how I'm coping with my overall situation. Here are some excerpts from the transcript of the latest session:

Psy: You said before that you had some trouble "fitting in" with the people at the Salvation Army Vocational program. Could you elaborate on that?

Me: You know, before I entered this program, I had never known anyone who had been incarcerated. None of my friends had ever been to jail or prison ...

Psy: That you know of.

Me: Well, yeah but ... Okay. Anyway, the only thing I know about prison is what I've seen on TV like "Prison Break" or in movies like "The Shawshank Redemption". Now I'm around men and women who have been in prison, and have experienced it firsthand. Some of them have been behind bars for years, for some really heavy offenses.

Psy: They intimidate you, then. Do they physically threaten you in any way?

Me: No, I haven't had any direct confrontations with anyone there. I try to keep a low profile. But these guys I'm talking about seem to have carried their prison experiences into the SA program, which results in something like a prison atmosphere where I live.

Psy: A prison atmosphere?

Me: It can be something as simple as some of those guys going around and calling you, "cellie." As in cellmate, you know? When I think of it, the SA dorms where I live could be seen as a kind of minimum risk prison. You have to sign in and sign out whenever you leave the property, and surrender your ID at the desk. They have strict curfews which if broken can result in harsh penalties like being kicked off the property for 24-48 hours. You have to take a beathalyzer test whenever you re-enter the SA campus. All your actions are monitored on video. Stuff like that.

Psy: SA likely has those restrictions and rules in place for a reason.

Me: I know. I'm just saying that it all tends to make me feel somewhat sequestered at times. And to be honest a lot of that stuff shouldn't apply to me anyway. I've never been in jail, and I don't have drug or alcohol addictions. Sometimes I think it's unfair I'm subject to the same restrictions as the others.

Psy: You believe you're better than your fellow clients at SA?

Me: Not better ... Well, maybe I do think I'm "better', in a sense. I mean, I can read and speak in complete sentences. A lot of these guys are nearly illiterate. Their speech is so ridden with accents, twangs, regionalisms and whatnot that it can be difficult to understand them at times. They probably think I'm hard of hearing because I have to ask them to repeat themselves so often. Often, there is a lot of street slang that I've never heard before. Usually, I'll just smile and nod when I don't completely get what they're saying. And it's not just the clients. The caseworkers -- who are often former clients and recovering addicts themselves -- have a tendency toward bad grammar like "Ain't none of y'all going anywhere til we get your IDs" or the like.

Psy: And you feel that separates you from them?

Me: Not to brag, but my speech and diction are clear; I worked in voiceover, so it had to be intelligible. I don't have a college degree, but I have taken some college level courses and wouldn't exactly call myself a dimwit. Put it this way: I'm smart enough to admit my ignorance when or if the occasion arises. And I'd like to think I possess a fair degree of common sense. I actually value that quality over a formal education; I can find plenty of people who possess degrees but are still lacking in common sense and common courtesy for that matter.. Present company excluded, of course.

Psy: What's that? I was posting on Facebook.

Me: I said, 'Present company ...' Never mind. It's just that sometimes I feel like I've been dropped into a foreign country and I don't know the language. Like the other day when I was walking down the hall. I hear two white guys reminiscing about their prison time. Talking about walking the yard, and how much fun it was lifting weights and smoking with their homies. About how they would hang with the whites and Mexicans, but not the n*****s.

Not that they were racist, of course; it just would look good. The Aryans might take it upon themselves to frag them as race traitors if they hung around blacks. They started talking about all the changes made since they were inside, and compared all they prisons in which they'd been incarcerated over the years. Did you know that in California prisons that snitches and 'cho-mos' were kept separated from the general population and had their own yard?

Psy: I can't say I did. And what are 'cho-mos?'

Me: Prison slang for child molesters. See what you can learn if you're listening? The thing that freaked my out was the tone in which they talked about prison, like they were nostalgic. Like they missed it and wanted to go back. Frankly, I don't doubt many of them will return. It's amazing that they continue to focus on those experiences instead of putting them in the past and moving forward. You'd think the last thing an ex-con would want to do is keep re-living the past.

I was brought up to believe you obeyed the law, stayed out of trouble, and never saw the inside of a jail or prison. From the viewpoint of these SA clients, I've got it all all backwards. They make it sound like a badge of honor to have been incarcerated. When they talk about their experiences, they sound proud of their 'accomplishments'. It just doesn't make any sense to me. What do you think, Doc?

Psy: About what?

Me: Haven't you been listening?

Psy: I had some important texting to do. Go on.

Me: Right. It's just that hearing that sort of subject matter spoken of in such a casual manner is bizarre to me; I just can't understand how they consider their experiences to be 'normal'. There's apparently some sort of sign language developed in prison, too. You'll often see guys flashing their fingers in weird configurations and other ex-cellies will understand it. It's sort of like gang signs, I guess.

And it's not just the guys. A lot of the girls in the SA program often talking about how their participation is part of their parole; that's a word you hear thrown around a lot: Parole. It's not uncommon to hear them talk about seeing their PO (parole officer), or comparing notes on which PO is a prick and which isn't. It can be sobering to hear them say that if they give up on the program or walk away, they'll be in violation and immediately be subject to re-incarceration.

Rain Man, the guy on my culinary class team is one such. His parole is contingent on staying with SA. Otherwise he'll go back to the joint here in Nevada. As if that's not bad enough, he's also subject to doing time back east as well. He obviously has a lot riding on this, but he's also given hints that he could buck and run is so pressured. He says he's spent most of his adult life in various prisons around the US.

Psy: You were talking about the women?

Me: Oh, now you're paying attention. Yeah, the women seem just as proud of their jail time as the guys. One of my kitchen co-workers and fellow students is a large black woman named P. She actually has experience at the Cordon Bleu school of cooking but dropped out before completing the course. It may have had something to do with the story she recently told in the kitchen:

She'd been doing drugs with her baby daddy and had been dealing as well. One night the cops smashed down her door and raided the apartment in which she stayed with her family. The kids are screaming, cops are barking orders, and she ran to the bathroom to hide her stash. She flushes the toilet to make it seem she flushed the drugs, but the cops aren't fooled.

Two male officers take her to the bedroom and tell her to spread. She says, 'I almost hope they do search me, except one of them's a n****r with big-ass hands and looks like he want to go digging down there. And if two dudes try it, then I can get a lawyer to go after them.' But a female cop is called in to do the search. And, 'that bitch went all up inside my p***y. I mean all up in there, like she was gay or something. And yeah, she found it all right. Called it buried treasure and all those motherf*****s laughed. I said, s**t, I already got two busts, now I gotta go back inside.'

And she was laughing about it. Acting like it was a great time in her life, getting searched and arrested, and having to go back to prison. It makes no sense to me. It's crazy, right?

Psy: About as crazy as a man talking to himself by using the device of holding a conversation with an imaginary character.

Me: Like a psychiatrist?

Psy: That wouldn't be crazy. That would be insane.

So there's a little taste of what goes on behind the closed doors of my shrink's office. Next time I'll get back to more updates on the travesty that is my experience in the culinary class and how it's taking over my life. Whether that's a bad thing or a good thing is still open to debate. For now, that's a wrap. Having a good day?

Quote of the Day:
"I'll worry about dying in the next life."

HINJFCA 15: Walking with the Dead

2012-01-29T17:37:00.000-08:00

Haven't been able to make it to the library lately and since I'm too paranoid to use the computers at the Salvation Army I haven't posted much lately. Never fear, your humble narrator has continued with his journey through homelessness and the efforts to reorganize a self-created chaos into some semblance of a "normal life". A normal life of course is entirely subjective. Upon reflection, I sometimes think I actually feel happier these days than I did in the past. And that's when I had money. And a home, and all the ... stuff. I hope this whole experience doesn't turn out to contain the moral lesson that "possessions don't make you happy; YOU make you happy" or somesuch. Hell, if that's the case I could've picked up a Wayne Dyer book and saved myself all the misery.

So where was I ...? Right, I've become a college student once more. Now I'm enrolled at a local college taking an accelerated course in Basic Cooking, and I'm about to begin my second week there. Uniforms, books and all associated materials have been provided. Now all I have to to is ace the final and escape with at least a "C" to get the college credit. Hope that I do folks, because it's your money that's sending me to school. That's right. Your humble narrator is offering you you the chance to see your hard-earned tax dollars at work. So let's all pray that yours truly doesn't (bleep) it up.

My schedule is M-W from 3-9pm, and Ican tell you it's taking a toll on my daily routine. Normally I work in the SA kitchens from 5am-1pm, which was gruesome enough as it was. Add the extra school time and I look and feel as if I'm ready to joining the titular cast of The Walking Dead. Most of my 14 co-workers/students feel the same way. Over the weekend I've been studying the huge textbook they gave us. To be completely honest it's tough to get back into my old studying habits. After all, I can't party half the night and cram like I used to when I was younger.

The class involves lectures in a modern room with hi-def flatscreens and a lab/kitchen where grownups get to play with their food. The15 students are divided into 3 teams of 5 each. You beleive the maneuvering and politicking that went into the choosing of these teams. It was like high school all over again with all the quibbling about who won't work with whom, or so-and-so snitched on me or whatever. I frankly didn't care about which teams I landed on and so never lobbied to be on anyone's team per se. I figured no one would want me anyway because of my lack of restaurant experience.

As it happened I landed on a team with Rain Man (who you might recall is the ex-con/math wiz/iron Chef of the group) and a stocky, tempermental guy named Pitbull (not his real name, but he looks like the namesake I've given him). Pitbull had an accident in the SA kitchens earlier this week where he slashed off half his index finger while cutting lettuce. He's got far more experience that me, so you might understand why I'm nervous when having to display the mad knife skills required by good cooks.

In fact we did have to display some knife skills the second night we were there. Anyone who knows about pro cooking knows that it's all based on a foundation of French cooking. Therefore you have to learn a lot of French terminolgy, n'est-ce pas? So, you have various foodstuffs like tomatoes, potatoes being sliced and diced into cubes or batonnet, or the chiffonade, or whatever. How did I do? Let's just say it wasn't pretty. I felt dazed and confused and way out of myelement. RM and Pitbull fared much better. Frankly, I'm wondering if teaming up with them was actually the best idea. Watching them breeze through the assignments made me feel like I had to play catch up and that got me flustered on a few things.

I'll have to be honest with you here: I really don't enjoy working in a kitchen, and standing for hours in one position while cutting stuff into microscopic pieces doesn't expact get my blood pumping. At best I find it tedious, and that's being kind. So why am I putting myself through this torture? Well, you'll have to tune in for the next segment because the library is closing I have to hie me hence back to the Salvation Army.
That's a wrap!

Update (1.31.12): That was a bit of a fake cliffhanger. The reason I've stuck with the SA cooking program is because it's no money out of my pocket. However, it does take a lot of time out of my day, which I'll get into with the next installment which I'm jumping to forthwith. Be warned, it'll be one of my "creative" posts which doesn't always translate into a good post.

Incidentally, what's the distinctiion between the terms "bomb" and "bomb-ass?" Just curious.

Quote of the Day: "I have to go someplace because I have someplace to go."

HINJFCA Part 14: Food Stuffs

2012-01-21T11:43:00.000-08:00

A windy day in Las Vegas, with gray swollen clouds that might be the harbinger of a monsoon. Or so local residents and weatherpersons have anxiously claimed. I did walk through some gusting winds and endured bits of dirt and sand assaulting my face on the way here to the public library (see how dedicated I am to both of my readers? Sum homo indomitus, indeed). At any rate the only sign of a 'monsoon' that I've seen has been a couple stray drops of rain here and there. For some of the folks spoiled by the sunny weather I guess that constitutes a tsunami of sorts.

Some noteworthy events have been taking place lately, a few of with have apparently gotten your humble narrator in deep poo-poo (as opposed to po-po, which is urban slang for the fuzz. But you knew that, right?). We start culinary class at a local college on Monday, and so uniforms have been handed out to the participants. Almost everyone complained that the pants were too small by 1-2" or more, and had to be exchanged. Unfortunately, my correct size wasn't in the stock received at Salvation Army and so I along with three other students had to be driven across town to get out proper clothing directly from the outlet store.

Along the way one of the students, an attractive albeit heavyset girl named Candace, took pains to let us know all about how hard she used to party around Vegas. "I did anyone, anywhere, anytime," she said, seeming to brag about it. "There isn't a drug I didn't do. Hey, look! That's where my pusher used to live! Yeah, I know this area real well." She's in her late 20s and I was surprised to learn that she'd served in the Army. I didn't have the nerve to ask if she was dishonorably discharged or not. Candace is one of those people whose moods change on a daily basis, likely in accordance with how much medication she's had. I've seen her on days where she wouldn't -- or couldn't -- speak, and walked with a hunched over gait. Today, she was talkative; so much so I saw one or two of the other guys rolling their eyes and silently wishing she would shut up.

The guy who drove us also performs the driving duties for SA's Meals On Wheels program. He told us about how he had saved up $3700 and lost it all in a night's gambling, thinking he could somehow win it all back. That seems to be the quagmire most gambling addicts find themselves sucked into. He also told us how he had $500 meant for a plane ticket but went to the laundromat and after some early losses at a video poker machine almost made the money back. He stood at $495 and decided he just had to have that extra $5. He didn't. He ended up losing all his money and going home with a load of dirty laundry. Talk about insult to injury.

Another guy told us about how his son is doing marijuana and ecstasy. He said he's tried to tell the kid to stop, that it'll lead to harder drugs and he'll end up in the street like his old man. How did he tell this to his son? "Yeah, we was smokin' a joint at the bus station. I just figured he'd listen to me better if I joined him for a blow or two. You know what I mean, brother." I'd call it fuzzy logic at best.

I just mention these incidents because it never ceases to amaze me how willing people are to discuss their personal problems and demons with other people who are essentially strangers. Moreover, it often seems that such people are bragging about their wrong headed mistakes, as if they should be proud of the mistakes they've made. Since I know these guys are in various 'recovery programs', I wonder if this is the philosophy they're taught: "You're the victim of a disease. You're not responsible for what happened. You couldn't help yourself, it was beyond your control." I often heard people at SA say things like, "My addiction made me do this or that, etc."

Although this isn't the place for such a debate, I'd argue that addictions like drugs, alcohol, gambling, or even smoking are things that are are within a person's control; they just don't want to control it it. In the case of mental illness, I would call that something beyond a person's control. I've never heard of mental illness (schizophrenia, depression, bi-polar disorder) referred to as an addiction. Ironically, those who suffer from mental illness are often given such potent prescriptions that they do in fact become drug addicts after a fashion. In this case, however, the prescription makes them legal drug addictions while making billions for Big Pharma.

As earlier mentioned, your humble narrator made a faux pas of sorts. I missed an important meeting that served as an orientation for the culinary class that begins Monday. I guess it is a big deal, but I honestly was never told about the orientation. I'll likely have to bend over and grab my ankles as the caseworker in charge sticks it to me for missing the event (which she conducted). I can already hear her voice, filled with snideness and sarcasm. Ah, well. Grin and bear it as they say. Or, in one ear and out the other. I just hate having it hang over my head like the Sword of Damocles over the weekend.

Also had my first contention with a customer in the SA cafe. An older, squat woman known for being picky asked me to separate the lasagna we were serving that day. I asked what she meant by 'separate.' She said that she didn't was the pasta, just the cheese. When I said I didn't know how to do that, she walked off in a fit of pique. I could only smile at her irritation. A few minutes later, a co-worker came back from the front dining room and said, "Bro, you gotta get that old lady what she wants. I can't stand hearing her bitch about it." The situation was explained to the lead cook who suggested simply skimming off the top layer of the lasagna that contained the sauce and cheese.

He admitted that it shouldn't be served that way and that the old lady was being a "pain in the ass" but he just wanted her to shut up and go on. It didn't help, though. She still came back to complain to the lead cook about how I didn't serve her what she wanted, or that the food wasn't in the proper shape, or somesuch. The lead cook listened and sloughed off her bickering with, "All right, it's not worth the aggravation." She left, still unhappy. I don't doubt she'll have the incident 'written up'. She seems to have that kind of time on her hands. Still, not exactly a shining moment for yours truly, what?

A more extreme example of customer dissatisfaction occurred yesterday. This one didn't involve me directly. This incident stems from some efforts by the kitchen management to control the amount of food that 'mysteriously' vanishes from the kitchen. Not so mysterious because it's common knowledge that the workers (including your humble narrator) treat themselves to various goodies from produce to sodas to pastries, cakes, cookies, chips and/or whatever else might be available on a given day. In fact, it's one of the primary reasons for the weight I've gained at SA; the availability of all the snacks -- for free -- is too great a temptation to overcome. And of course, that doesn't include the free meals we hand out to ourselves as we prepare food for the customers.

All that snacking is considered fairly minor so long as the food is consumed in the kitchen/dining area. Problems stem when people try to sneak food out and take it to their dorm rooms. Too often, the crumbs will lead to insect problems with ants, roaches, or worse. Only sodas are allowed in the rooms. There's also the concern that workers might try to sell food to the homeless outside the SA entrance. But the real problem is this: Too many kitchen workers like to hook up their friends, girl/boyfriends and others with free meals.

