This is Beard Nation 0.1

It is entirely possible that if Michael Jackson’s Thriller had never existed, this blog’s URL would be something other than “epthnation.com.”  I was 11 when it came out, and it so transfixed my kid-brain that my friends and I formed a fake band and re-interpreted the entire album using a casio keyboard and a lot of yelling*.  That fake band was called Epth.  Would we have formed a fake band without Thriller?  Who knows?  All I know is, I can still recite Vincent Price’s part in that song by heart.  I did it a couple of weeks ago, in fact.  Shut up.  I’ve got a lot of “me time,” and I have to fill it with something.  Would you rather I plot the destruction of something?  I thought not.

It’s also possible that I’ve never listened to Thriller’s follow-up, Bad, in its entirety.  Nobody I knew had it, and by age 13 all of us had in some way outgrown Michael Jackson.   It sounds crazy, I know…but at age 13 Weird Al’s Fat seemed to hold more truth and beauty than Bad, plus it had a guy in a fat suit, which was awesome.  The point is, it didn’t take very long for Michael’s quirky fashion sense — one white sequined glove, the red jacket with all the zippers, the fake “hood”-ness, the seeming lack of nourishment, the slow inexorable morphing into a white Diana Ross — to overwhelm his substantial talent.  Michael Jackson’s Bad was catchy, but had a fatal flaw in that he was in no way, well, bad.  Nobody’s “butt” could ever possibly be his.  The music was still insanely great, and the singing one-of-a kind, but it felt like we were being sold something fake.  And guess what?  We were all correct in our assessment.  We sold our stock in Michael at his highest point, and bought stock in Weird Al instead.  Now that’s some stock that just keeps on giving.

But still, Thriller towers over me and every child of the 80’s.  I bet the baby-boomers have a different perspective on him, since they were introduced to him while he was a regular-seeming child and not a man-child.  I listened to “I Want You Back” the other day in an MJ retrospective, and that song is just amazing (even if it is weird to hear a 9-year-old sing “oo-oo-babyyyy”).  They probably have a lot more sympathetic feelings for him as an abused child, and see him less as a possible abuser/weirdest person ever.  You want to know how I see him?  You know that time on The Simpsons when Mr. Burns’ age-reversal process turned him into a glowing alien who said nothing but “I bring you love”?  Well, that what MJ seems like to me.  He always talked about “love,” too.  I never knew if that was drug-related or weirdness-related or what, and therefore never know what he meant by it.

This week The Beard will present a Michael Jackson retrospective, from every angle imaginable.  He will try to ascertain whether or not the man is actually a pedophile.  He will try to explain the man’s greatness to you young people who see him just as a freak.  He will try to sort out if the man’s transcendent strangeness was merely a product of a horrible family life and unprecedented success.  He will reflect on fame, and money, and how the man’s life and death proves certain things The Beard been saying for years.  However, he will try to do this as a tribute rather than a death-capitalization, so as to not appear unseemly.

Also, Farrah Fawcett.  And Billy Mays.  And Fred Travalina.  And, sheesh, it wasn’t too long ago that David Carradine was found in the closet.  Oh, and who could forget Ed McMahon?  I almost did.  How crazy is that?  If you would have told me in 1983 that MJ (who was on top of the world), Farrah (who was still on a lot of walls, and making movies like Cannonball Run), and Ed McMahon (who was an icon in 3 ways — sidekick, Star Search, and the guy who shows up at your house when you win the Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes) would all live very sad lives and die in the same week in 2009, I don’t know what I would have said.  I’d probably have slapped you, or ask if the Brewers were ever going to be good again.  After your answer, I definitely would have slapped you.

*Btw — Tapes of this exist, maybe.

