Bricks

Brick crushed his chest. Over time, an entire pallet of brick lay on him. Some were thoughtfully, willfully, placed, others dumped in a rough heap from a rock pocked, rusty, wheelbarrow. After a while, gravity, desperation and lack of air. He’s bug-eyed and blue from exhalation.

The brick load started slowly; one common brick = one beef, an argument, then another, it goes like that. Then the Normans, a little larger, a little more weight. Later jumbo bricks with “divorce” and “custody battle” and “financial settlement” and “visitation” imprinted and fired in the raw clay till the brick became dark and hard and they too were loaded on the pallet. He can’t deny the weight now but he’s pinned and unable to offload. To the untrained eye the brick seem dumped on the palette in a heap but from his unique vantage he knows there’s order to the brick stack. Now, lately, there’s more heft to the load. More bricks stamped, “layoff,” “repossession,” “parking fine,” and “overdrawn,” “late fee,” all adding to the impersonal collateral damage. His flattened lungs scream silently for air while the noise in his head roars like the ferocious hot brick kiln furnace. Today the weight of clay is too much to bear. Plus, this morning, he’d drunk five cups of coffee for breakfast— maybe that’s what set him off.

He’ll fix everything— grab his board and paddle out through the breakers, past the fog bank, into the shipping lanes, head west to find the East, to China, find the spot where the sun boils into the ocean. And in the process pull off the magic trick of finding a true vanishing point. He’ll disappear from earth without a trace, oh sure, a sailor aboard a freighter from Tasmania may spot the battered surfboard out in the endless churning Pacific, the sailor may wonder how this red, blue and green Hawaiian flowered thing got so far from shore but this will be the only query, there are many things unexplained in the ocean.

He pulls his oxidized Ford truck, off Highway 1. He notes the little character adding dents on the fenders and hood trying to remember how the truck looked when he drove it off the dealer’s lot. Parked on this lonely stretch of beach he welcomes the ticking, cooling engine, the sound of ocean, and the mist gray sky. He doesn’t take his keys out of the ignition, no need for keyed things again. He squirms into his wetsuit, pulls his longboard from the back, and trudges hangdog and splashing into the water. He doesn’t look back to shore but wades in the cold, green water. When it reaches his waist he drops the surfboard in the water, lies down on the board and begins paddling into the threatening breaking surf.

Emerging from his fight through the breakers into the relative calm of deep water, he begins to feel warm. Breathing deeply he straddles his board like a strange wet cowboy. No rush, he figures he can paddle, take a break, paddle some more and do this for of hours. There is no time clock on his quest for oblivion.

Just then, just when his mind settles to his task, a titanium, colored 1959 Desoto drops from the sky and hovers inches above the water, the controls are manned by a navigator covered absolute in shiny black latex, the surfer can’t make out a face or mouth, the pilot is without definition. Immediately the mystery Desoto ranks as savagely ominous as a Great White shark— and, of course, he panics. Who wouldn’t? In a blurred flurry of arms and legs and splashing he turns his longboard. Undone by primal hysteria he’s terrestrial again flailing for shore. He flings himself to the dubious safety of a swell coming in. In his mad dash terror, he takes off too soon, the wave has peaked and is curling in on him, the board noses in under the wave and he pearls — becoming a speck of irritant in the maw of the sea — he’s sucked into power of the wave and driven to the sea bottom, the board now launches skyward, drunken crazy, like an early Soviet rocket. Tumbling under the wave the surfer is exquisitely free from gravity. Like a demented wild-eyed sea bird he breaks the surface, gasping for oxygen from the foggy sky. Above, the scene the spaceship hovers peacefully. The surfer takes stock of this juxtaposition — sky and sea and hovering car. His small purchase of reality has nothing solid for reference except for the vehicle.

The spaceship is the spitting image of the long finned ‘59 Desoto. A Desoto with a little customizing, the four headlamps seem inspired from the pages of Playboy magazine— lovely up turned cones with centered bumps that resemble Hershey Kisses. So the rocket’s had a double boob job and the wheel wells and undercarriage are smoothed over, clad in space age sheet metal charred from heat and friction during space travel. The Desoto hovers but doesn’t push and scatter the water the way a helicopter would, if it makes any sound it’s not audible over the surf.