Normally, the public pays SA $2.50 for breakfast and $3 for lunch and dinner. Not a bad deal, considering the larger portions. But too many free meals were being handed out and that starts to cost money and leaves less food for the paying customers. So the managers cracked down: no more free food. That also includes another problem area: The drinks. Normally, coffee is provided with breakfast, along with juice (actually Kool-Aid) which is provided with all meals.

The serving portion is supposed to be two 8 oz cups maximum (or a two drink maximum, if you will). The clients regularly exceed this by bringing along 20-40 oz containers with which to load up the caffeine. Obviously, that depletes the coffee supply all the quicker and results in us having to brew more of the drink, which means delays; which ultimately means the clients get pissed off at a situation that they themselves created in the first place!

I've also seen clients go to the juice cooler and fill up 2-liter bottles of the stuff. One guy turned to us with his full bottle and laughed, "Yeah, that's I do it!" The same problem doesn't exist with the public because the coffee can be regulated by us; that is, we serve it to them over the counter. Likely, that might be the solution the kitchen managers may have to adopt for the clients as well. For now, they're trying to limit the clients to 2 drinks only with no refills. So far, there hasn't been a whole lot of cooperation with the program. The clients seem to feel they're entitles to take as much coffee and juice as they please.

An upshot of this occurred the other day when a skinny guy in his 60s with a vacant expression on his face came up to request more coffee, as the outer pots were empty. I saw him earlier with two cups of coffee and asked if he drank them. When he said yes, I told him I couldn't serve him any more. He said, in a slurred voice, "I wanna see the manager!" The manager, standing within earshot, upheld my decision. The old man, one of the veterans who stay at SA, did a slow burn and started muttering, "What the hell is it with the coffee ... Dammit, I just want a f**kin' cup of coffee, Jesus ..." He doddered out of the kitchen but that wasn't the last of him.

Another customer came to the counter requesting coffee, and because they hadn't already been through the line, I granted the request. A moment later: "Oh, so that's how it f**kin' is, huh?" The old vet re-entered the kitchen, this time with a spring in his step and some fire in his belly as he walked toward the counter. "I can't get any goddam coffee, but they can? That's bulls**t! All I wanted was some coffee!" About that time the manager and several workers confronted the vet and told him to leave the area, but the old man would not be dissuaded. "You don't let me have the coffee? You guys are f**kin' assholes!"

I was ready to call security when, as if by Providence, a guard entered the cafe en route to his rounds. He soon took charge of the situation and things quieted down. There were a few customers in line who watched the proceedings with bemusement; such outbursts were not exactly uncommon on a campus filled with so many people with various mental impairments who take potent prescriptions. When one of the customers looked back at me, I shrugged. "Another satisfied customer, I guess." The workers involved with the argument had to fill out reports for the security guys. The old vet was told to leave the SA campus for 24 hours. Last I heard, he did return. Hopefully, he got some coffee during his brief exile.

Well, my time is winding down, meaning I'll have to exit the library and enter the wind once more. Next week, I'll give you some updates as to my first day of school (we even get sack lunches to take with us; don't know about lunch boxes). Also, a possible romantic interest or two -- yow! Either my standards are slipping or the women's standards are lowering. Hopefully, I'll be able to shed some light on the situation in upcoming installments. In the meantime, that's a wrap!

Oh yeah. One more thing in keeping with my earlier Latin phrase: Sicut antiqui romani dicebant quomodo tuo hodie?

HINJFCA Part XIII: Updates

2012-01-19T11:25:00.000-08:00

This really will have to be a shorter post since I have limited time today (even though it is my off day I still have some Salvation Army meetings to attend). So let me get to the heart of the meat of the matter.

Remember the Hawaiian Hulk with whom I had some contention? He's gone. Pfft. Outta here. Very abrupt, this guy's departure. Apparently it had to do with a woman and her car; as in, she has a car and he didn't. All I can figure is, it must have been one helluva car top make him change his mind and throw away the progress he'd made at Salvation Army. The girl herself? Not bad-looking, but she must have more persuasive charms than only her looks. It took everyone by surprise, especially the co-workers with whom he'd forged a friendship.

But HH strode in that day looking like a badass biker, hair pulled back in ponytail and dropped off his walking papers. A moment later, he was gone. The managers didn't seem that surprised by the decision. One of them simply shrugged and mentioned that SA has a huge turnover; he wasn't that surprised and figured there would be more dropouts before all was said and done.

Indeed, that statement was prophetic, as was another statement made by the instructor of the Essential Employment Skills (EES) classes I attended from Nov-Dec. That instructor said that around 30% of the students would make it to the next phase. Out of app. 20 students, 6 have departed or have been dismissed. Truer words, as they say.

A few days after HH took off, another kitchen worker decided to hoof it. This guy was in his early 30s, around 6'2, and one of the better workers there. Like HH he was also one of the better cooks overall and brought a fair amount of experience with him. We'll call this guy Calvin (or Cal) because he kind of reminded me of the title character in the old newspaper strip Calvin and Hobbes. He was an easy enough guy to be around, although he certainly had his moody days. I never knew that much about him outside of work other than he liked football and liked to bet on it.

Cal evidently got a tax refund that prompted his departure. Must have been a lot of wampum, right? Try $1500. Now, in certain 3rd-world countries that might last you a while. But in Sin City, USA ... Let's just say the kitchen staff is laying odds on how soon Cal will blow through that cash and come back begging for his job. Unfortunately, SA won't readmit him (at least not in that capacity). Cal left the program once before without notice, and was allowed back in only after a lot of contrition on his part. Obviously he wasn't too sincere. Really, how can anyone think $1500 is enough to live on. He'll be lucky to squeeze a month out of it if he's lucky. Then again, he may just surprise us all.

Remember the culinary class I'm now enrolled in? Well it's not a done deal now. With those two departures I mentioned, we're down to 14 students (a reserve accepted a position). 15 participants are needed to ensure the classes take place. Right now we're waiting to see if a potential candidate can pass the screening et al to make the list. If not ... Well, that sends me into uncharted territory. maybe it's not the worst thing. While I do like working with the kitchen staff, I'm not overly wild about preparing food. Maybe I'm better at eating food than fixing it. in fact, someone asked me recently what I'd most like to do in a restaurant and I replied, "Be the customer."

Remember the homeless camps I've mentioned in recent postings? Gone. The NLVPD conducted a mass 'raid' of sorts on the camps, essentially sweeping the homeless away with nary a trace they were ever there. Seems the catalyst may have been the unfortunate irony presented with the erection of a brand new gateway to NLV that reads "Welcome to the City of North Las Vegas" at the corner of LV Blvd and Main Street. Right across the street was one of the biggest homeless campsites you'd ever want to see. I saw a news photographer shooting footage of the two sites. Maybe a local news channel ran a story on the strange irony. OR, maybe they read about it here first; see recent postings for more information.

And that'll have to wrap it up for now. Hopefully I can get back online this weekend and provide some more late breaking exclusives. Here's your Quote Of The Day:

"Once you go white, you'll never be right!" -- Overheard in the SA cafe as a white guy was hitting on a black girl (the girl said this, btw).

And how was your day?

HINJFCA Part XII: Quick Hits & Character Studies (w/Video)

2012-01-14T12:01:00.000-08:00

This post will be a bit shorter than previous entries (short by my standard, anyway) since I have some official biz to conduct online. Yet never let it be said that I've shirked my duty to all the loyal followers out there by updating my progress in the effort to extricate myself from this man-made morass of malevolence into which I have been cast (best alliteration I could come up with on short notice, sorry).

I am now officially enrolled in the Salvation Army's culinary course which is actually sponsored by the State of Nevada and a local university. The big draw for me isn't necessarily to become the next Wolfgang Puck (although I think it's a cool name) but to accrue the 7 college credits upon completion of the course. I'm finding that I actually enjoy eating food more than I enjoy making /preparing it.

The problem I have with cooking is that there's so much standing around! It's resulted in lower back pain that sometimes makes it difficult to walk. In some ways simply standing around is more tiring than moving around. Also, cooking involves the use of knives. Those of you who have followed my blog know that sharp things and JM don't mix well. I've twice cut myself while attempting to slice and dice things in the SA kitchen; the second time I actually nicked a bit of my fingertip off. That's the middle finger of my left hand; as it happens, it's one of my favorite fingers as well. I'd like to think that I'm so sharp that I cut myself, but maybe that's pushing it too far.

For the class (which includes uniforms, books, tools including knives, yippee) there are 15 students divided up into teams of three. The idea is that we are one "team" overall, which implies limited competition. Of course some students are ignoring this, promising to "kick y'all to the curb" in the words of one student. The picking of 3-person teams has resulted in tiresome sniping and hurt feelings amongst the clients ("Why didn't so-and-so ask me to be on their team?", "Work with him/her? F**k that!", and so on) that make this feel more like high school than culinary school.

For my part, I didn't lobby for any team; as it turned out I didn't have to. Remember Rain Man (RM) from the last installment? He's the cooking/math superstar who seems to know everything there is about the food service field; I'm not being sarcastic, as I think it's the truth. Anyway, he asked me to be on his team, which some might consider an honor. (After Googling the guy's name and finding a lot of law enforcement sites listing his offenses, maybe I should be honored I'm still in one piece.)

Then again, the idea of the teams is to ensure parity and not create a "super team" of experienced chefs. To that end, RM provides the experience while I provide the near-non-experience. Our third teammate is a woman named Myrtle (not her real name). She's a white woman, 60ish, stands about 5' and (I swear) moves and walks like a turtle standing upright (hence the name Myrtle).

Myrtle is a actually a very nice person but might be described as, well ... dotty.   'Or not all there'. He has a problem with focusing her attention on a given subject. For example, you might talk to her about preparing a meal in the kitchen and she'd say, "First use X amount of flour, then an equal amount of baking soda and I like cows. Aren't cows so cool? Have you ever ridden on a helicopter? Oh, that would be awesome!" That sort of thing. Then, when she does manage to focus, she highly opinionated to the point of simply not responding to the suggestions of anyone else. She'll often stare at you with big, watery eyes with a glazed-over expression on her face. If you presume she's listening, you'd be wrong. At the end of your explanation she'll say something like, "Uh-huh. That doesn't make any sense. So let's do it my way." And so on.

Myrtle did once provide a quotable quote which I'll use for this installment's Quote of the Day. She was having a discussion with another co-worker about pickles and the variety thereof. The co-worker mentioned she liked dill pickles. To which Myrtle responded, "What I wouldn't give for a nice, big, fat dildo!"

Should be an interesting experience to say the least. To his credit RM says he thinks I'm quick enough to pick up a lot of this on the fly; he also says he hopes that I can better communicate with Myrtle better than some other participants. It's no uncommon for co-workers to lose their patience with her, resulting in arguments and people storming off muttering profanities. I guess I've gained a rep as being an even-tempered individual, which is fine. To be clear, it's not because I'm the greatest guy or anything like that. I tend to keep a cool head simply because I'm too lazy to get really upset over anything. Especially not cooking, which was never my primary career goal to begin with.

Rather, I can view a lot of the goings-on within the SA kitchen and the staff(s) with a kind of detatched bemusement. Even in an unfamiliar workplace I can see how very little human nature changes. Whiles most of these guys have limited education, they basically behave much like the college-educated, white collar professionals I've worked with in the past. All are given to gossip, innuendo, dirty jokes ("That's what she said" gets a workout in the kitchens, ad nauseum. Remind me to post on that subject sometime), petty jealousies, backbiting, and trying to bed the hottest babe. Of course, the same traits run throughout the people who have no shelter or fixed home as well.

In our case, most of the 'babes' are homeless women who pass through the cafe, or younger women who have been court-appointed to a rehab program sponsored by SA or its affiliates on campus. See previous installments for more info on this. These girls would likely be dubbed 'wild' to say the least. Most are on medication (like much of the SA population including management, many of whom are former homeless people) which makes their behavior and moods difficult to judge.

There's one girl who is apparently a Muslim convert. She's been known to claim she's the reincarnation of a 5,000 year old goddess and has assumed mortal form to judge which humans go to heaven. Said with a straight face. She recently reported that several men exposed their private parts to her ... after climbing up and into her second story window to do so. Never knew flashers made house calls. Coming through the cafe line for breakfast, she asked me where I was from. I said Jupiter, intending to make a joke about Jupiter, Florida. As soon as I said "Jupiter," she said, "Oh. I'm from Chicago." and moved on. At least she didn't claim I exposed myself to her. After all, we were serving sausages that day.

This is why I don't both chasing after women on the SA campus. I get the impression it would be more trouble than it's worth. As I mentioned, the heavy medication makes these girls tough to deal with. As one guy bluntly put it, "These chicks are so freaked out, you might go to bed with one and wake up with your balls in a jar." Frankly, I wouldn't doubt that.

By the way, here's a meaningless anecdote: I've mentioned that SA clients must surrender their medications to the on campus dispensary upon arrival. This is to ensure you're taking only the medicine prescribed and is intended to cut down on drug abuse. Maybe. But it is an annoyance having to go to the dispensary daily to ask for that that is mine already.

Anyway, I asked one of the guys there what the most amount of pills he saw one person take on a daily basis. He said, 18 pills in the morning and 22 pills at night. Makes you wonder is some of those pills weren't intended to counteract the side-effects of other medication. It also points out a concern I have about the pharmaceutical industry overall: Are they creating cures for diseases that may or may not even exist? Sometimes I worry that the antidepressant I take isn't somehow altering my brain chemistry to the point of creating an entirely new personality. That is, could these drugs be overwriting one personality in favor of another? If so, how would we know which is the 'true' personality or person? One more reason why I've dubbed my prescription 'Peronality Pills'.

As I've now been in the SA vocational program over two months, it's interesting to reflect on how many people have left in the time I've been here. By my count there are at least a dozen people who either started with me or were already here who are no longer present. Likely, there are at least twice as many when you count the departure of those I never met. Some of them were co-workers who I really liked. One lady was a diminutive powerhouse who knew her way around the kitchen like she'd been born to it.

She was always on time, seemed to have a lot of common sense, and was someone I always liked talking with. She also had a problem with alcohol. After 'blowing dirty' (failing a breathalyzer test), she was given another opportunity to make good. A few weeks later, she again blew dirty -- over the course of three separate tests. She was summarily 86'd from the property.

Another worker was a gentle giant of a guy who mainly washed dishes in the kitchen. He had a family, and was trying to redeem himself after spending 'x' amount of years in prison on a crack cocaine bust. He always seemed nice and sounded like he had learned his lesson. I often saw him in the common area reading books of a spiritual theme and writing down things in thick notebooks that he assiduously studied. He even gave me a couple of his books and encouraged me to 'give yourself to God, brother.' I was rooting for him to make it. Then he broke curfew by staying out too late and failing both and alcohol and drug test. He too was summarily 86'd.

Others have simply walked away and never come back. One guy who did so later told me (upon seeing him on the street) that he didn't need SA because he already had money. Maybe so. But if that's the case why both with SA to begin with? Most failed clients seem to follow the script of the first two people I mentioned. While I was sorry to see them go, it's tough to feel sorry for them. So co-workers castigate SA, saying they're a bunch of heartless bastards for letting them go. Privately, I disagree. After all, they were adults who understood and agreed to SA rules and principles when they joined the program. How many chances are they supposed to get? At what point do adults finally "get" that they have to kick their habit(s) before life begins to deal them a "fair hand?"

Before my time is up on this computer, let me relate a story of a different sort; one that has a definite surreal edge to it. To date, I've had no bad experiences at SA or with any of my fellow clients. Earlier this morning around 5 am (I automatically rise early now thanks to my kitchen shift) I left my dorm room to go to the bathroom. There was a guy there at the urinals who I recognized but wasn't on a first name basis with. I'll call him Fred because he looks just like a character Dan Ayckroyd played on the old Saturday Night Live called Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute. Click the link to see. Basically, the guy is big, white, fat, and has that 'not all there expression' behind thick Coke bottle lens glasses. He was dressed in tighty-whitely underwear, which didn't flatter his huge beer gut. I walked past him to the stall and I heard him say something. I turned and asked, "What?"
     He said, "Can I touch your head?" He reached his hand down as if to do so. Keep in mind I stand 5'5. Fred is at least a foot taller and must outweigh me by at least 100 pounds.
     I was so stunned I only said, "Why?"
     Fred suddenly starts stuttering, "I -- I've always wondered what it's like to be bald. I've ne-never known ... I j-just w-wanted to touch your head to s-see ..." And again reached out with his hand.
     By now your humble narrator is plenty nervous. 5 am alone in a SA dorm restroom with a Lurch-size guy who has a psycho grin and is actually salivating at the corners of his mouth. Yes, salivating.
     Glancing around for any sharp object to use as a weapon I said, "No, I don't think so. It's just skin, man. Later." I entered the stall and shut the door. Behind he me was babbling apologies and he exited.

Or so I hoped. I stayed in the stall ready to dial 911 with my cell phone. I finally opened the door and peered out. He was gone. I carefully opened the restroom door and looked down the hallway (both ways). Empty. I made it back to my room unbothered and made sure to avoid the guy whenever I saw him. Creepy, what?

And on that note I'll bring this installment to a close. More shenanigans next time we meet. In the meantime, how was your day?

