A PEEK AT THE FOUNDATION

A video about taking street graffiti to new heights.

Speaking of graffiti; I was in a scary place tonight. A sign outside said that parts of the building materials were taken from a place in Mississippi commemorating a 1930 deal with Satan. Lots of people can visit the first two levels if they have a lot of money, but tonight I got to go to the inner sanctum. I got to go to the THIRD level and I got to go DURING a ritual. It was freaky deaky, baby. Freaky deaky.

I 'd guess that less than half of one percent of the population of Los Angeles ever gets to see even a few seconds of a Foundation meeting. Probably less. It's guarded by a 350 pound djin with a secret service earpiece. He was the one who sent me up there and I think he only sent me up there after I had mentioned my past connection with the underworld and underworld types like The Dragon Lady and The Ornamental. I guess that made me safe.

I took the elevator up, got off on three, passed through the dark anteroom with its statuary of various demons and its stern signs warning of unspecified penalties for the possession of camera or video equipment in any part of the building, and pulled the curtains back to look at this large room covered with ancient hieroglyphics on the ceilings and the walls.

The place was lit by flickering candles. In the center was a dark mass. My eyes adjusted. The dark mass was moving. It was them. The practitioners.

A few of them looked over at me and they were not happy I was there. Their voices muted. They were sitting in a circle, all wearing nothing but black on black, gnawing on the carcasses of exotic dead things.

You have to understand. These were ultra rich beings. Powerful beings. They hide their likenesses in public. They do not like being seen in their natural state. They paid people like me to keep people like me away from them. Was it my imagination or did I hear an angry cat hiss? The circle of about 12 beings seemed to close tighter in on itself as I passed right by them, within arm's reach.

I looked away from them. Their powers of seduction are well documented. I walked right past them, trying to be as invisible as possible. Funny thing: you can feel their power. It emanates off of them lives waves of heat.

A consort grabbed me and pulled me through some curtains on the other side. He seemed a little panicked, but it was too late. I saw them. They saw me. The consort handed me a walkie talkie and sent me on my way, down the back stairs. And that was the highlight of my temporary job assignment today. I made $72.

I could tell you more. I could tell you about my tour earlier in the day of the place's make out rooms, rooms where $2000 couches were destroyed and being replaced, about my exploration of the back stage areas and the dressing rooms and the ramps and secret hallways.

Do you know what rich and famous people write when they write graffiti on backstage hallway walls that only other rich and famous people (and stagehands) will see?

They write their own names...and the names of other places, other cities, where they've practiced their black arts.

Tags: Youtube, graffiti, skywriting, the foundation, viral video, vlogging, blogger, a scary place, Mississippi, Satan, inner sanctum, ritual, guarded by a 350 pound djin, secret service earpiece, underworld, underworld types, The Dragon Lady, anteroom, statuary, various demons, pulled the curtains back, ancient hieroglyphics, dark mass, the practitioners, gnawing on carcases, exotic dead things, powers of seduction, consort, ultra rich, powerful beings, circle of 12, stagehands

My Homeless Veterans Shelter Roommate Needs A Civilization Intervention

All goes well here at Bellvue West.

The Chain Resume Project is coming along, I have planted one hard core anarchist in this country’s only extant non-alcoholic American Legion post (an anarchist so rabid he’s likely to drive them to drinking), planted another anarchist (my attorney) in the mess hall, filed a complaint of fraudulent labor practices against my last employer (Pacific Security, which thought it could hide from me by changing its name to Worldwide Security) started a new project, Project Papermill, using a 340 member list of Approved Licensing & Certification Testing Organizations For GI Bill Reimbursement and I still have time to do my two favorite things: read and write.

Since I’ve moved upstairs to G.P. from V.I.P. hell, I’ve read David Morrel’s “Extreme Denial”, Dean Koontz’s “Twilight Eyes”, Jonathan Kellerman’s “Time Bomb” (there was a bomb in THAT book all right), and Lisa Gardner’s “The Next Accident.” No more Judith Krantz for me after “Dazzle” (I wasn’t dazzled).

How do I have all this time? Its downright amazing what you can do with no TV in your room.

