When good people do bad things for good reasons

and by good people I mean all people. We're all good, and when we do bad things for good reasons, we're not bad, just misguided, by family, by friends, and by eternal rivers of crap from the media.

Someone stole my son's laptop. Yeah, it was at least half his fault for leaving it outside on the back patio, but the other half of blame must certainly be bestowed upon the one who lifted it, whom I am tempted to call a scumbag just because it feels good.

A plan had to be worked out to get it back, and for that you need a little back story.

For the first ten years of his life, my son Max (now 15) was raised far from civilization, beyond the reach of even city buses. He absolutely had to take the school bus home or he'd be stuck in town, so he never got to hang out after school and make friends. This hermit-like existence was fine for me, I just wanted peace and quiet to write, but it was bad for him, especially if you believe that half what they teach in school is YOU MUST OBEY, so social educational is half the reason for attendance. Max missed out on the social.

Now that we've moved to an actual city, Seattle, not just a city but a GREAT city, he's going out of his mind on the social end. He's never been able to simply invite friends home after school. Now he can't stop, there are lots of them, and since we moved into a pretty cool place, they keep coming back. Many of the regulars I've gotten to know, and I've ended up enjoying the social life too, making friends with teenagers, what's not to like.

Then Buster came back from a one year journey to Louisiana. Can't blame him. I myself must have left home at least two or three times till it took. He's 21, I've missed him, good to have him around, and he too has been marveling at the quantity and quality of the new friends Max has made.

In my new role as manager of a community center, I've had to lay down guidelines, no smoking in the house, everyone gone by 10 on schooldays, when I'm in the living room, I'm in charge of the TV, no eating from our refrigerator, that sort of thing, but it's become complicated by some friends who turn out to be homeless and want to crash on the patio. I've said no, not because I'm heartless, but because once that snowball gets rolling, it could turn into a landslide that buries us. There simply isn't enough room and neighbors have already complained.

Then Buster's laptop was gone. Yeah, one thief can ruin the whole thing. I consider shutting the whole thing down. I told Max "Someone wasn't just walking by and happened to come onto the patio in our backyard. Since everyone here has been invited, that means someone has invited a thief. You might not know who did it, but you know who invited them. Here's your assignment. We will either get the computer back or I will get an apology from whoever invited the thief, and I have no problem calling the cops."

The next day, a whole bunch of people from school showed up, some invited, some not, all hanging out in the backyard. I asked Max who they were. He said some of them he specifically DIDN'T invite. I said "Invite all the people you're sure about, your actual friends, into the house." He invited them in and I knew them all, good kids, glad to have them around. The rest were outside. I opened the door and told them "You guys have got to split, and don't come back unless you're invited," purposely not mentioning the computer, letting them figure it out by themselves.

It must be pointed out the computer is completely useless to anyone but Buster. There's nothing on it but music, retrievable, and his personal writing, irretrievable. It has no bottom, the CD drive is busted, and the fan doesn't work, so it can only be run while sitting on top of another full sized fan or it gets too hot and turns itself off in one minute. No pawnshop on earth would touch it and worthless to whomever took it, that's how theft goes, the stolen item worth more to the victim than the thief trading on their misery.

This morning, the laptop was there on the doorstep. I presume I will never know who took it, though Max might. I also presume this was some sort of game or power trip and not the work of an actual thief. Somebody convinced them to give it back. They did a bad thing, then a good thing. Maybe they had a good reason. Maybe they had a bad reason. Maybe they would have kept it if they could have sold it. I only know I must have sent out the right messages because this is the right ending.

Type away, Buster, type away.

Ode to the Bathroom at the YWCA

Oh bathroom at the YWCA, why do you treat me this way?

            Downtown Seattle

            Up the block from the McDonalds

        In all your splendor

You know I just want to use you in all your normality

            Your two toilets

            Your two urinals

        It makes me quiver just to think of them

I look forward to our liaisons with tender anticipation

            Why do you make me wait so long?

            Why do I have to give you my Washington State driver's license  before you let me tinkle?

        You've got room for four.

Surely there' s room for me at urinal #1

            While someone used toilet #3

            Why will you only let in one at time?