HINJFCA Part Eleven: Taxing Days In The Life

2012-01-07T12:07:00.000-08:00

Wow, it seems like we haven't gotten together since last year! So a happy belated New Year to my followers, all two of you (readership has doubled!). Let's start off by saying your humble narrator wants to start off with a clean slate when he re-enters the work force this year. And that means clearing up any potential tax issues. The last thing I need is to finally get some income and then get an IRS notice about back taxes. So, taking the initative, I took a stroll -- a long stroll up Main Street as it turns out -- to my local IRS HQ which is located in a nondescript, modern office complex off Ogden near the Femont Street Experience.

After reading some severe notices about weapons being prohibited, I walked through a security checkpoint, then entered a large waiting room filled with app. 100 chairs, perhaps a third of them occupied. After taking a number and being told to expect an 60-90 minute wait (what fun), I took a seat and passed the time trying to meditate and wondering what dire fate awaited me once I saw an actual agent. You see, I hadn't filed taxes for quite a long time, so I didn't know what penalties or interest might have accrued in the intervening years. How much could I owe? I figured the best time to confront this issue was now, when I essentially had nothing for the IRS to take. Nothing, that is, except my freedom; they wouldn't put me in jail, right? I thought about this as I meditated.

Then, my number was up ... or should I say my number was called. I entered another office area, this one composed of office cubibles, giving the are the look of a rabbit warren. I located the proper cubicle and sat before a youngish IRS agent seated behind a desk. I could help thinking he looked like the comedian Patton Oswalt, for some reason. After checking my idea, he asked me to punch my SSN into a keypad on the desk. A few moments went by while the computer pulled up the information ...

And suddenly a klaxon alarm starts blasting. Warning lights blare on and off, sweeping the room with swaths of crimson. The Patton Oswalt lookalike appears frightened and runs from the desk. I can tell a full-scale evacuation is taking place, but I can't move. My arms and legs have somehow been bound by metal restrainsts that have sprouted from the chair. A plexiglas tube shoots down pneumatically from the ceiling and lands with a soft thump, trapping me within. Black clad troopers appear, aiming assault rifles at me; I can see red laser dots dancing on my chest (and over my forehead, no doubt). About that time, a man walks up to the plexiglas and peers in with a scowl. In a low, gravelly voice he says, "James Morris, you are in breach of IRS Federal taxation laws and the PATRIOT Act, and are regarded as a threat to the security of the United States." He leaned in closer. Now I want to know what the hell is going on. My name is Jack Bauer, and you will ansmer my questions, DAMMIT!" Then a digital clock appeared, and I heard a sound like a heartbeat go, da-doom, da-doom, da-doom ...

... And then I awoke. Seems I had briefly nodded off during meditation and dreamt the whole thing. How about that? Psyche! C'mon, admit it: I had you on the edge of your seat (or laptop), didn't I? Okay, so it's a tired device (along with the "24 hours earlier" flashback device), but I always wanted to try it. So, what's the truth about my visit to the IRS. Up until the "24" homage, everything really happened. What actually followed was this: The agent told me half of the years I hadn't filed were a wiped clean. The remaining years were examined in tedious fashion with him asking me essentially the same questions over and over; I guess this is required by law or else that guy was an epic sadist, just enjoying my discomfort. The upshot: I don't owe anything, my IRS slate is clean. That's not the end of my debt problems, but I figured it was the one that could potentially cause the most trouble. And when all was said, I must admit the fearsome IRS was actually pretty benign and very helpful -- at least in this case. If I ever make some big money and there's a tax dispute, well, all bets are off. For now though, it's one less worry to worry about.

The worst thing about my IRS visit was the trip getting there. Remember I said it was a long walk? I'm not exagerrating. It's interesting to to see how the scharacter of the same street can morph as you walk along. I started off at Owens and walked south down Main Street. From here you can see clearly the skyline of Las Vegas' downtown, with the Stratosphere dominating the other buildings. Continuing south you see the buildings come closer and the homeless-infested areas of N Las Vegas give way to areas that contains low-income housing and fleabag motels.

Then Main Street leads to the Fremont Street Experience, and all those buildings you spotted on the skyline are now up close and personal: Casinos and hotels like Main Street Station, Lady Luck, The Plaza (home of Oscar Goodman's new restaurant), Binion's, and many more. In this area you still see some transients. But the area is mostly clean (aimed at tourists) and the inhabitants appear more upscale and professional. No homeless camps, or people living out of their vehicles in this part of Vegas. The cars here are newer model Mercedes, Lexus, or Range Rovers. The preponderance of restaurants and eateries precludes any charities dropping off food and toiletries in this part of town. Casino staff is trained to spot and eject anyone who even appears remotely homeless or transient. That means a keen eye is kept on the restrooms of such establishments. And if the floor staff doesn't catch the offender, be assured the security cameras will.

Since it was my off day from the kitchens, I strolled around Fremont Street and took in the atmosphere. It was a bitter irony to realize that only a few years earlier I had been invited to write a comedy skit for a local comic book convention held at the Plaza Hotel. I had a 3-day pass, and had the pleasure of seeing my material (a riff on "The Amityville Horror" and other haunted house movies) performed before a live audience. While I didn't appear in the piece, I recall taking great satisfaction in having written something that was so well-received by an audience. A warm, tingly sensation of pride that I can feel even now. Even so, I couldn't bring myself to enter the Plaza Hotel. That sense of pride warped into overwhelming feelings of shame and guilt that made my flace flush hot at my current situation. How could so much bad stuff happen in such a short time? I turned around and headed north, back to the Salavation Army campus and my current neighborhood.

I've mentioned that my experience with homelessness has been a humbling one. That I've experienced a number of realizations during the past 3 months of my condition (yes, it's been a quarter of a year already; I just had my 60-day review at SA). But this just might be the most humbling situation of all: Recall again the long walk up Main? I actually could have taken the bus. But I'm so short on funds that I decided it would be better so save the $2 fare ($4 round trip) and simply hoof it. I've many many such decisions in the past few months. So let me simply say that a bitter realization of homelessness is that IT SUCKS NOT HAVING MONEY. There you are.

One of the benefits of working in the SA kitchens is that culinary workers have access to all the food. That means many of us manage to sneak all sorts of goodies like candy, cakes -- even real food -- throughout the shift. And while food is prohibited in the SA dorms where I live, it's an open secret that practically everyone sneaks food -- candy bars, chips, sodas, other packaged goodies -- into their rooms. One of my roommates has so many munchies squirreled away that his closet could serve as a mini-pantry. I usually keep some sweets, or fruits like bananas or oranges when I can. I'm too paranoid of being caught during a room check, that I don't want to chance anything more. There are other rules SA posts that are generally ignored: They prohibit laptop computers and portable DVD players in the dorms rooms; yet half the clients have them and openly traded DVDs in view of the cameras. No fraternization between clients, yet guys and girls are known to get together for the horizontal (or vertical) bop with some artful maneuvers.

Many times I think any punishment meted out for violation of these rules is dependant upon the mood of the dorm manager, the case worker, and the overall administrative staff. If someone is having a bad day, the offender is likely kicked off the property (also known as being 86'd). If it's a good day, a minor warning might suffice. And if you manage to be a 'pet' of one of the administrators (especially the campus director who oversees everything; I'll call him simply The Man) you can pretty much cause whatever havoc you like with impunity because you know you'll get away with it. There is such a case where a younger client took such advantage of his 'pet' status that he himself was 86'd after getting other people fired. Turnabout is fair play, as they say ...

As you know, I write these blogs at a loval Vegas library where I have a max of 2 hrs computer time. Beacuse of that, eveything written is basically first-draft stuff, so forgive any glaring spelling or syntax errors; I try to edit as I go along. So, time permitting I though you might be interested in some detail on my daily routine as a client at the Salvation Army. As mentioned, I work in the kitchens. It's an entirely new experience since I've never been involved with the food service industry before (nor have had any desire to be). My hours are 5 am to 1 pm five days a week. I'm not paid because I'm officially a volunteer. The only money I get from SA is a $15/week gratuity.

Your humble narrator is not what you'd call a 'morning person', but I nonetheless wake up at 4 am, shower, shave, dress and make it to the kitchens by 5. I'm lucky in that my work is located where I live, lol. First up, I have a cup of coffee brewed by Nick, the grizzled 80 year old volunteer who looks and sounds like a refugee from a mob flick. After talking with him as he goes about his chores of breweing coffee, setting up cream and sugar placements, etc, I get my assignment for the morning from lead cook Bruce. Bruce is about my height (5'6), bespecaled, and has been a professional cook for over 20 years. He has a noticeable southern drawl and likes to include items like BBQ ribs and pork fritters when they're available.

Often my first assignment is simple: Run sack lunches to Pathways and Safe Haven. These are two major programs that share the Salvation Army campus. Pathways, in the words of a co-worker, is "our nuthouse". To be more charitable, Pathways is where they put people who have such severe mental impairments that they cannot function or live on their own. There are certain patients there who are near-catatonic. There are others who simply like to stare at you with apparent malice. Others seem entirely 'normal'. It's a little reminiscent of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest".

Safe Haven also houses mentally disturbed patients but their emphasis seems to be on alcohol and substance abuse rehabilitation. Their recovery programs include ARP (Adult Rehabilitation Program) and WARP (Womens Adult Rehabilitation Program); you can imagine the riffs made at the expense of that last acronym. Patients/clients from both facilities come to the SA kitchens for their daily meals. Pathways has their own small kitchen area, so we usually cook their meals and they can serve them to the patients who aren't able to leave that facility. The sack lunches are usually pre-made in the morning (lthough I sometimes make them if no one else has), and go to clients or workers whose schedules conflict with food serving hours. It's not unusual to see ambulances and police vehicles parked in front of these buildings. From what I've heard, there's a lot of drama there, often involving suicide or violence against others. I'll spare you details of some of the hygiene issues I've heard about.

There's a lot of cooking activity in the morning at the SA kitchens, as the staff not only prepares our meals, but food for Meals On Wheels, and prepares items for lunch and dinner. As I'm not an experienced cook, I usually get the wuss jobs like making toast. This is especially necessary for breakfast items like gravy on toast, or simply toast on the side for eggs or bacon. Making toast is about as exciting as it sounds, although I use a professional grade toaster that can heat 9-10 pieces of bread at a time. As I've found, there a proper way to make a pan of toast and store it: Never cover it, as the heat causes moisture which makes the toast soggy. There's my culinary tip of the day! Sometimes I'll be drafted to chop meat up for stews or soups that will feed the homeless.

At Salvation Army there are several distinctions in the food service. There's the client breakfast from 6:45 to 7:20 am, where the best food choices are offered and coffee is freely available. The cafe breakfast takes place in the same area, but is open to the public at a cost of $2.50 ($3 for lunch/dinner). These customers are usually street people or low-income individuals; that is, you won't see too many suit-and-tie folks here. Many are regular customers who come to know you by sight if not name. As in any restaurant, some customers are nice, some are rude and demanding, and a few want to cause trouble and must be escorted out by security.

One wrinkle with the cafe operation is that customers to pay in the kitchen. With their money they actually purchase a token from the front desk. The token looks like a poker chip (red for breakfast, blue for lunch/dinner). As I often write up order tickets, that position is in charge of accepting the tokens, which are precounted at the front desk. The idea is that the final amount of token from the cafe match up with the count taken by the front desk beforehand. Usually, it does.

Sometimes, as with what happened with me recently, it doesn't. If you're off the count too often, SA will subtract the missing amount from the ticket taker's gratuity. SA assumes that the person taking the tickets must be pocketing them for their own use (likely selling them to the homeless, as has occurred in the past). That's why they make you sign your name to a document before writing up order tickets and taking tokens for the day. The day of my mistake, I got a peevish visit from the front desk guy, Ken, who has a distinct NYC accent. When he told me I came up short in the token count it shounded like Big Pussy in "The Sopranos" telling me to come up with the vig or he'd bust my kneecaps in front of my kids.

Oops, 15 minutes left in my session, so I may have to continue this next week or whenever I can hijack a computer. Some days in the kitchen I get to learn how to make stuff. I told you about my adventure making French Toast. I recently had a chance to make pancakes (exciting to me because that's one of Hellboy's favorite snacks). I was instructed by a co-worker new to the kitchen, but a veteran of restaurants and food service. Every ment someone who's a real know-it-all about something, but has the practical knowledge to back it up? That describes this guy. He's around 6'2, white, from the east coast juding from his speech, and bears a vague resemblance to Brad Pitt if the actor had pockmarks on his face. Plus, this guy is like a natural born math whiz, able to do all sorts of calculation in his head. He even claims to have come up with a math algorithm to beat the odds at some 21 card game at a casino. For these reasons, I'll refer to this guy as Rain Man or RM.

RM started off our pancake adventure by showing me a recipe that looked like a math equation. Uh-oh. In addition to not being a morning person, your humble narrator is also not exactly renowned for his ability in mathematics. And unfortunately, it's become apparently that baking is more science than art (which would be 'cooking'). RM helped me decipher the equation and get got the ingredients together to make the batter. Despite a small measuring mistake on my part, he showed me how to prepare the fryer (griddle), and pour the batter evenly. In a short time I was actually making pancakes. And to my surprise, the efforts tasted fluffy and, well, professional. My elation soon eroded as I continued standing there flipping pancakes and stacking them into aluminum serving pans. The thing I dislike about kitchen work is the process where you have to basically stand still while the food cooks. It makes my knees cramp and my back hurt more than when I'm moving around.

At any rate, RM and I finished off the pancakes in time for the client breakfast and had plenty left over for the cafe and other obligations. It turned out to be too many pancakes, really; the excess were tossed in the garbage. It's a bit disheartening to see your culinary effort thrown out after so much work. Kind of felt like a reflection on me more than the food quality itself.

RM's a pretty good guy overall but can tend to be full of himself when recounting his mad math skills.
He can also curse harshly enough to make a sailor blush. That's something he should watch. I know I try to curb the curses while in public. I've noticed that if profanity is allowed to become habitual, it'll slip out without my realizing it. And that will usually happen at the worst times. That's especially the case when working at SA, which is a church; they do tend to have a low tolerance for ongoing profanity. RM seems to be developing a rep for 'sucking up' to the SA management, at least amongst the kitchen workers. Could be that they're jealous of the guy's ability and feel threatened by his presence. While I don't doubt the guy's intelligence, I am curious about his background. By his own admission he's just emerged from spending 8 years in prison. My guess is he didn't receive that kind of sentence for jaywalking. It makes me wonder why such intelligent people do stupid things.

As far as having to use math to be an effective cook, I have my own personal equation. It goes like this:

(Waking Up <5 am) - Sleep Time + Lousy {arithmetic skills} - Coffee = [DO THE MATH]

I leave you to work it out.

My other chores in the kitchen can include (but are not limited to) mopping floors and countertops, cleaning, sweeping, and taking out garbage. Some of the nastier chores include cleaning out the grease traps. These are grates in the floor where essentially all of the day's food waste is deposited. It's not difficult once I get started, but seeing the food waste lying there, often in congealed masses of yellowish grease has taken my appetite on more than one occasion. In fact, that reminds me of a major gripe about working in the kitchen: I'm getting far too much detail on how food is prepared. Just because I eat the hamburger doesn't mean I want to meet the cow.

I also work the deep fryer sometimes, making fries, fish fillets, pork fritters and such. It's basically like standing in front of a blast furnace while gallons of grease and oil snap, crackle and pop at you like a vengeful god of fire. In addition, juice containers must contantly be refilled; at full capactiy they weigh enough to crack my spine, so someone else must lift it for me. This is also true of many heavy garbage bags as well as pans filled with food. I wasn't prepared for the weight of such items. There are times I think a kitchen worker needs to be as much weight lifter as cook.

The overall morning 'rush' is usually over by 9. That's usually the time of the unofficial break or lunch. Actually, workers tend to take breaks -- especially smoke breaks -- on the fly, whenever time permits. As for a formal food break, I tend to eat in my spare time and often snack throughout the day, so it's not really a big deal. Since the morning shift is pretty efficient, most cooking/prep tasks are complete by 11:30 am. From then it tends to be fairly easy as the afternoon/evening shift comes on from noon-8pm. Often, I'll kill time by seeking out busy work, just so it doesn't looking like I'm idling. One trick is to take out garbage, since it can take several trips and allows me to go outside; likewise taking out cardboard to the recycling bin.
If nothing else is available, I'll work the dishwasher for a half hour or so until another shift worker arrives. Like I say, anytying to look busy.

I'm normally done by 12:30 pm after which I return to my dorm, shower, and occasinally nap. More often, I'll stay awak so I can write, read, or take a walk. I hate being cooped up in that same room for so often, that any breath of fresh air is welcome. It's usually uneventful for me at SA, since I rarely watch TV or play games in the common room. Once 8-9pm rolls around, it's time to turn in (unless it's an off-day) and face another challenging day in the kitchens.

I actually hate revelaing this stuff to you. Why? Because now that you know how much fun it is, I bet everyone will want to 'go homeless' just to experience the lifestyle. And if too many people go homeless, who'll be left to donate all the cool freebies? Take my advice: Work, have fun, pay your taxes, get your freak on, whatever. Like I said, it sucks not having money; no need for you to experience that frustration first hand.

Now, as it feels my hands are about to fall off my wrists, I'll bid you a fond adieu and leave you with what I may turn into a new feature, depending on the reaction. I hear a lot of bon mots as I cruise the streets and the SA campus and decided to share some of those sayings with you in the form of The Quote of the Day.