Well, actually, my roommate Antony, the 248 pound ant, has a TV, but he uses it ONLY as a monitor for a Playstation game called “Civilization.” Night and day, day and night, at every spare moment, EVERY spare moment, of Ant’s waking life, he is playing “Civilization.”

Poor Antony. It’s a sickness. I’m thinking about doing a “Civilization” intervention on him.

Tags: Department of Veteran Affairs, Bellvue, The Chain Resume Project, anarchist, American Legion, Pacific Security, Worldwide Security, fraudulent labor practices, Project Papermill, Approved Licensing and Certification Testing Organizations For GI Bill Reimbursement, Dean Koontz, Jonathan Kellerman, Lisa Gardner, Judith Krantz, Civilization, Civ, intervention, game addiction, homeless, veterans shelter, homeless veteran, jarvis, marquisdejolie, factotum

Ten Lines I Decided To Remove From My Resumes

I’ve been planning for a few weeks now to lose my security guard job for the Christmas holidays. It'll be my Christmas present to myself. I want to go to Texas for Christmas and they’ll probably not want to give me that busy holiday off, so I’ll just have to look for a new job when I get back after the holiday, something 'commiserate' with my 'intrusive' experience.

Towards that end, I have been polishing up my various resumes for my January job search, trying to come up with new and innovative ways to market my dubious talents.

The internet resume I used to get my current job needed the polishing. It was half empty, quite questionable and unduly simple, just the kind of resume that will get me a security guard job, but after the holidays I may just get some ambition, so I’ve been pounding away at the resumes, trying to come up with the right stuff to keep me off the streets again.

Here are 10 lines I decided to take out of my resumes:

1. Reasons for Leaving the Last Job: Terminated after saying, "I'd rather be fired."

2. Please don't misconstrue my 14 jobs as job-hopping. My termination to resignation ratio is quite reasonable.

3. My previous employers insisted that all employees get to work by 8:05 every morning. I just couldn't work under those conditions.

4. Job responsibilities included checking customers out.

5. Minor allergies to house cats, nail polish remover and Mongolian sheep.

6. Have people skills but prefer working alone.

7. I'll need full medical, three weeks vacation, stock options and maturity leave.

8. I want a boss of average height, not too tall, though not exceptionally small, preferably one slow at dodging.

9. I need just enough money to have pizza every night.

10. Please call me after 5:30 because I am self-employed and my employer does not know I am looking for another job.

Tags: security, security guard, security officer, Sluggo Security, Texas, Christmas, new job, commiserate, polishing the resume, bad resume, previous employer, boss, people skills, factotum, jarvis, unemployed, job, mcjob, self employed, marquisdejolie

My New Sluggo Security Guard Posting: Uptown Hell

Tags: Pacific Security, WSA, uber rich college coeds, San Pedro, Palos Verdes, Korean Friendship Bell, Sluggo, Marymount College, security guard, working homeless, factotum, uptown hell, jarvis, tales of the urban nomad, new economy, mindshare, dot bomb, mome, screable

Pacific Security ( aka Sluggo ) has moved me to another problem post where the previous guard wasn't cutting it. Now I'm guarding über rich college coeds in San Pedro, CA. from midnight until 6 a.m.

The Marymount College dorm I'm guarding was an apartment complex not too far from the Korean Friendship Bell on the tip of the hilly San Pedro / Palos Verdes peninsula.

The college purchased the complex and stores its richest, most beautiful coeds there. My job is to keep the girls from falling out in the street when they get too drunk or high, which appears to be every night.

I'm in hell. Such a pretty, pretty hell.

Tickling Jack & Edith's Sardonic Funny Bones

Tags: Sluggo Security, dumb security guard, paradigm shift, mindshare, Casa Grande, funny bones, guarding, security guard, security officer, rover, East L.A., Montebello, veterans shelter, homeless veteran, the working homeless, apartment managers, Daily Activity Report, DAR, call girls, Jeep Grand Cherokee, tenants smoking crack, Pacific Security, horseshit posts, lazy dispatcher, bullshit strawboss, fat guard, jarvis, problem employee

Sluggo Security schedules me 32 hours a week guarding Casa Grande Apartments, a 224 unit key card gated apartment complex in Montebello, CA.