Nervously glancing over his shoulder he paddles out again, the waves are good. The surfer senses the Desoto at rest but what does he know about space travelers and their intentions? In a few minutes, he’s paddled out past the breakers and is bobbing on his board waiting for another set of waves to come in.

A flat but echoing voice emanates from the Desoto, its electronic tenor reminds him strangely of New York Jew, “Sonny boy, I see you’re new at this— you won’t catch a cold if you don’t come in a bit and paddle with some oomph.”

Amazed, the surfer looks up, “ You speak Eng…There’s surf on Mars?”

“Think about playing the Catskills? And sonny, when the swell picks up your tushy and you start sliding down, dig with both arms.”

Grumbling to his board, “Shithead Martian.” The surfer is a beginner— the last take off didn’t go too well— the alien might be on to something. He begins to paddle, collecting the on coming swell, the tail of the board rises, he digs with both arms as the wave crests, the board dips down into the green water then as by divine intervention the nose comes up, he’s got the wave, though he slips a bit he gets to his feet and rides the wave most-way to the shore where he does a falling dismount in the water. An eerie cheer that seems to come from inside the rocket echoes his own triumphant, involuntary whooping.

No longer fearful of the Desoto or its pilot, the surfer paddles again through the white water, through the breaking swells, out into safe deep water, straddling the board and breathing hard, he’s buoyant atop the unmatched ancient energy of the sea. Out here he catches his breath, out here he can catch his breath. He’s become the mythical urban trucker who’s forgot to close the tailgate; slowly his load of brick is dropping off into the Pacific.

The space ship glides in close and the surfer beholds the spectacular—a perfect single drop of emerald seawater glistening beneath the singed belly pan of the Desoto.

“Wa…why are you here? Don’t have to rush off and destroy civilization or some other damn thing?” The surfers voice is strangely calm he’s making conversation not accusations. “Don’t mean no disrespect but there’s no people or politics … aint’ nothing important goin on out here.”

The Desoto sits motionless as if painted to the sky, the voice booms, “I just spent three hundred of your years getting here. I’m in no rush.” The Desoto dips a bit. “Who’s to say what’s important?”

“ Yeah but you don’t really belong here now do you?” Waves break over the nose of the board and he runs fingers through his wet hair for no aesthetic reason.

“ Sonny I could say the same for you, dressed in neoprene and sitting on a Styrofoam and fiberglass board in the ocean. Am I mistaken or are you in the wrong element? Gills I don’t see.”

“Okay, okay. You’ve got a point but this is fun — when it works. Strange fun like horror movies or sex, which can kinda be the same thing sometimes. You hip to sex? ”

“Intercourse for procreation or fun?”

The surfers face beams, “Fun.”

“Oy, sonny boy, the girls of Zoltar… stories I could tell…”

“ That’s what surfing’s like — scared and excited sex. But... You already know this don’t you?”

“It’s a big universe…”

A swell gathers and rises and pushes to shore. “I’m going for this one …”

“Paddle, Paddle, Paddle. You got it now— Dig, Dig, Dig. Ride earthling like there’s no tomorrow,” You never know.

He catches the wave, ascends to a fighters crouch, feels the sea churning beneath his board and feels — exalted — the remainder of his load has capsized without regret. Now there’s nothing but this moment, and in this moment he’s on the right side of things, life balances, in this moment— this one small piece of time — there is perfection. Overcome he slips and falls backward in the surf. Unburdened lungs inhale salted air. He catches a few more waves. Finally he glides through the frothing white water to shore. He’s grinning. He’s aware of the surf’s sibilance, a squawking gull, sparkling grains of mica in the sand — his head chatter’s dissipated like the burned off morning fog. The sand massages the surfer’s feet as he ambles to his truck— surfboard tucked under his arm like schoolbooks —lightened. Today’s great weight, gone. Sunlight shimmers off the keys still suspended in the ignition, reminding him of today’s lapsed mission.

Looking west, the sun has dipped, diffused light from our star shimmers jewel like from countless waves, a flock of pelicans glides over the water, everything in his vision is open and clear and limitless. In the fold of horizon, the Desoto has vanished.

Things My Daughter Taught Me

I’ll admit my chilly little secret. I love riding my bicycle in the winter. As a transplant from the north eastern Rust Belt and a veteran of “lake effect” big snow, the thrill of winter roads without snow and ice has never worn off.