        Creating a constant line

Waiting for someone to come out

            Someone who may be doing something wrong in the bathroom

            We understand

        Junkies shouldn't use drugs in public restrooms

            We understand

            You used to be open and free

        Fulfilling your function

            A facility for four

            For a busy office

But now we've got to get a key attached to a piece of plastic

            To let ourselves in

            And while we are in you

        No one else may enter without the key they possess

In tribute to the minds behind this Bizarro World policy

            If you don't want people to do drugs in the bathroom

            What you DON'T do

        is let them lock the door

A policy

            meant to stop something

            it actually ends up encouraging

        Where've I heard that one before?

 

MD

 

Good social workers

Sarn Saechao is a prince. He' s my DHSH social worker and he has gone out of his way to help me out. When the times were tough, when I faced homelessness, he performed above and beyond the call of duty while adhering to the rules precisely, providing genuine social service and doing nothing less than his job. He's a social worker of the highest possible caliber.

Henry Gillon is fantastic. He was my first worker with WorkSource. He got a look at my résumé, realized it was a special case, and helped me work my way through a system that was completely foreign to me. Knowing what I was capable of, when he combed the job listings as part of his daily job, he would always let me know if there was something up my alley. He never talked down to me, was completely sympathetic, and did his job professionally and compassionately.

I tell you this in case you think I've got it in for social workers. I don't. Every social worker I've had contact with in Seattle has been helpful, courteous, and professional.

All but one, the hideous atrocity, Hazel "Mussolini" Borjal, the pathetic imitation of a social worker written about below.

Seattle's Most Incompetent Social Worker

Hazel Borjal

The bureaucracy. A social worker half my age on a power trip. The impossibility of explaining things to the unintelligent. That's what life has been like. Thanks for asking.

In order to get cash aid from the government these days, you've got to jump through hoops, I know that, but my current hoops are so asinine they boggle the mind.

My social worker, Hazel Borjal, a swarthy toad of a woman with a loathsome air of superiority, works for the community jobs program out of the downtown YWCA. Through this program, I have a superb community job refurbishing computers at InterConnection. But there's a glitch. She says she will throw me out of the program if I don't also attend classes. Education is part of the program. I must attend. The classes they offer are no more advanced than beginning typing. How to use a keyboard and mouse. How to conduct yourself at a job interview.

Beginning internet. She could get me out of this. She won't. The nicest thing I can say about Hazel Borjal is that she is not a douchebag since, after all, she does not make your girlfriend taste better after using her.

Here's how my "education" has gone so far.

My first class was with Aziz. It was about how to find work. He's smart and funny, a journalist and publisher with a day job. When he found out I was a publisher and journalist who knew more than he about what he was teaching, he threw the class open to question and answer with me and the class. It was actually fun. Everyone learned something but me.

My next class was beginning keyboard. The teacher couldn't help but notice I wasn't paying attention and was pissed off. [a deliberate split infinitive for you grammar geeks] I asked the teacher to please just give me the final exam and leave me alone. They showed me some sort of typing program they had on the computer. I immediately started typing at my standard 60WPM, clickety clickety clack, and people in the class who were struggling to get past phase one of learning f, g, h, and j, got up to stand behind me like they'd never seen anyone type that fast before. It was a curious experience to be entertaining people with my typing, not my writing, which I'd always considered to be pretty much the same thing.

The teacher asked me what I was doing there in a typing class I obviously didn't need. I told her my social worker said I had to attend. "Why?" they asked. "Because she's incompetent?" I said. I blurted out a little of my history. "You know more than me," the teacher said. "You could teach this class." They complained about the social worker wasting both their time and mine. I spent the rest of the class in the back reading a newspaper.

My next class was beginning internet. The teacher couldn't help but notice I wasn't paying attention and was pissed off. [IBID] I asked them to please just give me the final exam and leave me alone. There was no final exam. I opened up a browser on one of the class computers and showed her one of the dozens of websites I've designed. "These are pretty good," they said. "Why are you in this class? You obviously don't need it." I told her my social worker said I had to attend. "Why?" they asked. "Because she's a sadist?" I said. I answered a bunch of questions from the class, and from the teacher, who asked me to fix their computer. The teacher complained about the social worker wasting both their time and mine. I spent the rest of the class in the back reading the newspaper.

In order to attend these classes I have to take a bus from my home to downtown Seattle. Takes an hour. From there I have to take another bus to InterConnection where I refurbish computers for five hours in order to get paid by the program. If I go to InterConnection without going to the class first, I don't get paid. Then it's another two busses to get home.
"Just use the computers in the class to do your work," I hear you scream. Can't happen. The computers have filters that won't let through any blogs. You can only do online job search. I looked through the list and there wasn't a single one I had any experience in. I applied for every single one. What the fuck.