Casa Grande is deep in East L.A., about 25 miles from my homeless vets' dorm. I don't mind being one of the city's thousands of working homeless, but do I have to burn up so much gas doing it? Guess so.

The apartment managers, Edith and Jack, like me and specifically requested me after I had worked there a couple of nights, partially because the regular guard is a spry 80 year-old who is hard to understand because his teeth don't fit so good and the previous alternate guard was a pouty 18 year-old kid who spent most of his shift exercising in the apartment's weight room.

Edith and Jack also like me, I think, because my Daily Activity Reports to them are colorful and slightly sardonic. Old barflies like Edith and Jack like sardonic.

I also lucked out a bit on my first night of work at Casa Grande. I ran across a couple of "party girls" who were trapped inside the parking structure by the two-way security card gates, just like my car thieves (see previous post).

My description of their tawdry appearance (for these were not upscale call girls) and their panic about not being able to drive out of the property in their rented Jeep Grand Cherokee (the preferred automobile of Los Angeles area hookers) must've been stimulating reading to a couple of old alkies drinking coffee in the morning trying to nurse their hangovers as they read my D.A.R.

The next night, I was able to locate which of their tenants were smoking crack late at night by the telltale burnt copper smell. Jack and Edith called Pacific and told them "That's our man", and to make sure the fat guard was scheduled more nights at Casa Grande.

The Pacific Security dispatcher was surprised. Surprised and confused. I had always been a problem employee until then. She called me at the vets dorm and told me that 'for some reason they want you over at Casa Grande' with genuine surprise in her voice.

I'm not a problem employee. The real problem was ---and is--- I'm too old for horseshit posts and bullshit bosses and lazy-assed dipwad dispatchers and I don't keep that much of a secret.

Okay, I'm a problem employee. Always have been.

The Sluggo Security Dispatcher Is a Moron

Tags: car thieves, East L.A., security, Sluggo Security, dispatcher, security gates, apartment complex, key card, burglary tools, vatos, I call bullshit, deputy dawg, Barney Fife, factotum, jarvis

Hey! I foiled a car theft last night at the apartment complex I was guarding in East L.A. It was fun. The three vatos were determined to get a car last night, but old Deputy Dawg (me) was too sharp for them.

One of them climbed under the car access gate and let the other two in, but they didn't get their burglary tools 30 feet onto the property before I was running them off.

They waited until they thought I had gone to sleep like a normal security guard. Then they got in their rental car with no license plates front or rear and followed a resident's car onto the property. Trouble is, it takes a key card on the gates to get in and a key card to get OUT, too, so they were trapped.

I chased them around the apartment complex driveways (me on foot, them in their car---doh!) for about half an hour until I got too winded and called dispatch. Dispatch said to just let them out. She didn't want to be bothered with police reports and such at this time of night. I had the feeling I had woken her.

"I call bullshit!" I yelled into the phone at the dipwad dispatcher and hung up.

Doh! I coulda saved all that Deputy Dawging. So I motioned them over to me and told the car thieves I was going to let them out. You shoulda seen the look of relief and disbelief on their faces. It was like they'd just won the lottery or something. No jail tonight, vatos. Lazy-assed dispatch says so.

"Come back and see us again," I told them on their way out.

My Life As A Doorstop

Tags: doorstop, Sluggo Security, Raleigh Studios, Manhattan Beach, Orange County, St. Mary's University, hobknobbing with the stars, Hollywood, Hollywoodland, PanAmSat, IntelSat, PA, production assistants, spot lamps, Joker K5600, tv production crew, film crew, touting screenplays, The Dresden, David Hasslehoff, tear sheet, blue revision, factotum, jarvis, marquisdejolie, Revver, viral video

Worked as a door stop at Raleigh Studios in Manhattan Beach yesterday. Yes, a door stop. They were shooting a scene for an upcoming telecast of "Orange County" and they needed me to prop the fourth floor fire door open. Seven years of college to become a door stop. Wouldn't my St. Mary's University professors be proud?