I resumed riding with regularity in 1994 as a way to get my then, year and half old daughter, Ezra, into the air and out in the world. Our first ride with the rack mounted child seat occurred late that fall. After bundling Ezra up in her warmest clothes and buckling her helmet, without pinching her neck in the clasp, we rode out to Golden Gate Park through the Panhandle decked in autumn tones. We stopped at the Pagoda at Stowe Lake to eat goldfish crackers and drink juice. On cue, raindrops began ticking down against the jade colored tile roof of the pagoda.

The sun was setting. We were not prepared. No raingear for Ezra. No light for the bike. Worry consumed me on our ride home; the enveloping dark, the volume of rain, the cold. Ezra, I thought, is going to be scarred by this and would rather be with her mother. Anxiety hit me faster then the rain; I’ve ruined her cycling experience - forever. I imagined my face on a not-wanted poster, “Worst Dad Ever.” As a rational counter point to my perceived failure as a human, cyclist, and father, Ezra transcended my petty worries, “Dad, can I have-a-gum?”

Somehow we made it home alive. Along the way Ezra noticed something of the other cyclists. Debarking from her kid seat she asked, “Dad you have a dingy bell?”

“No.” Ezra looks puzzled.

“You have a blinky light?”

“No.”

Oddly, Ezra’s face assumes a strange resemblance to my old high school Vice Principal, “Dad. Get a blinky light… And a dingy bell.”

Sheepishly. “Yes dear.”

Eventually Ezzie out grew her kiddy seat. Her first bike tires were about as big as a five-cent pieces. We practiced riding bikes at Crissy Field. And as things go, her bike too, received a dingy bell, and a blinky light. Ezra out grew her first bike; we purchased another, then another.

Our first ride resonates still; it instilled in me a few ideas that I keep to this day. First, despite the rain and cold we had a great time. I was thrilled as she pointed out dogs and birds and other bikes along the way. Second, she was right about the bell and light. I can extrapolate and say, that when I eliminate extraneous loose ends my time on the bike goes better; lights, bell, helmet (my preference), good tires, working brakes. My city bike also sports fenders and an incredibly fashionable basket.

I’ll ride this winter, happy in the stinging cold wind and the profound near silence of the bike, strobbing bright, on the dark morning streets.

Oh I’ve been looking at my last few entry’s and I have to admit I appear a little angry. I hope the word curmudgeon isn’t on the tip of your tongue. Don’t paint me with that brush; I’m too young and too pretty to be an angry old man. Am I in denial?

The Simple Green for our times, denial, the all purpose cleaner; The economy isn’t so bad; look at Wall Street. Things will get better in the new year. We’re all in this together. Compromise is the ticket. I won’t rock the boat; I shall become the next millionaire. And last but not least, I’m just going through a ‘dry spell.’

So I’m not a curmudgeon, I’m a hopeful young man just going through a bit of a social/economic dip. And in this minor swale I’m learning. I’m a product of excess and by falling behind in consumerism I’ve angered god. I now as penance for my dwindling income I’ve proved that I don’t deserve health care and unemployment and a steady income or new socks. Hell if you were on the right side of god you’d be healthy and if you’re not, eschew muni and walk up them hills. About work and money; my ex-fatherinlaw used to advise, “Get a job ya bum ya.” And in getting back to basics, I’m learning to damn/darn my most holy socks.

Joyfully, I’m getting into our twenty-first century zeitgeist. I’m enjoying my apartment watching DVD’s and eating popcorn five nights a week. Who needs to look for work when there is Facething waiting to ambush and smother the productive impulse in it’s fuzzy, warm embrace. “Oh look at all the fun my countless friends have had over the holiday….” As product of the twentieth century I can’t in good conscience do Netflix when the Film Yard is six blocks away. Crazy as this sounds, I buy local and walk to the shop. I may never finish my ablutions if I keep on like this but I’m skeptical about a two ton SUV for twenty pounds of groceries; I ride my bike and carry the produce in the basket. I buy books from Green Apple (I’ll give up restaurants rather than books). Local eliminates stores based either in ether or in hell. If I don’t buy from stores connected to a satellite the less I have to buy. Sort of a win/win thing for a grumpy guy. If I were grumpy. I’m not grumpy. My frown is upside down. Oh my goodness, my giggle pin has worked loose at the prospect of a Happy New Year. Curmudgeon my ass.