Dear readers, please forgive the slow week.  I had job interviews.  I had pizzas to deliver.  I had to re-read The Regulators.  Having done all that, my blog coma was still intact when I came upon the story of one Joseph Carnevale:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105592372

Mr. Carnevale, a troubled college student who once drunkenly stole a boat, has turned his life around and now uses his smart-alecky and property-destructing impulses for good.  He made a cool monster out of those orange traffic barrels, and everyone loved it.  However, the Raleigh, NC police department thought it would be a good idea to make an example of this young hero, so that nobody would be creative in ways not approved by the State ever again.  They charged him with “larceny” and “injury to personal property,” and he faces six months in jail thanks to violating the probation he got when he stole a boat.

So, let me get this straight — the company that owns the barrels doesn’t mind, but the State does?  That’s morally wrong.  It’s morally right to create something as awesome as a 10-foot barrel monster.  I don’t know much, but I know that’s true.

If they come for Joseph Carnivale, and snuff out his creative wick, then who’s next?  Don’t think it can’t happen to you.  This time, it’s a guy who makes totally cool stuff out of other people’s trash — next, it could be a blogger sitting in a cabin, making totally cool stuff out of pixels and electrical impulses.  Think about it.  The State should always be treading lightly, not overstepping its bounds.  Somewhere along the way, they got the idea that they were the last line of defense against something.  Little do they realize it’s against the State itself.

I’ll ask it again:  When can I start to say we’re an oppressed people?  It’s not just about rigged elections, fundamentalists, or mandatory abortions.  There are many ways to oppress.  It looks like our leaders have found one — and are implementing it, little by little.

Happy Juneteenth!

Stepping out of the cabin, the fresh air always hits me in the face, so hard.

Had a meeting for work last week, at which I won a camping chair and a seat cushion.  The camping chair was a raffle prize, and the cushion was given to me for treating customers well at the door (as a pizza delivery driver).  There’s no way they could ever know how true that is, I mean me being awesome to customers at the door, but that doesn’t stop me from sitting on the cushion.  My chair’s natural cushioning system was getting a little flat anyway.

It was a two-hour meeting on a Thursday night, billed as a “rally.”  It was held at the only sit-down restaurant in our gaggle of eight stores, and representatives of all eight were present and accounted for.  All the store managers were there, and they had wildly varying personalities and management focii.  Some of them were nice, and some were brutal.  All of them, however, were buying the company line on this particular night — the line of “we’re a team, be team players, if you don’t we’ll make you, etc.”  Their attempt to wring concern and teamwork from a room full of apathy was both quixotic and kind of charming.  It made them seem almost human, like they’re real people who have this job that’s horrible and their boss is forcing them to do the soul-crushing task of drumming up some enthusiasm for arbitrary corporate pizza policies, i.e.,

“Yay!  We aren’t giving out the 1-800 complaint number anymore!  If the store can’t take care of it, we give them the Area Manager’s cell phone number!”

“Yay!  We can’t let drivers take over 3 deliveries on a run, thus giving them a de facto paycut!”

“Yay!  We’re cutting labor hours!  This means more money for…the Area Manager!”

See what I mean?  They did everything but put up an “Is this good for the company?” banner.  Those poor managers never had a chance.

It was interesting to see the demographics of the employees.  About half of the total employees for the eight restaurants showed up, and apparently our franchise is the only one who hires black people.  Every other race on earth seemed to be represented except African-American, and I’m not counting the guy named Sunday who was actually born in Africa.  Our three black girls were the only brothers or sisters there.  They were sitting in the corner booth by themselves, so I decided to take it upon myself and combat segregation by sitting with them.  For some reason, the Beard gets along great with women who are black, or really any race besides white, no matter what age.  I can’t explain it, but it’s totally true.

We had about as much fun as you can at one of these things, and won way more loot than any of the other booths or tables.  In addition to my chair and cushion, there was a blender, a blanket, and $20 cash money.  Some might say it was Fate, since Fate is a sworn enemy of The Man and his Keeping People Down behavior.   But I don’t believe in Fate –  I believe in pizza, because I haven’t met a man alive who can stop it.  And pizza continues to be good to me, despite the best efforts of my bosses.