Quote of the Day:
"When I don't eat, I'm hungry as s**t!" (Overheard in SA common room)

Coarse but pithy, I'm sure you'll agree. That's a wrap!

HINJFCA Part X

2011-12-31T12:03:00.000-08:00

So I hope all of you and yours had a Merry Xmas or Happy Holidays, or whatever PC euphemism you prefer. Just managed to stop by the library long enough to do some last minute blogging to ring out 2011, a year that your humble narrator would just as soon forget. The Mayans said 2012 is the year the workl ends but my personal Armageddon arrived a year earlier. Well, big deal. If the Mayans were such know-it-alls, why'd they get wiped out? Guess they didn't see that coming, did they? But I digest ...

Did you get all the stuff you wanted for Xmas? I got a secondhand watch and a pair of socks, but I'm not complaining. I actually did need the socks. They came courtesy not of St. Nick but an SA volunteer whom I will dub St. Matthew, or Matt. SA volunteers come in two varieties: Some come from the $8 a night dorms where I originally stayed (btw, those beds are now free from now until the end of winter at which time normal pricing will resume. Not surprisingly, that dorm is full up. In fact, while I essentially breezed into the SA program, there is now a considerable waiting list for the same thing. Like they say, timing is everything). Those dorm dwellers can volunteer to work on the SA campus as kitchen workers, maintenance workers, etc, in return for a free bed and one free meal a day.

The other type of volunteer comes to SA as part of their community service in exchange for paying a fine (or jail time) for, say, too many DUIs. These workers usually stay from 2-5 days depending on their court deal. The dorm volunteers can stay on for years. Perhaps because they're working for room, board and food, I've often noticed the dorm volunteers often work harder that the regular clients like myself. There's a guy who is at least 80 who arrives in the kitchens at 4:30 am to make coffee and help out, then leaves at 7 only to return again for a shift that lasts from 1-7 pm. So far as I know he hasn't missed a day. His name is Nick and while he is a dependable worker, I wonder if he's missed his calling. Standing around 5'7 and 140 lbs, Nick has a wizened wrinkly face and speaks with a gravelly NYC accent that would make him a natural character actor for a Scorcese mob flick. The fact that he curses like a sailor doesn't hurt his image.

Anyway, back to Matt. Matt is a really nice guy, around 60ish, with a bright face and cheerful disposition. He usually does the cleaning chores around the kitchen, wiping down tables and mopping floors, etc. Matt is also what some might term a 'Jesus freak', although that might be harsh. Judge for yourself. Remember I said I got a pair of socks from him? When I mentioned to him that I really needed a pair, he said, "God knew you needed that pair of socks, and he guided them to you. I had nothing to do with it." Or if you give him a compliment about how he mops the floor he'll reply with, "It's not me. It's the Lord working through me that makes the floor so clean." Or when he once invited me to attend his local church services (which I can't because it conflicts with my schedule; no, it really does) he said, "God is guiding me to seek out people to attend this church." And so on. Basically no matter what you talk to him about, Matt will find a way to weave God's guidance into the conversation. Let's say that certain people find the habit annoying.

Some have apparently been offended when he leaves for the day saying, "God bless you." I've never found that offensive, but I have been somewhat amused by his constant evocation of the Lord's presence in everything he does. I've sometimes wonder if God occasionally rolls his eyes and mutters, "Jesus, Matt, give it a rest." For the record, I'm not making fun of Matt. To be honest, I actually envy him. I envy the fact that he has found a higher power he can surrender himself. I envy that he can be so devoted without questioning his faith. I don't doubt his strong faith keeps Matt's disposition amicable and has resulted in a youthful look in his face. If his faith makes it possible for him to find peace within his heart, cause harm to none and simply attempt to share the blessings he has found, who is to say he's wrong? I honestly wish there was something to which I could offer my blind devotion. I expect I'm too much of a doubting Thomas to ever allow myself to do such a thing.

Some other things going on: Over the past couple weeks, my routine has settled down a bit. And that makes me nervous. You see, I don't want to get too comfortable living in what is essentially a homeless shelter. Yet I see many of my fellow clients settling into what seems to be a kind of domestic bliss. They view their time in the vocational program as normal everyday life. They hang out with friends, watch TV in the common room, play foosball and pool, and generally seem to enjoy themselves in this Salvation Army environment. Is it me, or does this seem unnatural?

Speaking for myself, I didn't come here to watch TV, trade DVDs or play games. While I prefer people like me, I didn't enter the SA program to win Facebook friends or have a vacation. I came here to go through the program, re-enter the work force and rebuild my life; and trust me, there's a lot of painful rebuilding ahead. To me it seems abnormal to view this living situation at SA as 'normal'. To me, it's a temporary living condition that I want to escape as quickly as possible. I can't tell you how much I miss living alone, on my own schedule. While it pales in comparison to my former plight, it actually gets tiresome passing in and out of checkpoints while security guards breathalyze you. In all honesty, though, I don't have a problem with SA. They've been very helpful and have provided me with a foundation on which I can re-examine myself, learn new skills, and resume a normal lifestyle.

Another problem I've having isn't with SA per se, but with the general neighborhood itself. While I've described how this area is infested with all types of indigents due to the preponderance of charities and cheap beds, the number of homeless people seems to have grown as the weather has turned colder. This is evidenced by the 'settlments' that have multiplied recently. To the east on Owens Ave you can find a 'strip mall' of tents and shelters erected against a freeway overpass. A few steps farther and you'll find a large open gravel lot. Around this lot are ringed more tents and shelters. Even a few cars are parked there; they presumably belong to homeless people who are sleeping in their vehicles (there are actually websites devoted to living in your car. Google the subject if you don't believe me).

It's strange to see these people milling about like they're out for a stroll in their neighborhood. Stranger still to see trucks and vans filled with food and clothing roll up and hand out the items to the occupants. Why do I say this? While the intentions of those donating the items is no doubt pure, couldn't such actions be viewed as actually enabling the homeless to maintain their current level of existence? One could argue that the homeless are in effect being rewarded by receiving items for free simply because they've chosen to live outside the mainstream of society. Perhaps this is coming off colder than I've intended, but I do feel there is a point where such donations can do as much harm as good. I've seen how the homeless come to depend on these handouts, and it seems to eradicate any compunction on their part to rejoin society.

They know that sooner or later some charity will roll by with free food and clothing (not to mention blankets, toiletries, etc.). While handing out free meals to the homeless at SA, many of them brag about never having to buy a meal all day. They know when churches serve free meals. and they know when and where to go for plenty of handouts. For a time I also stood in line for various stuff, but I've since given that up. I don't like standing in line with a lot of those guys anymore because I don't want to be associated with them. I also don't want to need handouts from anyone, so I've given up on the freebies. I'm not saying it's wrong, just not something I wish to partake of any longer.

Walking westward on Owens Ave to the corner of Las Vegas Blvd North you'll find the largest homeless settlement. Located across the street from a cemetery (the one with the black rooster) it's a sprawling piece of undeveloped acreage that is increasing populated by more and more tents and shelters. Here you'll find a community of homeless so large that food trucks regularly stop by (maybe they take food stamps?); if the settlement gets any bigger, it'll need its own zip code. You'll find families living in makeshift shelters, with their kids using the dirt and gravel lots as a playground. Pieces of furniture like sofas and tables are strategically placed to keep tent fabric from flying off. Drug dealing and prostitution is evident even though NLV cop cars regularly patrol the area.

Oddly, the cops seem more fixated on running off panhandlers than cracking down on the other vice going on in the area. Occupants use the area as a kind of public toilet as well. It's not uncommon to see any of them doing their business in broad daylight. I recently witnessed a sight so disgusting I couldn't eat lunch that day. (No doubt it'll show up on YouTube.) A sewer-like smell is becoming ever more noticeable. You'd think sanitation concerns would be enough to shut the site down. And you have to wonder about the effect this has on the local property values. Many homes are located near this settlement. Would a selling point be, "Offers excellent view of the daily activities of the homeless camp. Watch transients go to the bathroom from your living room window!"

The biggest irony, imo? This homeless camp is located smack across the street from a brand new construction project with a sign that proudly beams, "Welcome to the Great City of North Las Vegas Nevada"!

I recently completed SA's Essential Employment Skills (EES) Classes. It's a series of classes designed for 're-entry'. That is, trying to get clients with substance abuse problems and/or criminal histories to re enter the work force. To that end, there's a lot of obvious stuff taught like, Don't walk into an interview with your iPod blasting. Don't say things to the interviewer like, "Yo what up, homes," or "What it be like, dawg?" Don't wear shorts, don't go into an interview high or buzzed, don't use profanity, don't hit on the secretary (or the interviewer), etc. Stuff that should basically be common sense; and would be viewed as such in most cases. But there are some hardheads for whom common sense might as well be a foreign language.

The teacher of the course is a man named Sam, who has a tendency to drone on and then suddenly pound the chalkboard to emphasize his points. Example: "When you walk in for an interview, do you wear sunglasses? NO! (pound) WRONG! (pound). Do you wear swimming trunks and say, Yo dude got any jobs? What? HELLO?! (pound) WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? (pound). Stuff like that. Sam is very matter of fact and it wouldn't surprise me if he is or had been some sort of a parole officer in his career. I sometimes wondered if he didn't pound the board so forcefully in order to make sure the students were staying awake.

As I've stated before, their programs are really geared toward recovering substance abusers and ex-cons. My own personal problems stem from neither condition. I can tell you it still freaks me out to hear guys (and girls) casually dropping references like, "Yeah, when I was in county lock up ..." or ""We did it differently when I was in prison ...." or "I gotta go meet with my motherf***in' parole officer again," or "Can I get a job even if I have multiple felonies like assault with a deadly weapon on my record?" There are all actual statements I've heard, made as casually as you please. While it's a bit mind blowing to me, these are legit concerns for those affected. Both my SA casework and my shrink have told me that rap sheets make it extremely difficult for ex-cons to get jobs. They can automatically discount any job with any government agency (on any level). And while big name casinos in LV claim to be equal opportunity employers, it's not exactly a secret that ex-cons are wasting their time applying there.

Since my time is dwindling, let me hit a few salient points: On the work front, my kitchen schedule has been changed from 12-8pm to 5am-1pm. Safe to say it's been a shock to my system. While I have managed to make it on time, it still feels wrong to get up so early. I prefer waking up when the sun is warm, or at least visible. The early shift has afforded me the chance to resume cutting meat. I couldn't tell you how many pounds of dead chicken flesh I sliced and diced the other day. I also had a chance to make my first food: French toast.

Well, it's a start. I'm thinking of my own version: French Cajun Toast, which swaps cinnamon for cayenne pepper. I'd say it's a taste treat guaranteed to wake up your body from top to bottom! Most of the guys on the first shift are experienced cooks and have worked in food service for years. The lead cook told me he's a licensed home security specialist. While he made a good living as such, he loves to cook, so money doesn't enter the equation. I've heard similar such stories from other kitchen workers. While many of these guys do have the experience and the talent, they also have records. It'll be interesting to see how many of them land jobs, and where.

I am also thinking about life after SA. I might opt for a casino, since I have no criminal record and my caseworker told me that should help with employment opportunities. One of my co-workers said he thought I'd make a great maitre'd, so I'm looking into that possibility. That position seems to value people skills as much or more than food/cooking skills, so that might give me a shot. Wherever it is, I'd like it to be an entertainment-themed establishment like the Hard Rock Cafe, House of Blues, or a smaller nightclub or dinner theatre. That way, I might be able to put my acting skills to better effect. There's also the chance of working for the National Parks, which might be a great experience. Wouldn't hurt to get out of Vegas for a while. If you have any ideas, pass 'em along.

So I'm closing out 2011 on a far different note than it began. I"m still not sure what to make of it all. There are still the days where I think I dreamt everything and I'll wake up to resume my former life. Other days my mind is preoccupied with what when wrong and what I could have done to avoid it. And other days, like today, I feel discomforted and discontented. But it's not necessarily a bad feeling. It's a core sensation that I want to move on with my life and leave the past behind. Take that for your cliche of the day. At any rate have a safe and happy new year. I'll likely be asleep when 2012 rolls in, so mind yourselves and we'll meet again next year.

Homelessness: It's Not Just For Crackheads Anymore Part Nine

2011-12-17T11:56:00.000-08:00

Previously on HINJFCA:

Unassuming writer and voice actor Jim Morris had been overtaken by his archenemy Major Depressive Disorder. Despite Jim's valiant attempts to fight off the mental malefactor, he finally was overcome by the Major's power and succumbed to his hated -- and mysterious foe? Mysterious? Indeed. You see, the Major had never fully revealed himself until January of 2011. But the Major is a devious foe and carefully calculated his appearances. First as headaches and feelings of confusion experienced by Jim. Then as episodes of severe depression (yes the Major more than lived up to his name), resulting in extended crying jags, thoughts of suicide, and finally the rejection of his entire life. The Major basically caused Jim to simply stop caring about anything: Food, survival, sex, sports, movies, you name it. All the things Jim cared about -- including himself -- were flushed down the proverbial toilet.

The Major savored his victory as Jim was evicted from his apartment, lost most of his possessions, and was near penniless as he was cast onto the mean streets of Las Vegas. This looked like the end for our hero ... But wait! After spending a long night in a public park, a distant ally helped Jim with enough cash to afford a hotel room the following night. Later, Jim found his way to North Las Vegas and the Salvation Army (all recounted in this HINJFCA blog). After some night staying in the homeless shelter dorm, he was accepted into the SA vocational program with the target of working in their kitchens in order to become eligible for their culinary course co-sponsored by the State of Nevada and a local college. Well! It seemed as though things were brightening up for our hero. Or were they? He was still homeless and jobless. And now he was confronted with a whole new challenge in terms of learning about the food service business and dealing with the many volatile personalities found in SA. Will Jim survive? Can he continue his comeback against the Major and ultimately defeat his foe? And most important, will Jim ever get a PS3? These and more answers forthcoming as the HINJFCA saga continues ...

The above was written for readers who are new to this blog and may have wandered in during the middle of these events. My name is Jim Morris. I'm just a guy who has never been in trouble with the law, always played by the rules, and just happened to be afflicted with Major Depressive Disorder. That led to my becoming homeless and having to adapt to a whole new lifestyle as I try to get myself (and my life) back together as I work within the Salvation Army vocational program. This blog is officially called "Homelessness: It's Not Just For Crackheads Anymore" but I use the admittedly convoluted acronym "HINJFCA". For the record, I have never done crack. I don't drink, I don't do drugs, and I don't gamble. I've never been incarcerated, nor have I ever been arrested. My 'rap sheet' would consist of a single moving violation that occurred nearly 30 years ago -- and that was expunged after taking a driver's ed class. My record, as such, makes me an anomaly among my fellow Salvation Army clients (our official designation).

So that's a brief recap. And now, I'm going to wrap up the events that led me to become a client (or perhaps an enlistee) of the Salvation Army: After passing the interviews for the SA vocational programs, I was transferred from the homeless shelter dorms into the Vocation Building located across the driveway from the shelter. (Note that I went through many interviews with SA before being accepted. When I groused about why the process was so tedious, by cousin -- an HR bigwig -- suggested it was to see if my behavior or appearance varied from one meeting to the next. That is, did I come in wasted, drunk, smelling like a goat, etc. Turns out, my cousin was exactly right. Well done, cuz.)

So guess what happened my first day in the new digs? I went to a bare bones classroom where I had to fill out yet another pile of forms, releases, etc. I was given an ID badge and assigned a caseworker by the name of Carla. She's a tall, gull-bodied black woman with a strident voice and energetic personality. I must say I was transfixed by her rear end, which resembled a couple of soccer balls struggling to escape a tight skirt. She showed me around the facility. It's a three story building with minimal decorations save for a few pictures with a patriotic theme and many notices and bulletins plastered throughout. Across from the main lobby on the first floor is the common room which contains a large flat screen TV which has been the cause of many near-fatal disputes among clients. There's also a pool table, a foosball table, and a small 'library' consisting of books donated to SA. Clients must sign in and out at the front lobby whenever they leave the campus area and ID badges must be left there and retrieved upon return. Curfew is 8pm S-Th, midnight on F-Sat.

The first floor contains the kitchens and adjacent cafe area with several round dining tables. The cafe is open to the general public for breakfast, lunch and dinner with meals costing approximately $3. Next door to that is a large room filled with long tables which serves as the clients' eating area. This is where I take the majority of my meals at SA. Food is served cafeteria-style with trays, self-serve sections and the main food counter. To get meals, clients must present both their photo ID and a valid meal card, the color of which changes upon issuance on a weekly basis. To get the meal card, SA requires that you apply for Food Stamps (SNAP), which is actually a plastic EBT card ala a debit card. You must apply for this within 3 days of acceptance into the vocational program (informally called simply, 'the program' by staff and clients).