How's that working for ya?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/business/23prichard.html

Prichard, Alabama. Failed town, gutted pensions.

Here is the deal. The bosses, those who hire and fire and make the big money, are more familiar with contracts than workers. The bosses agree to and sign work and pension agreements. They know full well what they are signing, even if they don’t intend to fulfill their end of the contract. The bosses want your labor.

Another part of the deal is this; the bosses get your labor first. Afterward the worker is paid. Benefits are paid months later. Now, who is taking the risk? But labor is always portrayed as the bully, the thugs, the union bosses. When businesses fail because of mismanagement, or municipalities renege for the same reason, you can't take back your labor. Under the guise of suspicion, a worker is seems, needs her good faith enforced under the hammer of dismissal; she can be fired. There is no equal lever to hold the corporate and municipal bosses to their bargain, the workers only recourse is to withhold labor by striking in mass or, not as effective, to quit alone. Sometimes, maybe more than we want to believe, the bosses sign these contracts knowing that they will not honor it. As a union bricklayer I remember many pay and benefit “give backs” starting from Reagan’s era of anti- labor, anti-unionism. The first I recall was the San Francisco Bricklayers returned one dollar an hour that had been signed for less than a year earlier; we gave our wages and benefits to the contractors. The contractors maintained their profit margins. A vindictive labor force could have struck, this was breach of contract. But we were fed the line from our union that helping the contractors was helping ourselves. The mason contractors don’t view things the same way. The refrain from brick contractors is, “Anyone can be a bricklayer…” Though we’ve made some of these men rich, we’re expendable.

2010 would seem the perfect time to organize a disgruntled and demoralized workforce. But a lot of our work has been off shored or automated out of existence. And the Reagan Babies, who have come into the workforce since the eighties, with the non stop drum roll of market economics and anti-laborism, were raised essentially non-union. Reagan/Bush/Chaney era distortions of labor leaders is similar to Nazi era characterizations of Jews. Labor has become the other, and by extension; enemy. As Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” No matter what color your collar everyone who works for a paycheck is labor; a fact that high tech Americans tend to forget. Yahoo laid off seven thousand individuals last week.

Labor strikes are reckoned by conservatives as treasonable, media doesn’t dispel this. And American workers look on the general strikes in France and Greece with longing and bemused horror. When push comes to shove, we know too well who has the upper hand; we can be disappeared from the workforce as quietly as the stroke of a pen.

The gloves are off, anti-worker sentiment in the form of obfuscation on the health care debate, the continued push to privatize Social Security, the Citizens United gift to corporations, and the unrepentant anti-government, anti-regulation mythology rains down on workers unabated. And the Supreme Court is five-four in the corporate pocket. Meanwhile, workers pension funds which through mutual funds buoyed wall street and the bubble economy, are going broke. Real people, working people who have already given their labor are hurting bad.

Sarah Palin might say in her chirpy nasty voice, "How's that workin for ya?"

We Are All Workers

I have no axe to grind with other working people. Lately I’ve been hearing that we need to pay freeze the workers in the public sector, that they make too much money, that they are protected by unions and their “bosses” and those protections are not fair.

What isn’t fair is that the rhetoric has devolved so that union members; bus drivers, teachers, civil servants of all stripe, what’s left of the auto workers, and anyone fortunate enough to have a collective bargaining agreement with attendant benefits, are the target of animosity by those in the private sector. Those still working in the private sector are getting steamrollered into longer hours, less pay, loss of benefits and the constant fear of lay off’s. Unemployed workers are targeted by those barely hanging on for their ‘free money’ instead of the puppet masters pulling the strings. In doing a google search for union advocacy I found a web page called “Union Facts” whose purpose is to destroy unions. Union Facts talks with authority about how union non secret certification ballots aren’t fair never mentioning that secret ballots have been discounted by the corporations as fraudulent. Unfortunately the unions have found open ballots as the only recourse.

Union Facts is located in suite 800 on 1090 Vermont Ave. in Washington, DC. as is the “Center for Consumer Freedom” which is in the same suite as “Berman and Company.” Berman is fond of discrediting the “liberal agenda.” Of course he fails to say who pays for the very slick web sites and the claimed thirty staff members. His web site touts, “The Power to Change the Debate.” Richard Berman and his ilk have done that. Instead of working people demanding from those who gained the most from our bubble capitalism to release George Bush’s governmental welfare, we hear from conservative Capital Hill that it isn’t fair that one sector (those making more than $200,000) lose their tax refund and while others ( the vast majority of Americans) get a break. We hear that union elections are not fair. When the barista in my local cafe asks, “How are we going to pay the national debt” or “I guess we needed to step away and recalibrate” instead of asking about who screwed us in the first place, something is wrong. That anyone could link the out of work masses to the incompetence of the wealthy seems a contortion of the most nimble yogi.