When I got home, I checked my email. One had written back, asking me some question about my experience, but I couldn't reply because I didn't know which job it was or what kind of experience they were looking for. I only knew my credit writing Animaniacs probably wouldn't help.

Of course Hazel, Miss Brain Glitch 2009, doesn't care as long as it looks like I'm looking for work, no matter how futile. I try to explain to her that I can only look for work from MY computer, where I've got all my email and archives. She doesn't care. She thinks I'm lying, that I just don't want to go to school, like all her other clientele of crack addicts and pregnant teenagers. She complains I'm asking for some sort of special treatment, but I think everyone should get special treatment. There's no cookie cutter solution to everyone's problems. Yeah, many people on Welfare need to get their GEDs and education is important, but my 40th high school reunion is coming up, I'm a professional with a serious 30 year career who's hit hard times like everyone else, and my problems can't be solved by teaching me to type.

There are other people at InterConnection who don't have to go to class, but the Glitch absolutely refused to explain why they're getting special treatment.

Got a book in the mail this week. It's a textbook from the University of Mississippi, Jonathan Demme Interviews, that includes my LA Weekly interview with him in 1984 for the film Stop Making Sense. The book didn't pay anything but I can put it on my résumé and honestly say from now on that I've written part of a college textbook. I showed her the book. She wouldn't even take it and look at it. The first words out of her mouth, I swear to God, upon being confronted with a client who writes college textbooks, she asked me if I'd considered another career, and repeated her claim that I needed to take a typing class.

Next month Microsoft is laying off 5,000 workers. I can only assume that upon being confronted with one of them, she'll insist they take computer classes. Next month, the local daily paper the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is going under and thousands of journalists like me are going to be out of work. I can only assume that upon being confronted with one of them, she'll insist they take courses in how to use a keyboard and mouse.

Those journalists, upon being confronted with such idiocy, would be pissed off. Chances are they would write about it. Chances are someone would print it. This could be a PR nightmare. Good idea.

So I'm thinking about vengeance. Vengeance is good. I'm a journalist. I'm willing to be a nightmare.

I once met the grandson of Daryl Zanuck, a famous Hollywood mogul. Andre Hakim Zanuck ripped me off to the tune of at least $25,000. In order to prevent anyone else from being taken in by him again, I posted his picture to my website with a warning, saying don't get involved with this guy, he's a liar and the biggest asshole on earth.

Something mysterious happened. It went viral thanks to DIGG and STUMBLEUPON, which had interesting results. To this day, if you type "biggest asshole on earth" into Google and hit "I'm Feeling Lucky," Andre's picture comes up.

Cool.

Now I know how to do it.

So I'm thinking something like "world's most incompetent social worker." Oh sure, there are probably social workers more incompetent but who gives a shit, this is vengeance we're talking about and I feel devious. For the rest of eternity, if she loses her job, applies for a new one, and they Google her name, up will pop my story of what an incredible idiot she is. I can make it happen. I can fuck her up like she's fucked me up. You can do it too, to anyone you hate, especially if it's someone with a weird name. I've looked up Hazel's name and the only thing that comes up is a six-year-old rape victim in the Philippines who probably won't be Googling themselves any time soon.

Okay, she's an incredibly minor league asshole, bossing around street derelicts and the homeless without a care in the world for their actual needs, just pushing paper, a brainless automaton, not even worth writing about if she weren't taking out her idiocy on me. And she's not even as incompetent as Chief Justice Roberts, that MAJOR league asshole who blew Obama's oath. Maybe she's only the most incompetent social worker in Seattle, but I'm too lazy to go up and change the subject.

My goal? Anyone who goes to Google, looks up "fucktard," clicks on "I'm feeling lucky," Hazel Borjal comes up.

Or I can tidy up this splendid piece of spicy vindictiveness, remove all the slander and fucks and such, submit it to her superiors and request an administrative hearing. The only other person in the program who doesn't have to go to class, the one Hazel refuses to talk to me about, is a black woman who is just as puzzled as I am at Hazel's irrational behavior. I can claim racial and sexual prejudice since race and sex seem to be the only differences between our two cases, other than the fact she hasn't written any college textbooks.

Yeah, it's a fucking rant, I said I could type 60WPM but no, you wouldn't believe me. It's the only thing I can do about the situation. Thank God I'm a writer or I'd kill somebody.