I applied at the Welfare located within the Catholic Charities complex. I was expecting a drawn-out, day-long experience, but such was not the case. I sat in a crowded room filling out a lot of paperwork, which in returned. I was told I would have my interview with a caseworker that very day (within an hour, actually). While waiting I noticed that many Welfare applicants got into arguments with the workers there. It seemed there was a lot of confusion and chaos applicable to both sides. (Not helping matters is that other social services have offices located within the same room, so it's very cramped.) I saw several people shouting and finally escorted away by security guards. One woman broke down in tears after being told she would have to fill out an entire new application; she filled out the previous one with information that was apparently falsified. After meeting my caseworker (a guy who looked like Beau Bridges and spoke with a drawl) he said I was approved and would have my EBT card before leaving the office. That amazed me; I was expecting it to be mailed to me within 2-3 weeks. I guess my homeless circumstance and SA connection helped expedite matters. Anyway, I walked out of the office with my very own EBT card. It took 51 years, but I finally joined all the impoverished masses subsisting on Food Stamps and suckling the Government (or should that be 'Givernment') teat. Go, me!!

Of course, I had to sign the card over to SA. Here's a bit of false advertising on their part concerning the program: While they do cover your room, board and utilities, they don't actually pay for your food. They do provide meals, but they keep your EBT card on file and charge $50 a week for meals (not bad considering it comes out to $7 a day for 3 full meals). But the cost of meals is actually being paid for by Uncle Sam, not SA. Perhaps a minor quibble but I found it a bit irritating that I had to surrender the card. However, they do return it to you whenever you leave the program (whether by your own volition or by dismissal, which is far from uncommon here).

The second floor of the vocational building contains men's and women's dorms for those in the program. (There's about a 8:1 ratio of men to women here) The third floor houses veterans and others who pay monthly rent to SA. This includes graduates of the program who have become gainfully employed and choose to stay on the campus. Grads can do that for up to 1.5 years after graduation. Not a bad way to save money as rent averages around $200-250/month and that includes utilities, laundry service, etc. My dorm room houses up to four guys, as do all rooms on the second floor. The room itself is plainly furnished with 4 single beds, nightstands and stand alone closets. Sheets and blankets are provided by SA. My room is located right by the railroad track, so it's not uncommon to hear trains rumbling by day and night. (The third floor usually houses 2 guys to a room but that varies) My roommates are Frank, Will, and Derrick.

Frank is a white guy, 48, about 5'7 with a beer gut and an outgoing personality. He works in the kitchen with me, and has an outgoing personality along with an occasionally tiresome sense of humor. He provides a lot of unintentional humor from his stories concerning is misadventures with Internet dating and chat rooms. I'll probably dedicate a whole segment to his stories. Will is a black guy in his mid-late 30s from NYC who speaks rapidly and with so much slang it's difficult for me to understand him at times. He's pretty cool although he likes to play DVDs on his laptop late at night with the sound cranked. Derrick was likely a football player at one time. He's around 6'5, app. 240 lbs, black, large-framed with a deep voice. You might say he's a man of few words as he rarely speaks. I get the sense that he's smarter than he lets on. While he can crack the occasional joke he tends to keep to himself. Fine with me; I'd rather had a roommate who was too quite than too talkative. One strike against Derrick, though: While everyone in the room snores on occasion, this guy is by far the loudest offender. The deep snoring can make the walls vibrate. Problem is, Derrick is so big that we're all afraid to complain to him.

After showing me to my room, Carla laid out my schedule: Occasional meetings with her for status updates and performance reviews. I got the schedule for Essential Employment Sessions (EES) which are classes designed to help clients reintegrate into the work force. To be blunt, EES is aimed at the many ex-cons and recovering substance abusers within the program. I'll recap some of my experiences in the class and the sometimes eccentric behavior of the instructor Jay in upcoming installments. The classes meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays for around 90 minutes each. I also got my first work assignment: The laundry, located in the basement with the maintenance department. I was told the kitchen crew was full and it would be two weeks before I could sign on there. That turned out to be true. To be honest, the laundry detail was pretty peaceful and very easy.

Washing was simply a matter of shoving however many clothes would fit into the aluminum machines. Detergent, bleach, etc. was added automatically in pre-measured doses. Industrial sized dryers had most loads done with 30 minutes. You could come and go as you pleases as long as the clothes were done. I often read books, or took off to eat. My partner was a 19-year-old black girl with a sweet disposition and a chunky body. When she told me she'd been in jail several times I didn't believe her. I would later find out that many younger girls who appeared at SA had backgrounds of criminal behavior and substance abuse. Don't know why that surprised me but it did. Anyway, after two weeks I was, as promised, transferred to the kitchen. I actually regretted leaving the simple tasks of the laundry, not to mention the solitude of the basement.

I was formally introduced to the head of the kitchen, Chef Mike. He's around 60 with a clean-shaven head that resembles the shape of the classic light bulb. He gave me my schedule and my very own uniform -- actually a white coat with black trim. It's necessary because it soon becomes splattered with various food and drink stains. After a brief tour of the kitchens I was introduced to some of my future co-workers, a few of whom will figure prominently in upcoming segments.

And you know what? That just about brings us up to date on the events that have brought us to the present. More detail will be added along the way, including more interactions with -- and observations concerning the many homeless and some of the characters I've met during my time in North Las Vegas. In that regard nothing has changed. If anything, the amount of homeless 'camps' has increased as the weather has turned colder. Hopefully, I can provide some pictures in future updates. For those who don't know, I type these columns from a public library in Las Vegas as I have no access to the Internet. Also note all these columns are written as first drafts, so you might forgive any glaring mistakes or omissions (or don't; I could frankly care less, but I like to be diplomatic). If you really want to see a polished version of these events, have some publisher throw me some bones as in $$ (I do care about that).

At any rate if I don't get a chance to post before Christmas, let me wish you and yours Happy Holidays. And remember that so many of our sacred traditions are actually based on pagan customs and heathen ceremonies once thought to evoke the devil and other malevolent entities from beyond the pale. Hope that warms the cockles of your heart!

HINJFCA Part Eight

2011-12-10T11:46:00.000-08:00

Okay, so where was I?

Oh yeah, wrapping up events that have led me to my present circumstances at the Salvation Army. Well, you already know that I've been assigned to the kitchens. This is in conjunction with a culinary program they sponsor with the State of Nevada and a local college. You have to gain some experience in food service before they'll interview you for entrance into the culinary program. It's evidently a big deal, as SA will pay all costs (tuition, books, uniforms, tools, etc) associated with the program while also providing transportation to and from the college. Here's the kicker: once you sign your name to the dotted line, there's no turning back. That means if you accept the offer and later change your mind, you're on the hook for the full cost of the culinary program; in addition, you get booted out of Salvation Army as well.

So it's obviously an important decision, one you can't make lightly. I'm scheduled to go in this Tuesday for a formal interview with the people who run the program. Lord knows how that will go. But some other kitchen workers who have enrolled say acceptance is pretty much a given since they're desperate to meet a quota: They need at least 15 people to enroll in order to have the program at all. So far they apparently have 6-7. I'll really have to give this some thought because I'll tell you straight out that I don't especially enjoy the work associated with the kitchen. One thing I didn't count on was the sheer weight of the items I've encountered in this work. It's not uncommon for food pans and drink coolers (filled) to weigh 50 pounds. While that weight is negligible for some of the guys who spent their days pumping iron in prison, it's a bit much for your humble narrator to bear. And you know that saying about too many cooks? Trust me, it's based on fact.

While giving you some updates on current events, let me tell you that it's been 30 days since my acceptance into the vocational program. That's an important mark because many of the clients don't make it that far -- no kidding. It's not uncommon to new new faces pop up every few days, only to have them disappear soon after. Make no mistake that while SA is a charitable organization, to are strict in their rules and swift to act when any of those rules are broken. Many clients get busted for the big infractions: Caught with drugs in their possession or failing a random drug test; also known as 'pissing dirty' or 'dropping a dirty', this is likely the most common reason clients are dismissed. Of course sheer stupidity on the part of a client is common as well: One woman decided it was a great idea to drink a 40-ouncer right in front of a video monitor. Obviously not ready for her close-up.

Once an offense is confirmed SA wastes no time in getting the offender off the premises. Even smaller offenses like failing a random room inspection can result in trouble. The other day I and my roommates were subject to such an inspection. One of the guys got a citation for leaving his bed messy (it was) and was given a citation. As a first offense, likely nothing will happen. But SA takes even the smaller details seriously, and those small infractions, if continued, can result in dismissal. I suppose SA has the right, since they're footing the bill for all this. Also, I think clients forget the fact that they stay and work with/for SA at the behest of the organization. Perhaps it's human nature but I've found that many clients and homeless people get awfully picky about the things they are given (most often free of charge). Beggars can't be choosers doesn't apply to many of these guys. There's no law that says SA (or anyone) has to provide the services they do.

On a much smaller scale, there was an incident with the flat screen TV in the common area. That being, clients fighting over the remote control in order to decide which program to watch. The shouting got so loud that it was heard by the Big Man (that being the SA Director of Operations), who later decreed a much stricter schedule for watching TV. It doesn't affect me so much because there's rarely anything on that I want to watch (aside from football). Besides, I didn't join the program to watch TV. But the Big Man right pointed out that watching TV in the common room is a privilege, not a right. Too many clients seem to forget that.

30 days is also important within the SA program because that's when the client receives their first review. Your humble narrator is proud to announce that he aced his caseworker's review by scoring 100%. No infractions, no write-ups, no conflicts, etc. While I thought that was par for the course, I was told many guys can't make it that far without some sort of confrontation. Anyway, yours truly has been a good, boring lad and so made the cut, which includes a bump-up in gratuity as well. I'm proud to tell you that based upon a 40-hour work week I'm now making app. .33-cents/hour. Take that, Bill Gates! My other review was for my job performance as rated by my kitchen boss. A bit misleading since I've only been in the kitchen two weeks or so, but 30 days is 30 days I guess. Anyway, I scored a 98 out of 100. My drawbacks were speed in preparing food and taking initiative in finding stuff to do ... or asking what to do. I'm not really sure. Listening might be a drawback, now that I think of it. Anyway, I was a good enough review. I signed off and was feeling pretty good about myself. Two good reviews in the same day. And then ... tragedy.

Well, that's a strong word. More like 'unnecessary annoyance set in'. I'll be detailing these co-workers in upcoming installments but for now let me say I like the kitchen boss. He's one of the loudest individuals I've ever met, but he's a good guy overall and really knows the food service industry. Because he oversees the entire kitchen he's not always around to train me, so that duty falls to his second in command. This is a hulking Hawaiian dude who, no surprise, is an ex-con. His backstory of dealing drugs and fighting with various gang bosses in Los Angeles sounds like a Miami Vice episode; Michael Mann would love this stuff, very crime noir. That aside, this Hawaiian dude is a good guy, but a bad supervisor. He knows his stuff in terms of food preparation, but his people skills are about as delicate as a boulder rolling downhill. In short, he has a tendency to tell me 3-4 things to do, then walk off without showing me how to do any of the tasks(!). Or he lets his emotions come to the fore and show his anger by giving off looks and vibes like he wants to run a knife through my throat.

My guess is that that kind of approach worked well in prison. But in the 'real world', I have the feeling he'd get a lot of employee complaints about his manner and approach. Then again, maybe it's me. I'm the first to admit I have a lot to learn about the culinary trade. Maybe it's just not my thing. Yet it seems my inexperience might be taken into consideration, at least to a degree. From what I can tell, most of the guys there have at least some small previous experience in the food industry. I'm supposed to know everything in two weeks time? I will say, though, that I kind of like serving food along 'the line.' That is, taking orders, putting the food together, serving the customers. I think I like it because it's fairly nonstop and I get a chance to talk with people; time seems to go by quicker when I'm in that position. Could be it's the only thing close to performing the SA kitchen provides. I actually think my sense of humor might be one of the things that keeps my situation as bearable as it is.

Anyway, the Hawaiian hulk dude and I have a few words. No strong, no shouting or anything like that. But it's the closest I've come to having an actual 'confrontation' as such. Basically he said I was too slow. He was upset because another area of the kitchen I'd been working in -- along with 3 others -- was left unmopped. My 'punishment' was to mop the whole area myself, so that it would 'never happen again'. Yeesh. There are times when I like to make smartass, offhand comments when confronted by such self-important, petty blather. I didn't this time because A) I didn't want to get squashed like a bug; and 2) I actually wanted to hear what he had to say; which as it turned out was nothing memorable. I inwardly rolled my eyes.

He said something to the effect of "You may think I'm harsh, but I'm a good guy." I said, "I do think you're a good guy. You're just not a good supervisor." Since I'm here writing these words, I didn't get squashed. More interesting, he didn't reply even though I know he heard me. Maybe his reply was in not speaking to me the rest of the day. And do you want to know something ironic? I later checked with the people I was working with and found that they had already mopped the floor hours earlier(!). It made me wonder if Mr. Hawaiian Punch wasn't making the matter personal. Funny, isn't it. A few weeks ago I was writing about trying to keep a roof over my head and stay off the streets. Now I'm writing about petty confrontations with co-workers. I wonder if I'm taking too much of my SA experience for granted? It seems to easy -- too easy -- to slip back into familiar patterns of human behavior, regardless of how serious our circumstances.

Hmm. This session is coming to a close, and I still haven't managed to wrap up some loose ends of my tale. Hang loose, my brethren. We'll certainly tie up those threads in the next installment, or my name isn't Bullwinkle J. Moose! It isn't, but so what?

HINJFCA: Coming Attractions!

2011-12-03T12:30:00.000-08:00

Another one of my truncated posts due to time constraints at the library. Just wanted to touch on a couple of items in brief. I know the language in this blog (and the subject matter) can get a bit dicey for some tastes. Some people might even be offended by the material. While I'm not trying to repel readers or gross anyone out, I do try to present the situations I've experienced in as true a fashion as possible. That means I try to reproduce the language used in such situations as well. Of course, this includes profanity. As it happens, I'm not the biggest fan of profanity. I try to use it as minimally as possible when I'm in public because I don't want to present myself as some common, foul-mouthed street miscreant.

In my experience those people who curse constantly tend to be the most ignorant people. But since many of the characters I've encountered during my homeless sojourn have little if any education, and because their life experience has largely been on the streets, they express themselves with profanities. Hence, that's how I depict them when representing them in this blog. So if you see things like f**k, or motherf***er popping up fairly frequently, I'm just trying to delineate the person for you, not get my jollies by stringing together every obscenity I can think of. After all, I can hardly have these guys sounding like Harvard professors or elite literati.

I'm actually sorry to see profanity used so often -- and this cuts through all classes. I think the country (and the world) has become a much coarser and vulgar place because of the prevalence of profanity. As a writer I hate seeing this happen because profanity loses its capacity for shock value. The f-word and permutations thereof used to be strictly verboten; now it's everywhere, uttered causally by anyone from 7 top 70 years of age. I'll put myself to the task of inventing new curse words that will cause your ears to spontaneously combust from outrage. And you're welcome.

As for what I've been up to? Well, more of the same at Salvation Army. I told you last time that I was accepted into their vocational program; it's now been approximately a month since I started. I'll finish up the backstory and some of the tasks I've been involved with in the next installment. For now, think of this as my blog's version of a coming attractions trailer:

In the next few installments of "Homelessness It's Not Just For Crackheads Anymore:"

THRILL to the new characters your humble narrator encounters. You'll never forget the nameless, bug-eyed Junkie With No Name who battles for supremacy of the TV in the common room! Or how about the Big Guy Everyone is Scared Of because he sits in the corner and constantly talks to himself?

MARVEL at the ex-meth addict and drug dealer who transformed himself into a beatific, Yoda-like sage who dispenses wisdom while pushing a mop! He'll make you believe illegal drugs are good for you!

YOU WON'T BELIEVE the lead cook in the kitchen who bellows orders in a voice so loud he can be heard across Nevada into Arizona and beyond!

OGLE the sultry sirens your humble narrator meets while traveling through the wilds of the Salvation Army campus. Will these lethal lovely ladies seduce your narrator with their womanly wiles?

SEE the various characters of the Salvation Army as they struggle to stay awake during class after class of nerve-wracking methods on how to reintegrate themselves into society -- you fell asleep right then, didn't you?

STAY TUNED! In the coming installments you'll have a first hand glimpse into the petty annoyances of communal living! See if your humble narrator can fend off the malevolent microbes expelled by his fellow dorm inhabitants! Find out if your narrator can weather the senses-shattering racket of grown men snoring like bull elephants on the rampage! Will he have the fortitude to withstand the rotten-egg stench of intestinal gas that pervades the dorm room on a constant basis? And can you predict the mind-numbing secret your narrator uncovers while innocently pilfering a banana from the SA kitchens? Neither can he -- that's because he hasn't written it yet!

All this and more will be revealed as your humble narrator continues his journey through the netherworld of ex-cons, shell-shocked veterans, recovering booze, drug and alcohol addicts, and oh yeah -- the hordes of homeless looking to score free stuff!

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! Believe it or not, everyone your humble narrator has met during his Salvation Army tour IS ON MEDICATION! EVERYONE! Including your humble narrator!

So there you go. Stay with me as we travel down this dark road together, and slowly make it to the other side. Remember, it's only a thin membrane that separates the fortunate from the unfortunate. And if you believe that, I have some old Enron stock to sell you!

HINJFCA Part Seven

2011-11-28T15:48:00.000-08:00

There are those times when it feels as though the universe conspires to thwart your every goal. Those occasions when you're striving for one thing and the exact opposite occurs. That pretty sums up my weekend, so I hope you had a better one. My bad experiences in the SA kitchens will be saved for a future installment of this blog; suffice to say (using a culinary reference of sorts) it feels like my goose is cooked, along with any semblance of my manhood.