We now have a vast sea of labor talent to be used by the powers that be to tamp down wages and benefits. And slowly this is beginning to dawn on all whose income is based on income rather than interest. Forget the term, middle class, NPR did a survey asking American if they were and what constitutes middle class, everyone considered themselves middle class; the range fell between $30,000 to $250,000. What does this mean? As Americans we fall prey to the myth of rugged individualism we all yearn for the company of the middle. But there is no safety in the middle. Yahoo just laid off seven thousand employees. Workers of all stripes are look over their shoulders see their out of work brethren, desperate enough to take a job, any job, for less. Worker’s misguided reflective anger stems from exhaustion and the fear that the organized workers may be gaming workers slicked into believing that they are ‘associates’ in a corporation or ‘contractors’ free to do what ever they want. That workers now talk with anguished concern about budget deficits they didn’t create, wars they didn’t start instead of the grand bonus’s and stock options they didn’t and will never receive is a result of spin misters like Berman. The advantaged tout unctuous lobbying assistance and dictate the terms of the ultimatum; no extended unemployment unless the rich continue to gut the government. With their tax rewards the few of great wealth hire the likes of Berman and Company to further “Change the Debate.”

Peet’s Coffee in Pacific Heights. Three of San Francisco’s finest are talking with a slim, tall, fashionably close bearded, obviously well heeled man somewhere in his prime. From my distance the conversation is amiable; all parties grinning with ease and comfort. On the periphery a GREAT DANE roamed leashless and with impunity. As I walked into the café for a coffee I’m followed by the sole female cop. I turn to her, “Isn’t there a leash law in San Francisco?”
She gave me a curious grin, “Yes. Yes indeed there is.”
“So what gives? Three of you talking with the dog owner didn’t notice the abundance of dog and lack of leash.”
“You want to make a complaint?”
“What? You can’t enforce the law unless someone asks you to?”
“Well…”
“So I have to be the asshole for that guy to put his dog on a leash?”
“We won’t give your identity.”
“I’m not too keen on dogs. I’m really not keen on dogs off leash.”
“I understand.”
“After all, that there is one big goddamn dog. I live by Alamo Square, I don’t walk through the park anymore. ”
“Isn’t there an off leash area?”
“Sure, but the entitled use the entire park, they remove the leashes as soon as they enter the park, I’m tired of being chased, harassed, growled at, and feeling unsafe.”
“Huh, this is the first time I’ve heard of this.”
“Are you serious? I’ve talked to the head of the parks, he knows there’s a problem.”
“I usually hear from the other side.”
“Other side? Aren’t we all citizens? Are dog people special because they are the side that doesn’t get bit? I’ve been attacked, I don’t like it. Dog owners always like to imagine that they know what their dogs are thinking, hell, dogs go off on one another all the time and the owners never have an answer for that behavior… shit. They’ll tell you their dogs love kids, or they’re good with women, or that they adore the elderly; how the hell can they know. How can they know? I’ll tell you this, they don’t know.” She’s stirring cream into her coffee but glances up from her preparations. I’d better turn down the volume, after all, she’s got a gun.
“Sir, I understand dog bites, I’ve got Pit Bulls.”
Gulping, “Pit Bulls?”
She puffs out her chest in a non-sexual, more copish sort of way, “Yes, Pit Bulls.”
I mull this over for a moment. “Okay, I’m making a complaint.”
By the time we exit the café the dog and it’s feeder are gone. I sip my coffee. A skateboarder clatters by and is stopped by the three cops. Within minutes the skater kid is being jacked-up. “Do you have any priors… you sure?” The kid, a typical dopy looking skater dude shakes his head no his wind whipped hair wags back and forth. The verbal response to the suddenly officious Police is incomprehensible, “If I call you in we’re not going to find any priors are we?”
Pale and nonplused, “I donno, I had this thing…” The cop holding the kids ID looks up, “Months ago… weed.”
Down the block the giant GREAT DANE still without a leash meanders up California its owner forty feet behind is engrossed in a cell phone conversation.