I almost forgot the best part, where we broke into groups by role (in-store personnel vs. drivers) and had a “breakout” session where they did nothing but berate us about how much more we could be doing for the team.  The Unibrowed Manager (you’d know him if you saw him) let loose several pro-teamwork-related gems:

“People tip based upon how you look.  If I order a delivery, and the guy isn’t shaven, I don’t tip him.”

“You need to answer the phone.  Also, there’s always cleaning to do.”

“One guy got fired for putting a load of laundry in at his home during a delivery.  I had to fire him.”

“I don’t give people raises for just doing their jobs — they have to go above and beyond the call of duty.”

For a guy who’s been delivering long enough to know that 95% of people already know what their tip is going to be when the answer the door, and who also knows that our chain has an answering service that will pick up the phone if we don’t get it, and who realizes that a clean store is a failing store, and who rejects categorically the notion that a slow unprofitable shift should mean MORE work for LESS money, and who hasn’t gotten a voluntary pizza raise since he got to the great state of Texas, all those unibrowed words sorta rang hollow, you know?

*  This inside joke is way too hard to explain.  You had to be there, or at least have to know R. John  Buuck.

That felt a little like giving up the ghost, if you know what I mean.  No, not the terrible 80’s movie starring Patrick Swayze and some clay –  more like death.  So, I purchased a cabin in the woods, got myself one of those ancient typewriter-thingees, grew an enormous beard,  and am now publishing uma-bomber-style over the interwebs.  (NOTE: I officially now hate the term “the interwebs.”  It’s been overdone.  Sorry.  And I know it’s the UNAbomber — if you don’t get the reference, that’s okay.)

Hmm.  Having a goat-herder’s beard has its advantages.  I can now refer to myself as “Beards McGee” and nobody bats an eye.  I can keep food in there for later (when, I don’t really know).  Ok, so those advantages aren’t really all that great, but having a log cabin far away from civilization is definitely worth it.  None of you pesky people walking around, stepping on my beard like pirates on a ship.  Also, the Man can’t get to me out here — I’m too far gone.  Therefore, I’m free to type anything I want, one letter at a time, and nobody can stop me.  By the time it’s posted, it’s already too late.

Yes, we’re going to see where this goes.

Sincerely,

Beards McGee

(ps — please continue to follows Mike’s trials, job searches, and illnesses on twitter.com/epthnation)

I’ve decided that I got shingles because of stress.

Not the normal, “which color shirt do I want to buy” type of stress — real stress.  Stress that had me yelling in my car.  Stress that made me wonder what the heck I’m doing here on earth in the first place.  It was really, really bad.  And it took the flare-up of a disease I didn’t know I had to knock me out of it.

The other thing I learned for my $150 I paid the doc?  My blood pressure is too high.  Hmm…seems like somebody’s under too much pressure…making too little money working for people who don’t want to pay him…there’s a reason he can’t stop thinking about Texas and the anti-labor culture here…what is all this for, anyway? It’s that kind of thinking that could lead to health problem after health problem for the rest of my life, if I don’t get out now.

So I left.  Took off.  I’m done.  No, not in that way.  More like, I accept that life is going to be bad.  It’s ok.  It doesn’t have to affect me.  I have to affect it, instead.  Remember when I said I was going to start a cult?  Well, I sort of joined my own one-person cult, one that involves chilling out instead of obeying some dude in a robe.  Not that I’m starting my own church or anything, it’s just that I realize that none of this matters, and I’m tired of pretending that it does.

So I’m sitting at a coffee shop writing this blog post.  I haven’t paid much attention to the blog in a while, because every time I post I can’t wait for the minute I’m no longer posting.  That’s probably not a good sign.  But if I say I’m going to take a break, I’ll want to start posting again immediately.  It’s just a pile of absurdity, right now, inside my head.

The answer to all this, of course, is that I need to love people, and not care about myself.  So I’m going to go do that, now.