At any rate, we're wrapping up the events that led me to that supremely messed up weekend, so let's continue. After my decision not to join the vagrants and transients of Las Vegas, I started asking around the SA administrative offices for information on any programs they might have that concentrated on helping a person regain an entry to society. In fact, they have a series of vocational programs, as explained to me by one of their caseworkers. Once you join the program, SA will foot the bill for your room and board. This is repaid with volunteer work on the part of the program participant (known as a 'client'), which can involve maintenance work, a laundry detail, or other types of manual labor intended to get the client back in gear for gaining a regular job in the 'real world'.

When asked what sort of job I'd be interested in, you might not be surprised to find they had nothing in my chosen field of voiceover work or entertainment. When I said the only job I likely wouldn't be interested in was food service, the caseworker went on to tell me all about their culinary program, which involves a detailed course sponsored by a local college (they offer 7 credits upon completion) with all expenses footed by the state of Nevada. While I thought she misunderstood my comment about food service (restaurant work has never interested me) I had to admit, the culinary course she described sounded interesting enough for me to agree to give it a shot. If nothing else, I could use the college credits.

(This might be a good place for your humble narrator to fess up that he is a college dropout. Never mind from which prestigious schools; I won't besmirch their reputations by associating them with me. Suffice to say that I never had much patience for the classroom even though I was a good enough student. But I always felt suffocated in school, and sitting in classrooms often led to panic attacks which made me antsy and also led to Irritable Bowel Syndrome among other malfunctions. Like many problems in my life, I believe these problems can likely be traced back to an undiagnosed case of depression. So let that be a lesson to you kids out their: Stay in school and get your heads examined regularly.)

After reading some literature, I was given some paperwork to fill out. The paperwork was actually a test composed of an essay question ("Why do you want to join the SA Vocational Program?") and a few problems designed to gauge language and math skills. As in school, I had little trouble with the language portion of the test. My problems arose with the math portion. Even thought it was 5th grade level stuff, I still sweat bullets trying to figure it out. To be fair I did okay with basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. My arch nemesis has always been fractions, and time had changed nothing in this regard. Speaking of time, it's been some four decades since I tackled fractions, and I wasn't any good at the stuff then. What could I do when faced with a problem for which I had no solution?

Easy. I took a WAG (wild ass guess) -- which turned out to be wrong. I later found out from the caseworker that almost every applicant was tripped up by fractions, for a reason I detailed above: It's been so long since dealing with the problems that people forget how to do them. There's another lesson, kids: When in doubt about anything always take a WAG. And take those fractions seriously. I handed in the tests after taking the full allotment of time and was told to check back in after the weekend (this was on a Friday). I was a little nervous about that. Even though the SA beds were only $8 a night, the funds my cousin sent me were running low. I had really hoped the application might have been approved on the spot.

However, I made it through that weekend hoping that I would be accepted. Most of the people who took the test seemed to pass and went on to become clients themselves. One guy who had been in the test group with me had just done a 5-year stint in prison and said he actually was approved on the spot. This guy ("Dave") was an interesting enough fellow that I'll digress a bit and tell you some of his story (as he told it to me). The reason I do this is because his story had an interesting -- and somewhat sad -- ending where his SA experience was involved.

"Dave" was a white guy, stood about 5'9, 160 pounds and had reddish-gray hair which showed considerable balding on top. He was 43 but looked older. He had been incarcerated for 5 years for check fraud. He spent his time quietly enough in a cell that had cable TV (basic cable only, but still) for $11 a month. He said it was his first time in jail and he was understandably scared at being incarcerated. His cellmate ('cellie') was a multiple time offender (assault, grand theft auto) who knew the system and served as his mentor. Dave said he actually came to like prison life. Everything was regulated and he never had to think for himself; he was always being told what to do, and had a regular schedule to live by 24/7, 365 days a year. He even acquired a taste for the food.

Finally, he was released and in an arrangement with the prison, given a bed at the Salvation Army shelter I was staying at. In fact, he arrived the same night I did. As I spoke with him over the next few days, he told me more about himself and his background: His family was evidently loaded; his father was some CEO of a railroad and his sister was married to the CEO of Verizon Wireless. He said his mother wired him $500 upon release from prison. (I never checked on this because I figured it was a lot of crap. As you'll learn, your humble narrator was wrong.) A friend gave him $5 to play the slots and he parlayed that into $300 (!). Add to that his instant acceptance into the SA program (apparently this is common practice with ex-cons) and it seemed Dave was walking along a charmed path in his post-prison life.

Dave often told me how much he wanted to start over. "I just want a simple life," he said. He had been into drugs and alcohol, and wanted to get away from all that temptation. Perhaps get back with his ex-wife who had relocated to Seattle. He even gave $20 to a number of people he met on the streets and in the SA courtyard. He said it was his way of starting over and 'giving back' for all his good fortune. I noticed he started hanging around with a couple -- male and female -- who looked like transients. It seemed they became fast friends.

One night in the dorms, Dave went on about starting over, his new life, etc.  (He could often drone on and on even though he had good intentions.) He was especially excited about talking with h is ex-wife. It seemed she still loved him and wanted to see him again. The sincerity in his face and in the tone of his voice made you want to root fro the guy.

The next day I had some errands to run so I didn't return to the SA grounds until 3pm or so. Dave was there in the courtyard and I thought I'd say hello. He didn't notice me because he was talking to the couple he had met. I sat nearby and listened. As he spoke to his friends, Dave seemed like a completely different guy. Where he was usually laid back, he was now jumping around frantically as he told his story. Where he was usually soft spoken he was now loud and boisterous. His story went like this (bear in mind I witnessed none of this firsthand):

He had been sitting in the courtyard and people had been coming up asking him for cigarettes. Dave became so annoyed that "I jumped up in the middle of the courtyard and challenged all those motherf***ers to either stop bothering me about the damn cigarettes or fight me right then and there! You should have seen everyone, man! They were totally tripped out, seeing me get up there and call them out!" Apparently no one accepted his challenge, but a couple of security guards were called over to calm him down. "Yeah, they said if I hadn't been an ex-con, I woulda been 86'd from the program and from SA." (The benefits of graduating the penal system I guess.) Dave went on to rail against the SA program: "All those people are so beneath me, man. And the jobs are bull***t." And here was the big revelation, and perhaps the reason for his change in demeanor (although I suspect some substance abuse): His mother was wiring him an additional $8,000.  That's some mom.

With his new found riches Dave said he was going to get an apartment and pay off a six-month lease. His next move would be to "Kidnap a drug pusher and steal all his drugs. It's gonna be wall-to-wall meth! I'm just gonna do drugs for six months straight!" He told his friends that they'd be living with him in this supposed dope palace. When one of them asked what they'd do after six months. Dave said, "My mom'll give me more money. I'll just make sure I'm clean before she gets here, and she'll give me money and a new car! I'm the baby of the family. They'll do anything for me!"

It was amazing to me to witness Dave's sudden swing in mood and temperament. Hardly 24 hours ago he was singing the praises of a simple life and now he was ready to move in with a couple of strangers and do drugs for six months straight. Of course, there was always the chance he was lying. I won't keep you in suspense about how his story ended. Although I kept expecting him to leave at any moment, Dave actually did enter the program with me. They assigned him to maintenance duties, but he didn't seem happy about it. As our schedules diverged, I saw less of him and figured he was lying about the money and the rest of it.

One night someone told me Dave had disappeared. Someone had seen him around 11 pm walking toward the SA front gate. They figured he was taking a late night walk. But that was the last anyone ever saw of Dave. There was talk that he had received $8,000 and had given away DVD players to some friends before leaving.  While he gave no inclination that he was on his way out, Dave had evidently been planning his departure for some time; he left nothing of value behind.

That's the way it plays out for some SA participants. Some guys actually do walk out and never return. Dave's story affected me because of his abrupt change in character. And while I have no right to feel this way, it's like Dave let me down somehow. (He sure let me down in not giving me a damn DVD player, anyway.) I guess he was telling the truth about his family having money. I sometimes wonder what happened to him. Did he get that apartment with the couple and start on a drug binge? Will he get arrested and return to prison? Will he wind up on the street? I'll likely never know.

But since this is my story and not Dave's, let me return to the main storyline of this blog. The following week I returned for an interview with the caseworker and was surptised to find I actually did well on the math portion of the test (fractions excluded, of course). At that time, I was given another test (spelling, and I aced it thank you), and another couple of forms to fill out. After all that, I figured I'd get a decision, right? Wrong. I'd have to have another interview with another caseworker; and this one would actually decide whether or not I was accepted into the program (not entirely true btw). Well, I really was sweating bullets again because my funds were in the danger zone, so I needed a decision quick.

And as it happened, I did get a quick decison the very next day. And while you know the outcome of that decision, your humble narrator is once again strapped for time here at the library computer. So this will serve as a natural break, or cliffhanger if you will. Btw, is this a bad place to point out that this blog sometimes contains explicit language and subject matter? Okay, in the future I'll post that advisory at the top of the column. Next segment should bring things up to the present, so bear with me.

HINJFCA Part Six ( Now w/Bonus Video!)

2011-11-26T12:57:00.000-08:00

Happy belated Thanksgiving to you all. Hope it was filled with turkey and pumpkin pie all served up in a nice, cozy Norman Rockwell-like setting. For myself, I had a nice dinner served to me by the kind folks from Circus Circus. Well, it was served to everyone at the Salvation Arny Vocational Building, not just me. But those guys and gals made me feel like they were serving only me. Also in attendance was a news crew, filming the event for the requisite warm and fuzzy feed-the-homeless segment you see on all the local news channels.

The only thing missing was the roving reporter taking part in handing out the meals to the hopeless, homeless transients. Maybe we didn't look indigent enough to warrant a guest serving from one of the reporters. For the most part I spent turkey day in the SA kitchens where I am now assigned, and for the record saw none of the football games, which was always a Thanksgiving Day tradition with me. And you thought homelessness wasn't difficult? Lord, the hardships I endure!

If you're not too wasted from your tryptophan rush (or too obliterated by fighting the Black Friday crowds; incidentally, what did you buy me?), read on for more updates from the homeless front courtesy of yours truly. Like I said in the last installment, I'll try to move the narrative ahead a bit faster so I can bring up up to date on all the enervating events and captivating characters I've met during my sojourn at the Salvation Army. So where was I ...

Ah, yes. I was staying in the SA homeless shelter men's dormitories and I was about to tell you about the farting that took place every single night I was there. The omnipresent flatulence was actually less annoying that the concomitant snoring that assaulted my ears. That's because there is only so much gas the human body can expel through the anus whereas snoring is a byproduct of breathing. It's times like these that I thank the heavenly powers that the anus was not designed for breathing. Imagine methane being expelled in every breath; now that I think of it. that's kind of what went on in those dorms at night: Anal breathing. Yes, it's a nice phrase but don't bother copying it because it's already registered. (By the way, have I used the words anus and anal enough for you? Does it make me an a-hole?)

I've often thought the quality of human farts can be described as military weapons, and much of this will be self-explanatory: You have the Bombers, which blast the air with a particularly horrible fecal stench, accompanied by an ear-shattering blast of noise. Conversely you have the stealth variety of gas attacks, popularly known as SBDs (Silent But Deadly). These farts are especially treacherous, given there is no advance warning which makes the offensive odor even more noxious than usual.

Then there are the Intermittent Burst variety of fart, which seem to shoot out of the offender's backside with a machine-gun like cadence. Screechers emit a high-pitched whine which sound like air being let out of a balloon. Bunker Busters are related to the aforementioned Bombers. The BBs however, are emit an especially deep, gutty roar from remote regions of the intestines and can sound more like a belch than a fart*. You can usually tell what the offender previously ate for lunch or dinner from the smell of this classification of fart.

(*Of course, one could refer to a fart as an anal belch, and a belch as an oral fart.)

As it now occurs to me that I, a 51-year-old man (and supposed adult), have been delineating the nature of flatulence for the past several minutes, I can't help but wonder if this is one of the character defects that led me to my current unhappy circumstance(s). At any rate, you get the idea. To use the military weapon analogy to conclude this segment, let's say the SA dorms were battlegrounds of flatulent warfare all night long.

Now then. You had to be out of the dorms by 7am, at which time the building was locked and cleaned. Occupants aren't able to enter the dorms again until 5pm. Many of the guys had part-time or full-time jobs they went to. Others apparently drifted about town the entire day. There was one guy who rode the bus back and forth across town all day. Other guys would go off and panhandle. Still others would just wander around the SA courtyard visiting with other homeless friends who were 'roughing it' on the street, or would hang out in the DRC building playing cards or dominoes. Usually they would stay outside where they could freely smoke.

Directly in front of the SA building on West Owens you'll often see a line of transients hanging around. They're waiting for the occasional church group of community activist group that arrives semi-regularly in a parking lot across the street. These groups usually bring meals, toiletries, clothing and other items for the homeless (I personally received food and toiletries and a brand-new blanket from one of these groups. One of their reps just walked over and gave me the stuff. I must appear more destitute than I intended.)

As mentioned, the area of North Las Vegas where the SA shelter is located is home to other agencies that seek to help the homeless. I say "seek" to help them because not all of the homeless want help -- from the SA or anyone else. Maybe it's an unpopular notion to say (or write) this, but here goes. Many homeless people are homeless because they choose to be. They prefer that particular lifestyle and have no desire to participate in conventional society.

How do I know this? For a couple of days, I basically drifted about the area between those hours of 7am and 5pm trying to wrap my head around my situation. I was still shell-shocked by the confluence of events that had occurred so suddenly that I was, for want of a better term, numb to the world. So with the burden of dragging my luggage around, I was freer to walk and explore the area, and meet some of the people. I'll freely admit that for a time I considered joining those denizens of the streets. I would look at some of the stragglers and wonder if I could maintain such an existence. I can tell you that there is free food all over Las Vegas; if you hear otherwise, it's a myth.

The homeless benefit from innumerable organizations that give away clothing and other items, much like I detailed above. With a mailing address of 'General Delivery' and proof of ID (which can be accomplished by a friend vouching for you), the homeless can receiver Food Stamp benefits (although the program is now called SNAP and entails usage of an EBT Debit Card w/PIN number). There are programs that provide free medical care, fill prescriptions, and even provide free computer and Internet access (aside from the public library where I now write this). After learning all this, it became clearer to me why certain people would opt to drop out of the mainstream and live in such a fashion.

Think of it: Reaping rewards from the taxpayers without having to BE a taxpayer. All that free stuff and food. There are plenty of homeless people out there taking advantage of the system. Just because they're lacking in formal education doesn't mean they're stupid. I've had many of them tell me that they feel entitled to these benefits simply because they're homeless. And to a certain degree I think society in general feel so sympathetic to their plight that they feel justified in providing benefits to the less fortunate.

Is that to say all homeless people are gaming the system? Not at all. But there are plenty of them who share the attitude of this guy who I spoke with in the SA courtyard. When asking him if he would rather get off the streets and find a home, job, steady income, he replied: "Hell no, I don't want no damn job. F**k that shit. Man, I'm a grown-ass man. What I need to be on some motherf***er's schedule for? I'm homeless, so what? I do what the f**k I want, when the f**k I want. "I wanna get high, I get high as a motherf***er!Ain't no one tellin' my ass what to do!"

All right, that might not be the most scientific sampling, but you might be surprised how many people share that exact same sentiment (albeit expressed in different terms). And for the record, along with the usage of cigarettes, I've noticed another common trait among the homeless: The use of the word 'motherfucker', or variations thereof. While I try to control the use of profanity (especially in public settings) I'll admit to a certain scholarly fascination with this word, MF. It's one of the few words in the English language that can be used as a noun (mf), adjective (mf-ing), or as both (mf-ing mf-er). If you come up with other fun, creative uses for mf, be sure and drop me a line. It could be a nifty project for the whole family!

So for approximately 48 hours I actively considered joining the ranks of this shadow society. At the time I was so disappointed with myself and so humiliated by my circumstance that I wanted to either end my existence or eliminate evidence of my existence to such a degree that my friends and family would forget about me. I wanted to slowly fade into oblivion and enter that netherworld where nothing mattered by basic survival. In a way this was progress. Only a few weeks earlier I was making plans to commit suicide; niw at least I was seeking to stay alive. (At this moment I wish I could play this song for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlBiLNN1NhQ On second thought, play it for yourself for maximum ironic impact.)

To spare you the suspense, the fact that I'm writing this blog is evidence that I didn't follow through to do myself in. Nor did I enter the netherworld of transients and stragglers. (Although I have learned that 'Netherworld' is actually an adult nightclub in Chechnya catering to below-the-belt fetishes. Google it if you don't believe me.) Instead, here I am blogging these details of my shattered existence to you, my loyal readers -- and I thank both of you.

Unfortunately your humble narrator has gotten a bit wrapped up in his discourse and so forgot to notice his time at the computer has dwindled to less than five minutes. And so I'll have to conclude this sixth segment and wrap up (finally) the events that led me to the present moment. Although by then, this will be the past moment and that point in the future will be the present moment. Whatever. We'll catch up then. In the meantime, enjoy some of my spoken word magnificence with this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iKFtagdavk, plus see what your humble narrator looks like in person. Fun!