Dirty Pick-up Trucks

Labor Day 2009

I’m never far from labor. I am labor. The only real distinction between my work life today and when I was paying dues is that I’ve eliminated a few overlays of people telling me what to do. And on this score I’m beginning to understand, just a little what my father was up to.
My father loved his autonomy, he followed the rules; paid taxes, contributed to unemployment and benefits for his workers, he worked longer hours than any two men, and neglected a family life that didn’t coincide with his labors. He just did what he needed to do to have a little breathing space. I never once recall him bitching about paying taxes or benefits. Never. Although he was a boss with an eye to finishing his jobs, his motivation was more for some personal control than economic profit. Another thing I never heard him utter was the oft used term, “bottom line.” He would say that a job turned out well or they did well or not. Sometimes he made some money but over time I realized that money was just a byproduct of jobs that went well. Some of his jobs were “stinkers” but he’d keep at it. I heard from someone that that first big job in Ogdensburg lost $10,000. Not a great start. But the stories he told of that job had nothing to do with money. His stories were about the saloons in the town, and about Uncle Ray and Grandpa’s drinking and about the aggrieved nuns out on the porch. I never heard that the job was a stinker. I’ve seen a black and white photograph of a brick arch that they had built and though the image is very grainy in my head the archway is some sort of a connection between the old church and the addition that Pa and the Murray Bros. crew were building. The picture was taken before the mortar had set up, the joints are still dark, and probably just after the arch support was removed. In the picture you see, bricks, mortar, the rubble of new construction, the amazing connections between a previous mason and Pa but there is no reference to money. A few years ago, I asked Uncle Dick about the business, about Murray Bros in particular and he told me something that I’d never heard, he said, “Oh, you mean the time we went broke?”
“Went broke?” I asked.
“Sure, a few years after we started, we went broke. Had to go down to Lincoln Bank to borrow money.”
Apparently, and I remember this, there was some connection between the bank and the Murrays. It may be that the loan officer was a classmate of Pa or Uncle Dick or Grandpa but there was some connection. They got the loan and continued for another twenty years. Funny part about that is in his catalogue of stories the going broke part never came up. The term ‘bottom line’ never made it into Pa’s lexicon. He was a working class boss – a very odd duck.
So where am I going with this little ramble? I recall one Labor Day many years ago, back in Syracuse, Pa had a job, I don’t recall where the job was but this is in my/our era you may have been in school by then. Anyway, he’d rousted me up from sleep to go to work. I said, “Pa, it’s Labor Day.”
He had that grin of his, the mischief grin, “That means we’re supposed to labor. Get up.”
Most likely he followed that up with his favorite lie, “It’s only a half a day.” Which to my ears meant we’d work till noon and I’d be home by one in the afternoon and could still have a life. Uncle Dick later decoded the term for me, “For your old man, half a day is twelve hours.” Dick version was usually closer to the mark.
I can’t think about Labor Day without connecting the day to our family’s brand of labor. Most of the Syracuse version of my past is either the grainy black and white or faded color tones of old photographs. My memory has no well defined edges. Work and Labor can sometimes be the same. To me work means the fine grey dust of mortar, the sandy sharp edges of brick, a truck windshield silvery with dust, the smell of fresh concrete and old truck exhaust, how weirdly natural a ‘Rose’ trowel feels in the hand, being out in a cool fall breeze with nothing above you but the blowing clouds. I love being outside in the time of year when the air is crisp and leaves fly. I guess I’m a romantic sucker for all the years that have passed without a single thought to the reality of today. When I’d attempted to get my teaching credential I told a friend that I was quitting the trade for once and for all, “It’s like being in a bad relationship. I’m sick of getting my feelings hurt [by masonry].” I realized after a semester of school that teaching high school would require me to serve a multitude of bosses and that I’d be more miserable than I am already. I’d be walking on eggshells every minute of every day in fear of, cursing, saying something insensitive, of showing my volcanic anger in fear of, you name it – everything.
What kind of a person talks about his work as a relationship? I guess a person who still loves dirty pick-up trucks and jobsites and the feel of brick in the hand. I have to admit that I’m about as crazy as anyone you may ever meet and my craziness at least part of it, comes from my relationship with bricks, and work, and jobs, and Labor.