March 10, 2013

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  Our deadline to be out of our current “digs” is May 1st.

  That would be May Day.

  By one modern tradition “May Day” is the celebration of the oh-so-brief concessions workers got from the 19th century through the early part of the 20th in which some nations went Communist- usually from a struggle between a serf or peasant class, an aristocracy or economic elite and some semblance of a frustrated middle class or those with somewhat upwardly aspiring ambitions- even very modest ones- who are stuck in the center brokering the “deal” or lack thereof. Some nations went socialist- with a so-called mixed economy of private enterprise and some subsidized amentities for a public good financed by tax-funded government. And some nations ended up settling for a yet more watered-down version ostensibly celebrating the creation of a “weekend” in which it is theoretically possible to be free of laboring for a wage for a day or two rather than waging a continuous struggle to earn money one damned day after another, a lessening of workers’ likehood of being consumed in fires on-the-job and a abolition of child labor- at least within eyesight. The “weekenders” have settled for their official May Day to be held as “Labor Day” in September in symbolically the last day till poorer weather symbolizes a return to the coal mines or cubicles.

  An older version of May Day is a celebration- an essentially pagan celebration at that- of the flowering of Spring.

  The third popularly understood meaning of the phrase “May Day” is spelled “Mayday!”- as one word with an exclamation mark and excitedly, even desperately repeated. This “Mayday!” signals an imminent disaster is potentially about to occur.

  PLC and I are having a rough time trying to find a new place. It’s something of a crapshoot as to which may day we will be celebrating, or not.

  Oh, don’t get me wrong- I still have a job. But the only division in “my” company that has any helpful expertise with what I do (though- truthfully I never rely on them because my own jobsite is too neurotically manifesting for me to have any faith that contacting them will do any good- or may even prove undermining for my own job “security”) has just been told it will be disbanded, made redundant, by September. Just in time for “Labor Day” I suppose. Meanwhile my supervisor who has been emphasizing the importance of “managing expectations”- which for him means creating the hype to make our puny division look important but to do it in such a way that we continue to meet or exceed our promise(s)- and reminding us that our jobs could be gone tomorrow appeared to be wavering toward a thinly veiled pessimism. He wouldn’t admit it of course but it’s important, from a management perspective to always assure your workers they have no security.

   

  My partner actually has an economic housing supplement due to his disability. The problem is that landlords tend to treat this as a symbol of unreliability rather than what it is- a guarantee of a majority of rent being efficiently being met every month. Our record for providing the supplemental remainder of this monthly sum has been perfect. But perception- and some amount of mental and emotional laziness as well as ignorance- make it simpler for most to declare that they don’t take “Section 8″- the name of the supplement for disabled.

  Thus are PLC and I back to being engaged in juggling our economic dishes trying not to miss a plate.

  The truth is- it becomes depressing to get so much information and follow through on discussion with agents and sellers only to find you’ve been wasting your and their time as everyone would prefer to rent their dilapidated shack to the more upwardly mobile who just happen to be in the market for more modest digs on their odyssey to the top of the human heap.

  You all know this ditty, of course:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03JdA7lCLTo

  

   

  　

  But we increasingly live in a reality where this ditty is at least as instructive:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM&feature=youtu.be

  　

  Yeah, I’m a bit down-hearted at this combination of working and living uncertainty.

  I am thinking of trying to buy a modular unit, that is a “mobile home”, as a fall-back strategy if PLC and I cannot find his stipend for disability honored. I have hesitated to do so because of the unreliability of my having a continued gainful employment. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be any more assured than it has the last couple of years- especially since our last buyout from our latest megacorporate Sugar Daddy seems the cruelest of them all so far.

  There was recently a lot of discussion during the several awards celebration of film about “Les Miserables”. Every time I see a clip from the film presentation or read a discussion of some particular related to it I imagine the scene I see daily on my way to and from my job. You see, the homeless shelter is a couple of blocks away from where I work and the adjacent neighborhood that spills into the downtown district of Santa Cruz is dotted with individuals and sometimes groups of folks with, often, makeshift shopping carts, overburdened bicycles with bundled possessions strapped onto them and a panorama of wardrobes of largely threadbare and dirty clothing trudging down the streets. Santa Cruz has been a “street person” but also homeless magnet for decades now.

  The first big burst of this phenomenon started with those burned out as the heat of the sixties cooled into the ash of the seventies. The seventies also startede the first round of what is now called “austerity” which always impacts those at the lower ends of the economic ladder most directly and harshly.

  Of course within these local “miserables” there are scores of habituated druggies, alcoholics and people who have escaped one situation or another and heard that it’s better to be taking their chances with the kindness of strangers in that warm California sun than freezing their asses off in Philly or Minnesota or the mid-west.

  It’s not that I am not aware that this reality hasn’t spread to many other locales but it has been an intractable reality here for many decades now. There are a lot of guys who have served in the military and found no adjustment back into the population post-service. There are a lot who were formerly overcrowding a prison and are now out and “free” due to budget cuts.

  All in all this scene is a spectacle that invites the thought that “there but for fortune” and is a constant reminder of the rather thin societal veneer that separates my fate from that of others who seem conspicuous victims of this particular culture’s dwindling largesse.

  I know there are many people who would tell me that I have the intelligence and the skill to avoid these worst social results but I often feel my particular choices in work have led me down a very unimaginative path in terms of financial security and the like.

  It’s not all doom and gloom folks, but I’ve been feeling better about whatever the future may bring. We’ll all just have to see won’t we?

  

   

   

   

  • 5:32 pm
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