Btw if you like this blog and the video, thanks! Now throw money or a PS3 (not necessarily in that order. If you do throw a PS3, throw a few games with it, okay? Good games like MGS 4, or any of the Drake's Fortune series. Also, Madden 12 would be nice. Just a thought. You think I'm asking for too much? Well I am homeless, after all. Not that I'm playing the guilt and/or sympathy card ...)

HINJFCA Five

2011-11-18T11:54:00.000-08:00

As you know I've been experimenting with telling this story in the first and third person, with my own editorial comments included. The last installment was was truncated and presented as a 'flash forward' of sorts; and update on what's going on now as opposed to detailing the events that led me to my present circumstances. It occurs to me that all the shifting back and forth between first and third person, plus the time shifting from past to present and back again could understandably result in some "Lost" type confusion for the reader -- especially the casual reader who might not follow this blog on a daily basis. If that's you, then I demand you wear a hair shirt and whip your backside with a razor strop; with enough 'mea culpas' I may deign to forgive you. Or not.

Anyway, I think I'll endeavor to speed up the narrative and stick to the first person for the time being to alleviate any potential confusion. No need to thank, just throw money. So, to continue:

I got the bed at Salvation Army and was ushered into the men's dormitory. Located a few feet away from the women's dorm, it's a plain white one-story building with a slate blue colored door. When you enter, a dorm monitor checks your name and issues you clean sheets, a blanket, pillow and pillowcase, and a bath towel with two small bars of soap (kind of like the ones you get at most hotels).

I was assigned a locker with a rusty bottom, but I didn't care. I was so tired of lugging the carry-on that I would have set it down in a puddle of raw sewage just to get rid of the weight. Within the men's dorm are approximately 50-60 bunk beds and accompanying lockers. The good news: My bed was on the top bunk. The bad news: There was no ladder to access the top bunk. I had to climb up the metal frame of the bed to reach the top. This meant stepping on a thin rail that cut into the soles of my feel like a knife; it eventually became painful to walk on that foot.

But a bed was a bed, and if I had to make like Spider-Man to get up there and sleep I could deal with it. You are issued a set of rules upon entry and while you are given the tour. Off to the south side of the building are communal showers and sinks. On the other side of a concrete divider are approximately 10 toilets and 10 urinals. Almost every night I was there at least one toilet overflowed.

Among the dorm rules: You have from 5pm until 7 to enter the building and be accounted for. If you arrive after 7, you are denied entry until 5:30 the following morning unless you have a valid excuse (work, emergency, etc). Visitors are required to shower daily for as long as they reside in the dorm. That rule is one of their better ideas, imo. Many of the guys staying there have been on the street for some while, and could easily be carrying some sort of sickness or infectious condition. I heard that lice and bedbugs were problems, but I never had any problems with that while I was there.

No having lived in a dorm before, I admit I was taken aback by the idea of having to shower nude in front of a bunch of strangers. Every prison rape scene I ever saw in a movie constantly played through my mind as I headed for the showers that first night. When I got there it was half-filled with older white and black guys (this constituted the bulk of the ethnic makeup of the dorm I was in. There were a few Latinos and Asians as well; I was surprised by the presence of that latter group. For some reason I never imagined Asians as homeless or on the street.

As far as showering went, I simply decided to go all in. I stripped, did my best to ignore the other guys, and stepped under the faucet. Thankfully, the water was hot, the stream steady. I'll admit it felt good taking that hot shower, getting the street grime and sweat off my body. After that first night the process got easier. One thing I noticed was an unwritten rule followed by most guys while in the shower: No conversation. No looking around, either. Everyone kept their gaze straight ahead, like a horse with blinders.

I expect no one wanted to be suspected as being a homosexual, should they chance a sneak peek at another guy's junk. Personally, I kept my gaze straight for two reasons: I was too scared to look around and I didn't want to feel more inferior than I already do regarding the size of my manhood. Didn't I have enough problems without worrying about whether I can hang with the well-hung in a Salvation Army shower?

More rules: Lights out at 9 pm; lights on at 5:30 am. Visitors have until 7 am to shave, bathe, go to the bathroom, etc) at which time they are expected to leave the building. There is no way to reenter the dorm until 5 pm that night. In other words, you better have your gear together because you won't be seeing it again for at least ten hours. It also means you better have somewhere to go to kill all that time. I discovered that some guys actually maintain full or part

So it would be a misnomer to describe all the guys staying at the Salvation Army shelter as 'homeless' or on the street. Many of them are responsible, hard-working people who simply need the cheapest dwelling available while they save up for a car, an apartment, etc. Conversely, there are many occupants who are truly homeless and on the street. The save up enough money from performing odd jobs or panhandling to afford a bed for a few nights and get off the street. (Those with no money for a bed can go to the Salvation Army Rescue Mission a few miles away. I've never been there, but I'm told accommodation and food are far worse than in the SA dorms.)

While I don't doubt the dorm houses its share of drug addicts and alcoholics I didn't notice any such behavior on the premises while I was there. I did, however, notice many of my fellow occupants gather a few blocks away and toking on weed (or whatever) and likely indulging in other illegal substances as well. There are three dorm monitors who work the graveyard shift, and they tend to be pretty share about infractions should they occur.

Once, the old man in the bunk below me was caught trying to light a cigarette in his bunk; a big no-no. If not for his age, he likely would have been booted then and there. For the record, a patio area is left open around the clock for smokers to go outside and indulge their habit. Trust me, many guys indulge to the extreme. (Something I've always wondered about. Many of those guys will complain about being broke; yet they always seem to have money for cigarettes, drugs, booze, or whatever. Maybe it's me.)

You could classify the dorm occupants as Workers (those with full or part time employment) and Transients (those who just want a bed to get off the street). The Transients tend to hang around the DRC and courtyard all day, hanging out with peers who are still roughing it on the streets. I got to know those who stayed on the street by sight: Excessively dirty clothes and skin are giveaway, as is body odor. Many of these street people arrive at the DRC when it opens daily at 7 am to use the hot shower facilities and toilets. I was amazed at the long lines that formed everyday to use these facilities.

Likewise I was amazed that people could live their lives in such a manner. But one mystery at least was cleared up for me: I finally learned how street people manager to bathe and shave. Thank the Salvation Army. But good luck making headway through that chaotic line first thing in the morning. The more experienced folks waited until afternoon when most people had already bathed. Like the Transients, the street people congregated around the courtyard to play cards, dominoes, and smoke and smoke and smoke some more ...

While peddling is forbidden, there is plenty of evidence proving that cigarette hustling goes on constantly in the courtyard area. There are other people who operate outside of the SA grounds and in front of Catholic Charities who likewise peddle cigarettes. I don't doubt there's a decent income to be made by selling cheap smokes to the homeless. The customer base is basically made up of addicts (nicotine, drugs, booze to name a few.

Back to the dorms: The beds are made of a single, plastic-wrapped mattress. Not especially comfortable, but I slept deeply enough that first night. It is somewhat jarring when the light go on at 5:30, though. The harsh flouresecent glare really cut into my eyes. It's also strange to hear the gruntings and groanings of guys waking up in the morning. During the night, it's not unusual to hear guys talking or shouting in their sleep, as if caught in a nightmare. I often heard gasping and wheezing here and there. Plenty of coughing and sneezing, clearing of throats and so on.

One of the things that concerned me the most about staying in that environment was the health consideration. Many of those guys had lived on and off the streets so long it was likely they had picked up some sort of illness that could easily be transmittable, especially among a large group of people. I'm happy to say I never contracted an illness while in the dorm. Not even from the old guy below me who coughed so violently he shook the bed frame and sounding like he was hawking up his internal organs.

And there was snoring. Christ, was there snoring. I had never heard anything like it in my life, yet somehow I managed to sleep through it. Imagine a herd of water buffalo in the throes or coitus. Or bull elephants roaring at each other all night long. Or heavy duty machinery roaring nonstop through the wee hours. That is only some idea of the noise certain guys could make during the night. The deep, guttural, throaty rasps echoed off the cement walls in staccato fashion. Each blast of air expelled from their mouths resulted in a noise that served as a spike drilling into my head.

Sometimes I listened out of pure fascination: How could the human throat produce such inhuman, frightening noises with machine-like precision and nonstop performance. Sometimes it sounded as if certain snorers were waging an unconcsious battle between themselves to out-snore the other with ever louder barrages of offensive inhalations. Most amazing of all is that the loudest snorers were never awakened by the glottal obscenities bursting from their mouths. A disturbance of the peace that seemed to make the entire building shake as if undergoing a sonic earthquake.

Then there was the farting ... But let's leave the meaty stuff for tomorrow. After all, it's guaranteed to blow you away!

Jim

Share this with someone you lover or hate or both!

HINJFCA Flash Forward

2011-11-17T14:51:00.000-08:00

As you reglaur readers know, I've been blogging about my experience with homelessness and the steps I've taken to regain my position in society. It's basically a recap of what's been going on over the past month. Right here I'm going to do a quick jump to the present to let you know mu current state of affairs. I've enrolled in the Salvation Army Vocational Program for the past two weeks.

The program is designed to help homeless people learn new, marketable skills to enable them to rejoin the workforce and become loyal taxpayers. As I've been finding out, this program tends to be more oriented towards not only homeless by revovering substance abusers and ex-cons ... a whole lot of the latter. I don't mind telling you it makes me feel intimidated, especially since many of these guys are jacked to the max and could break me like a breadstick.

At any rate, I'm in a 4-man dorm and must admit I'm feeling better about my situation. SA does deliver on their promises of providing free bed and board and 3 hot meals a day (they really are filling, but vegetarians would be hard pressed to find something to eat). Overall, the participants and caseworkers have been friendly and helpful, even letting me get new (used) clothing from the SA thrift store via voucher, and helping me get an EBT card. They also pass out a weekly gratuity, which is admirable. (My very first Food Stamps ... a proud day in the history of the Morrises. Well, at least I waited until I was over a half-century old before I jumped on the government teat.)

There are some drawbacks: The caseworkers are far outnumbered by their clients, meaning a lot of mix-ups, missed appointments, and short tempers from both parties. There's a recreation room in the dorm building and they allow guys to watch football all day on Sunday. Usually you can't hear it for all the racket created by other people partying in the lobby. When I brought up this concern at a meeting the caseworker pretty much shot me down saying the noise was just a byproduct of communal living.

Since she pretty much gave the perpetrators a license for loudness, I saw there was no need to press the matter. Sometimes even when you know you're in the right it's wrong to say so. I likely didn't make any fans during that meeting, though. An old black dude near my table said (in my direction) "Tha's right coummnal. Don't like it, take your little ass somewhere else, big-mouth motherf****. Shee-it ..." Obviously an Ivy League man. But maybe he had a point. Why should I waste time complaining about the TV when I have far more pressing matters to attend to?

So, that's a brief update as to my progreess. More of my past travials and present challenges coming up! Stay tuned ...

HINJFCA IV

2011-11-13T11:39:00.000-08:00

So I'm back to blog two days in a row, a personal best. Note I've shortened the title of this thread down to an acronym, followed by the Roman numeral 'IV' for the 4th installment. Why use an acronym and Roman numeral? Easy. I'm getting too lazy to type out the whole title every time I sit down, and for some reason I felt particularly pretentious enough to use IV. And yeah I know I could just cut-and-paste the title, but that's not how the M-O-double R-I-S rolls.

So last time I used the third personal to describe some of my experiences in North Las Vegas. Your humble narrator thought it was interesting enough to continue the stylization, so let's get to it forthwith:

Hours crept by as Jim stood in the shadows of the Social Services building located on the Catholic Charities campus. He literally had nowhere to go and nothing to do until 5pm, when beds would (hopefully) become available. With the late-October temperatures in the mid-80s, he stayed in the shade and watched a line of mostly black and Hispanic men and women, most with kids, stand in a line that wound out of the building to the sidewalk.

As he listened to various snippets of conversation, he learned that man y of these people had started lining up at 5:30 that morning; that was now going on eight hours standing in a line hoping for assistance on rent, utilities and food from the organization. Many of them would be turned down, as evidenced by several people screaming and escorted off the premises by security guards.

He was still numb from the experiences of the past two days. He still couldn't believe he was here in a rough part of the city, surrounded by vagrants, poor people, and who knows what riff-raff blown here by the vicissitudes of fate or personal choice.

And Jim wondered: What brought me here to this moment in my life? Was it a conspiracy of the Fates, weaving threads that would lead to his overall destruction? Was it the actions of a vengeful God who wanted to punish him for his lack of faith and belief? Or was it actually his own personal choices that brought him slowly to ruin? Did he actually want this sort of scenario to play out so that he could be the victim? So that he wouldn't have to take responsibility for his actions?

Every step, every choice had brought him to this moment, standing in the shadows of a building with a pull-along luggage cart containing most of his worldly possessions. Had taken him from a comfortable lifestyle where his biggest concern was which movie to watch; to here, where his biggest concern was if he might sleep on the street that night. Suddenly, those movies and video games that seemed so essentially seemed extravagant and pointless. Maybe he should have realized it all the time. Instead of indulging in leisure activities, maybe he should have contributed his time to helping those more fortunate. Maybe ...

(There's more material along these lines but since this blog doesn't come with violins or a box of hankies, I'll fast forward the narrative -- JM)

Was it Fate, personal choice, or the vagaries of chance that brought him here? Hell, for all Jim knew, maybe it was just bad mojo. At any rate, there was no use crying about it now. It was done, son, and he was in the shit. He walked around the block again just to keep moving and not arouse the interest of the security guards.

As he strolled, Jim noticed that one vital function still operated as well as ever: His appreciation for the opposite sex. He noticed a few homeless women who were actually attractive in a dirty grimy sort of way. Some were dressed in rags, others had soulless eyes, but some were genuinely attractive; no doubt a high percentage of them were hookers.

One of the women had beautiful toned legs shown off by a microscopic black skirt. A nice little nothing she was wearing, as James Bond might say. She bent over and it was plainly evident she wore no underwear. Must get drafty up there, thought Jim. He wondered if there were any ex-models or actresses who had been suffered a fall from financial and professional grace wandering about the area.

He also wondered, to his shame (well, almost), what it would be like to take of those women and have sex with her in some rank back alley. Could he even get it up under those circumstances? Probably not, considering these women likely had STDs that could vaporize even the strongest condom. You'd need a condom made out of Kevlar for these girls, he thought. And so the erection that had been stirring in his pants was put down by images of his genitalia rotting, turning grayish-green, and falling off his body like an overripe banana from a tree. (I'm actually proud of this imagery -- JM)

Jim was stopped by a casually dressed guy wearing Ray-Bans. He didn't look homeless or destitute. The man wanted to know if Jim had a legal ID

"Why?" he asked.

In rapid, heavily-accented English, the man said: My friend, if you have legal ID I take you to man who take you to casino where he use your ID for (unintelligible) and then he take it to cashier for after the (unintelligible) so you get the fifty dollar. Is good, yes. So you have ID my friend?"

Jim could only blink. The man spoke so rapidly and his accent was so thick that it sounded like: "Myfriendifyouhave legal ID ItakeyoutomanwhotakeyoutocasinowhereheuseyourIDfor (unintelligible)andthenhetakeittocashierforafterthe (unintelligible) soyougetthefiftydollarIsgood,yes. SoyouhaveIDmyfriend?"

Sensing a scam, Jim said he didn't have a valid ID. The man shook his head and made a noise of disgust as if to say,"Bald-headed asshole,why do you waste my time?" As Jim walked on, a thought nagged at him: That guy looked and sounded like someone. Then it came to him. The ID scammer looked and sounded just like a pint-size Javier Bardem. (He really did, honest to God! -- JM)

Across the street was an elderly black woman screaming in fron t of the Shade Tree building. She screamed on and on as if arguing with some non-existent companion. People seemed to take no notice of her; apparently she was a regular fixture there. Pigeons gathered about her ratty area, nearly surrounding her at one point. She made a wild gesticulation and the birds scattered. The sharp flapping noise of their wings might have sounded like applause for the woman's profanity-laden monologue.

There was a white man at the opposite street corner also screaming. He sat back against a brick wall of a pawn shop and screamed words made nonsensical my his raspy voice. It sound like he might have blown out his vocal cords from all the screaming. Near him were a collection of shopping carts filled with assorted junk and possessions that belonged to other homeless people; a kind of temporary commune thrown up haphazardly and without regard for sanitation.

The hours dragged but time did pass. Around quarter to five Jim decided to head back to the Salvation Army. Before going, he couldn't resist a peek at the line of men queueing up for beds at Catholic Charities. The sidewalk on Foremaster was now thick with homeless guys, some standing, some sitting, a few pissing against whatever wall they could find. Jim estimated if there weren't 200 guys waiting, there soon would be. It looked like a gathering of hobos and their debris; all that was missing was a a guy with a stick with a bag of possessions tied at one end.

Back up Owens he went, the street's incline seeming more difficult now. He saw the plain facade of the Salvation Army buildings It was about five until 5pm. The courtyard was slightly emptier from the last time he was here, but the haze of smoke remained stubbornly strong. Many of the same people were still there in the same position, talking about the same things. Apparently they stayed there all day. Jim re-entered the DRC office and went back to the office window. He didn't see anyone else lining up there.

Around ten past five a black woman with too much makeup shoved open the window, not looking at him. Jim leaned in and asked if they had any beds available for the evening. She said to hold on, she was updating the rosters and lists. Not wanting to lose his place, Jim waited another ten minutes when the woman sighed and said, Yes, they did have beds available for the evening. Jim let out a breath and felt like celebrating with an ice-cold soda. But he'd settle for flopping into a bed and crashing.