Security work is like being punished every day for showing up. When they gave me this assignment, I thought, 'Oh, cool, I'll be hobknobing with the starlets, hanging out in front of the makeup trailors and scarfing down some of that famous buffet they always have for their breaks between takes.'

No such luck. I pulled door stop duty.

Raleigh Studios rents out office space in some of its buildings. An aerospace engineering firm, PanAmSat, rents the fourth floor of building 7. The directors of "Orange County" decided to shoot a scene in the PanAmSat lobby, so I had to door stop the fire exit to keep lookee loos from crashing the set.

The PAs and whatever else you call them came in lugging furniture props and setting up their Joker K5600 spot lamps and laying out miles of electrical cables and there was a cocophony of conversation about what goes where and how it's gonna go and it was like a racecar pit crew buzzing around the lobby.

There were lots of men in shorts with walkie talkies stuck in the small of their back and before I knew it there was 40 or 50 crew-- men and women-- doing this high speed construction act and I thought: 'no wonder TV shows are so expensive, it takes dozens and dozens of men and women, a ton of equipment and 4 or 5 hours of frenetic labor to make 10 seconds of TV.'

Women were running around saying "unacceptible", men were plugging things in, pulling things out (metal things), associate assistants were touting their boyfriends' screenplays to anyone who would listen and the sound of 40 or 50 people all talking at the same time got louder and louder until I heard, "Matty! good to see you!" The star had arrived, I guess.

"Okay, guys, settle in for rehearsal, please!"

Some of the actors were hearded over to chairs near my fire door while the main actors were on the set rehearsing. I thought the actors near me might busy themselves with rehearsing their own lines, but they did everything BUT that. They talked about reservations at The Dresden and called their girlfriends to beg for a weekend away and bought flowers in Colorado and talked to their agents.

I only caught bits and pieces of their conversations, like " . . .THAT culture has a THING about Windex. No, REALLY. It's the strangest thing. WINDEX! They even . . ."
or "What's David Hasslehoffer doing now?"

They formed cliques, the men with the men and the women with the women. The men generally talked about cell phones and relationships while the women were talking about Jesus and that old way of life (sounded drug recovery-ish to me).

I stood there 6 hours, propping up that door. No breaks. No food. No smoking. When the shoot was over and the PAs and whatevers were tearing down the set, one of them said to me, "Exciting, eh!"

"Why is that?"

"Being around movie stars! I'll bet you love this job."

"Why is that?"

"Because you get to look at movie stars all day," he said.

"But they don't look back so what's the point?" I asked.

Here is an actor's tear sheet from the set that I stole:

"the o.c. - "The escape" - BLUE REVISION 07-30-03

RACHEL (CON'D)
Calling in a high-powered Securities Attorney. In the span of a weekend?

SANDY
God, I'm impressive.

RACHEL
And conceited.

SANDY
So you keep saying.

RACHEL
Truth be told--no one was gonna touch that guy. The fact that you DID made the partners think--made me think--is Sandy Cohen ready to come off his high horse? Is he finally tired of being a martyr?"

ZZZZZZZzzzzz. Oh yeah, from reading this script I can see this is gonna be Must See TV. My questions are these: how can a person be on a high horse and a martyr at the same time? And, can a man working as a doorstop find happiness on a Manhattan Beach TV sound stage?

PANSY TEAMSTERS PUT ME OUT OF WORK

Tags: One Bunker Hill, teamsters, picketers, union strike, Sluggo Security, picket line, downtown L.A. parking, downtown Los Angeles, fulltime flunkies, jarvis, factotum, Revver, marquisdejolie

Monday I was called downtown to help stop a riot at One Bunker Hill, a law office. Teamsters and anti-teamsters were picketing the building's parking garage. My new employer, Sluggo Security, hired me as a Rover, which means I only work when there's a job that none of their fulltime flunkies will do.

I had to drive through the picket line to park inside so I could come back out and help disperse the picketers. If you know how expensive parking is in downtown L.A., you know I had no choice. I HAD to drive through the 30 or so picketers. I can't afford street parking.

I did such a good job that the picketers didn't come back Tuesday so now I'm out of work again. Damned pansy-assed teamsters.