(Actually, I was getting more and more pissed off waiting for that woman to tell me whether a bed was available. I was worried I might have to sleep on the street or field since I'd bypassed my chance at Catholic Charities. The thought that kept running through my head was along the lines of "Goddammit, will you hurry up, you fucking idiot?" Needless to day, I didn't let on -- JM)

(I didn't really need to write, "Needless to say, I didn't let on." It's kinda self-evident. -- JM)

Your humble narrator here: I'll bring Part IV to a close at this point in the saga. What did you think of telling the story in the third person, along with my editorial comments? It's the writer acting as on-the-fly editor of his own story. Pretty clever, eh? Well hells, man I'm always ready to thrown down with the literary stylistic change-up. As the kids say, you know how I do. I probably should mention there's a lot of ex-cons and jailbirds where I'm staying these days. I say that so you don't think I'm trying to be all, you know, badass with my mad words and shiznit. You know how I do's it.

Don't be surprised if if the next installment is written in a combination of Esperanto and Pig Latin. Ater-Lay.

Homelessness: It's Not Just For Crackheads Anymore Pt 3

2011-11-12T14:48:00.000-08:00

Really wish I could be more regular with these postings, but bear with me. This time I thought we'd try something a little different in terms of presentation. Up to now I've been writing in the first person. This time I thought I'd try writing from the more traditional third person POV to see how it goes. If you're game to partake of this experiment in storytelling, keep reading and keep an open mind.

Jim lugged his black pull-along travel case up the littered sidewalks avoiding various drunks and homeless who staggered toward him on their way to some appointment. Although that was being kind; most of the homeless people he saw had blank faces and seemed to walk more from habit than any need to be in a particular place at a particular time. Lifting his case over the body of a vagrant who was kneeling and puking in the sidewalk, Jim finally saw the landmark that was his destination: The Salvation Army Homeless Shelter.

Walking up a ramp, he passes through a body length turnstile and was confronted by a black clad security guard who held a black and yellow wand to the newcomer's face.

"Blow into it," said the guard.

Jim did as was asked. The guard checked a light on the wand and motioned to move on. Jim entered a courtyard filled with derelicts and their various forms of luggage and or packing materials. Many of them looked as if their life's possessions were stacked haphazardly into luggage carriers, or tied together with string or masking tape. The whole courtyard was filled with a low-hanging grayish haze of cigarette smoke thick enough to make out hero choke. The rank odor hastened his entrance into what he would later know as the DRC (Day Resource Center).

Inside this large, plain room were more homeless men, huddled along long rows of collapsible benches. Homeless women had a separate area to relax in. Many of the men sat at the tables playing cards, reading, playing chess, or debating politics and sports. Others sat alone, some mumbling incoherently to themselves. There were some guys who sat down but their upper body lay sprawled over the tabletop; you could hear them lightly snoring although signs were posted that forbid sleeping. Some men sat in plastic chairs staring vacantly into space. The stark fluorescent lighting tended to highlight the gaunt, angular features many of the occupants possessed. The lighting also served as a harsh reminder of the cold reality of his situation, thought Jim as he walked toward an office window. A year ago he would have been making fun of people like these.

Smoking was prohibited in the DRC, although the stink of tobacco still fumed off the clothing of many of the occupants. Jim didn't doubt that the tobacco funk had bonded with their bodies at the molecular level. At the window was a chunky guy with a name badge who informed Jim that beds were available for $8 a night beginning at 5pm. It was currently just past noon. He was advised to come back and inquire about any available beds because they went quickly. If a bed wasn't paid for at five, it went back up for sale to the next customer.

That was disheartening news because Jim had assumed he could get a bed right then and there. Now he had to wait another five hours or so until he could rest. He re-entered the courtyard and sat for several minutes, (holding his breath) trying to assess the situation. He had no where to go, and couldn't call any friends for help. He could couldn't stand the shame of admitted what had happened and didn't want to offer any explanations that would no doubt be met with a mix of pity and understanding. Worse, he couldn't harbor the thought that he might ask one of his friends for a place to stay only to be turned down. Why would they want to take in a homeless person, regardless of who it was? No, it looked as if he would have to maintain his composure for at least the next five hours and pray he didn't fall asleep on a street corner in the meantime.

On his way out, Jim was approached by a guy from the crowd who advised him to check out Catholic Charities, who also offered beds on a nightly basis, for free. He decided to head over there, backtracking his steps down Owens. He turned on Main and arrived at Foremaster where he had earlier seen a line of homeless guys sitting or laying on the curb. From taling with some of them Jim found that he would have to line up at five and wait until six when officials would come out to make beds available. Priority was given to the elderly and disabled, then overall age of those requesting beds and services. At 6am, the men were required to leave and once more hit the streets with their meagre possessions.

Although free, there was a limit of the 200 men for any given night. That gave Jim pause to think: Should he take the risk of being one of the first 200 guys selected? Close to 12:30, he could see that lines were already forming. It wouldn't be difficult to hit 200 by five, even four o'clock. At least with Salvation Army, if you paid for the bed it was yours until you left. Plus, the had a locker to store your stuff, and Jim was wearing down from walking with the added weight of the luggage. So, he would give Salvation Army a chance. With that decided he had to face another dilemma: What to do for the next four and a half hours. This wasn't like killing time leisurely browsing in a mall ...

So, there you go with our little experiment. Did it rock? Did it suck -- or worse? Your humbler narrator is always interested in feedback, so let me know what you think. Will pick up this thread again as soon as possible or until another computer comes free at the library -- whichever comes first!

Homelessness: It's Not Just For Crackheads Anymore Pt 2

2011-11-05T11:23:00.000-07:00

I left the Super 8 Motel the following morning after getting directions for the Salvation Army. I had called them and found they offered beds for only $8 a night. With my limited funds, I sure couldn't stay in my present lodging. What seemed cheap at $39/night only a few hours ago now became an unaffordable extravagance.

I caught a bus headed north, toward downtown Las Vegas. This was an area I visited infrequently, and was always depressed by the plethora of low budget extended-stay motels that lined both sides of the street. You could see vagrants wandering about, some homeless people huddled in doorways or next to fire plugs. The overall feeling of the downtown area is one of a grittiness and despair that isn't normally linked to "fabulous" Las Vegas, Nevada. Safe to say, the chamber of commerce doesn't add images of this location to their brochures.

Transferring buses and heading east, I was taken into a part of Vegas that I had never traveled to: North Las Vegas Blvd that extended into the city of North Las Vegas. Drive a few miles to the south and this same Las Vegas Blvd widens and transmogrifies in to the world famous Strip. In this part of town, as you cross Foremaster and Owens, things aren't quite so glamorous. Remember that feeling of self-consciousness and shame I mentioned earlier about dragging around my luggage. I lost those feelings the moment I stepped off the bus.

As I searched for the Salvation Army homeless shelter, I had a chance to scan my new environs. It looks like an industrial area, with several open lots and road and sidewalk construction going on a various locations. There are some abandoned lots and buildings, as well as a few active businesses like a paper company located across from the Salvation Army itself (which is located right next to a Union Pacific overpass.) There's also a large cemetery in the area, which looks uncharacteristically green, peaceful and orderly, given the surroundings.

(An aside: For some reason, there's a large black rooster that roams a part of the cemetery located right by a street corner. I was curious enough to ask a groundskeeper one day:
"Why is there a black rooster in this cemetery?"
Without blinking he said, "Why shouldn't there be a black rooster in this cemetery?"
"I don't know."
"Neither do I. Now fuck off."
Well, I couldn't argue with his logic. The rooster remains there to this day.)

Perhaps the most striking thing about this area of town is the pervasiveness of homeless people. Simply put, they're everywhere. Pulling along luggage or boxes of their possessions they wander about, sit on curbs, congregate on street corners, or hang out in front of buildings. While many buildings and businesses don't permit this, you have to realize that this are of the city is vastly different in character from other parts of the metropolitan area.

The influence of Catholic Charities is considerable, due both to aiding the unfortunate and the physical presence of its buildings. It's actually something of a self-contained complex, that holds all types of social service offices from welfare to food stamps. They offer aid for rent and utilities with families, and the elderly and/or disabled getting priority. Cafeterias, laundry services, and apartments are also located there. Their most important service seems to be the free nightly beds offered to the indigent.

Men line up on Foremaster Street around 5 pm and at 6, representatives from Catholic Charities come out and start selecting who can go in for the night. Those with physical problems are given priority, and space is limited to the first 200 men. No pay beds are available. This is one reason I went to Salvation Army; once you pay for a bed there, it's yours until 5pm the following evening. If it isn't paid up by then, then confiscate your stuff and rent the bed to someone else.

At 6am, the men have to leave Catholic Charities with all their possessions. It's not unusual to see the same group of guys wandering around the general area, towing along their stuff, counting down the hours until they can have another shot at a bed for the night. Many of these men fit the homeless stereotype: Their clothes are filthy and ragged, hair and beards wild and unkempt, skin streaked with dirt, most of their teeth gone, and they stink. They can often be seen relieving themselves in the street in broad daylight. (If pets require pooper scoopers, shouldn't humans?) In other parts of the city this would likely draw stares, and provoke calls to the police. Here, it's just a matter of fact.

People with shopping carts full of junk can be found on nearly every street corner around here. It's as though they have created a type of impromptu village, using the carts as barricades and pulling tarps overhead when it starts to rain. Likewise, you can see certain homeless people at the same location every day, many of whom exhibit prounced mental problems. Often they scream and shout to an invisible adversary. Other times, they pontificate about some unknown subject so loud and so long that they rupture their vocal cords.

Heading east on Owens, is Shade Tree, a shelter for homeless women. For the most part this shelter seems to be quieter and engender less activity than some of the others. It could be because of the presence of children. In the neighborhood are several cheap apartment complexes, a newer senior citizen village, and some low-income housing sponsored by Salvation Army.

Speaking of the Salvation Army, that's the subject of our next chapter. I'd continue, but again, time is running short here at the library. If anyone out there has a web book (that works) drop me a line: "Will work for laptop".

In the meantime, I'll leave you with this observation: One thing I've found is that most of the homeless have an insatiable appetite for cigarettes. Bad enough they smoke constantly but they smoke the nastiest, vilest form of tobacco ragweed it's been my misfortune to experience in a second-hand capacity. And although I am a lifelong non-smoker I can truly say this without prejudice: if people smoked rhinoceros turds, it must smell like the stuff smoked by the homeless.

Homelessness: It's Not Just For Crackheads Anymore Part 1

2011-11-03T12:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, so there's the resultion to my cliffhanger: I'm homeless. Trust me, it takes a lot of effort to type out those words. This event happened approximately 12 days ago, on October 23, 2011 (talk about a day that will live in infamy). Within the space of 24 hours I went from having a decent apartment to being on the sidewalk with a pull-along carryon bag, a coat, a bottle of water, and no money and no place to go.

How did I arrive at that point in my life. Through a series of events no doubt orchestrated on a scale so cosmic the mere mortal mind could not begin to understand it. That, or it was a result of my own impressive fuck-up(s). To be fair to the cosmic forces, let's go with the latter options. What did I do? That, as they say is a long story, one which actually encompasses a thread deserving of its own blog. In short, I was diagnosed with a mental illness (this is not news to many people) commonly referred to as depression. More formally, major depressive disorder which is a disability -- in so many ways.

In short, I simply began not to care about things. Anything. Like bills, or paying them. Like working for work or pursuing an income. Now, when you don't care about money and you have bills piling up (including rent and utilties) that's a formula for disaster. But as stated ... I didn't care. So I ended up being evicted (in fairly dramatic fashion which I'll detail in a future entry) and that's how I would up on a sidewalk in front of the Eastside Cannery Casino on that Sunday morning, Oct 23. (Btw when Vegas says you can be evicted within 24 hours, believe 'em.)

The bitter irony of it all was that I did get the diagnosis and the medication, but too late. By the time it started taking effect and I realized my horrendous missteps, the damage was done. It was like trying to escape from a black hole when you're halfway through it. Creditors and landlords have little compassion for illness. Honestly, I probably wouldn't either. Would things had been different if I had retrieved treatment when I first started noticing symptoms? Possibly. At any rate, I don't see how matters could have gotten any worse.

Luckily I had a very resourceful (and generous) cousin to whom I could turn for help. She was instrumental (and continues to be) in helping me maintain my wits throughout all this. Because I can guarantee you I was freaking out on the inside and a lot of bad thoughts were flying through my head.

I'm 51 years old and this is the first time I've ever experienced homelessness. Like most of you reading this, it's something you imagine could never happen to you. It probably won't. But the experience is drastically altering my perception of the condition and the people struggling with it (and the people who enjoy it); it's also altering my perception of myself.

That Sunday morning, my familiar neighborhood suddenly felt unfamiliar and unfriendly. All the familiar streets and landmarks now seemed distant and alien. I'd walked down Boulder Hwy a zillion times. That Sunday morning, it felt like I had just landed in a foreign city. I saw a homeless guy sleeping on the grass by the side of the road and thought, "I'm like him now, except for better luggage."

Pulling along luggage is one sign of a homeless person. I had always given someone pulling luggage down Boulder Hwy the benefit of the doubt. There are a lot of hotels around, so it could be a tourist. You examine the condition of the clothing, cleanliness of skin before judging if they're homeless. The biggest giveaway is smell, or body odor. But when you see someone with luggage on the sidewalk and there's no airport nearby, you begin to suspect it's a homeless person -- and you avoid them.

That's how I felt pulling along my luggage: Like people were avoiding me. I thought they'd glance at me furtively, sizing me up as homeless and hurrying along. Maybe I was paranoid. Very likely it was own sense of shame that made me feel like I was being scrutinized and judged. At any rate, it was a long day. It would turn into an even longer night.

That same Sunday my cousin wired me some money which I could use for a room and get some food. The downside: I couldn't get it until Monday morning. After spending the day basically wandering up and down Boulder Hwy, I made a decision. Although the Salvation Army was available, it was getting late and I didn't want to wander around an unfamiliar area after dark. Given that, I decided to spend the night in a local park. Located near Boulder and Missouri Ave, it's very small. I would sometimes stop by to read or walk on a nice day. More important, I knew all the exits, and the park is literally right next door to a fire station.

So I spent all night in that park, but I never slept. From the early evening when families, couples and joggers came and went, I sat there occasionally eating generic Pop Tarts and getting drinks from the water fountain. It got chillier, and would spend some time in the filthy public toilet (which had no toilet paper) to warm up. Heading back out, I kept a constant eye out for anyone, especially police or park security guards. For the most part, I saw no one on that cold, clear night.

I walked around to keep warm. I marvelled at how quiet and still everything became. All I could hear were some insects chittering, or hip hop echoing from some far off speakers. Now and then there were some shouts from the public housing complex across the way. Funny, how I'd always derided those who lived in those complexes. Now I envied them the roofs over their heads. In fact, as I looked around at the houses and their lit windows and imagined the people inside enjoying a snack, or a mug of coffee and watching TV, I wondering: "Why them and not me? Why am I the one out here? Why aren't I inside where I could be warm and watch TV, play on the computer or whatever?"

And I realized that when I had all those things, I never viewed them as privileges. I never really appreciated the stuff I had. If I was watching TV, I'd think, "I wish I had a better TV". Or I hate this cheap coffee. Or this goddam apartment is too small, too noisy, and it stinks from all the people smoking constantly (I still stand by that last charge -- it DID stink). I just never truly appreciated all the advantages I enjoyed. Or how privileged I truly was. And I never realized it until approximately 3:35 am in a cold, isolated public park.

I watched the indigo sky form pink streaks, the stars faded, the sky brightened, and I shivered from some early morning chill. I felt like I was moving in a dream, but I'd survived the night with a lot of praying and attendant paranoia. With that ordeal behind me I proceeded to claim the money sent to me by my cousin. I got a room at a nearby Super 8 and after shaving and showering immediately crashed on the queen-size bed. It was a nice room, and reasonable at $39.

Soon I would find other accommodations that would make $39 seem like a king's ransom for a room. It would also involved getting involved with people and conditions that left me feeling like I was in a culture clash of sorts. In effect, I felt like a stranger in a strange land -- my own city!

I'm writing this on a computer in the Las Vegas West Public Library, and my session is almost up. I'll detail more adventures in the next installment.

Life Changing Experiences

2011-11-01T12:04:00.000-07:00

Those of you who follow this blog (all 2-3 of you counting myself) know that I usually post entertainment-related material. Frothy stuff with snarky comments, links to movies, trailers, etc. Stuff that's fun.

But there have been some events taking place in my life recently that have not been "fun". These are things for which even I can't snark about or joke about (not too easily, anyway.) What are these events that have occurred? Well, I'll invoke the storytellers privelege of the cliffhanger to keep you reading.

For now let's just say these aforementioned events have basically shaken my existence to the core. It feels as though I have been disassembled at the atomic level and am slowly being rebuilt one DNA strand at a time. If you've ever seen something on TV or heard about some incredibly bad thing happening to a stranger and thought "That could never happen to me," or "Stuff like that only happens to other people," you're on the right track. Because the stuff I thought could only happen to other people has now happened to me.

Stay tuned ...