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I had some really crappy jobs coming up. I actually made paint once. I don't want to talk about it, either. Also I worked in a sandpaper factory. That's right, a factory that made sandpaper. I was responsible for making sure the stuff was moving through the oven it dried in. I was in there with it. I was drying out,too.

Super heated fumes from the chemicals in the glue that adhered the sand to the paper made me look at the world in a different way, whoooeee. Luckily, I was in and out a lot. I was relatively happy there.

Steve, a cool stoner motherfucker and I were the only ones that I know of that lasted in there for more than two days. A few times a new guy would show up and go in there, find the fire door, push it open and go out of there right away. They never came back. I'd hear the alarm and say "there goes our new friend."I worked in there for a year and a half.

Two of the main reasons I kept the job so long were fear of my "parole" officer who insisted I had a job and then, well you know; I was always loaded. I mean fucking loaded. That was normal for me then so I didn't need to worry about it. The situation was, no one else ever came up there and we stayed up there.We were the forgotten men yet greatly appreciated forgotten men.

Appreciated because as long as we were there, no one else had to go in there. It was like living in a bad dream, but not quite a nightmare. We hung out by a broken window between paper runs for air and smoked cigarettes and weed, drank whiskey and ate spam sandwiches. Steve had a mother and he got food to bring to work for lunch. He usually gave me the spam sandwiches because he didn't like them. I'll eat almost anything.

It turns out that it was actually a good job. The combination of a motherfucker of a blizzard and factory misery desperation finally encouraged me to flee. I left behind all my connections and the whole fucking East Coast of America before it killed or imprisoned me for life. I went west,of course.

When I finally got home, I worked in a hippie owned factory in San Francisco for a month or two. The hippie owners were posers. They were the same assholes oppressing us working men that they always are, just with hair and Tie Dye and some weed once in a blue fucking moon.

This job was confusing to me.

See, I knew that real freaks are cool, they never push anyone else around. I was living with and learning from a mess of them at the time, so I know what I'm talking about. I expected things would be different at this hippie factory. I thought these hippie management types were "cool." Let me tell you, management is management and like cops are cops; it is seldom cool.

I asked a guy at the house one day what I should do. He advised me gently, with a question; "why not just do what you want to do?" I quit and got a job working for a plumber, mostly carrying lots of his heavy shit around wherever he said and busting up concrete and digging. I was good at it, it turns out.

The guy I worked for is a Socialist Commie. I don't think he knows that, but I know it. He thinks he's a sailor, and he is. Incredibly talented on a sailboat, a true skipper, and unbelievably talented as a plumber and teacher as well. We worked all over SF. Never for more than six hours a day.

We ate great lunches. Sometimes it'd be Carne Asada Burritos and Carte Blanca for lunch on Marina Green if we were down there, Avocados, Sweet Lemons and Dos Equis if we were in the Mission,we knew all the good lunch spots. Sometimes we just fucking skipped work and went sailing. "Meat on the rail", he'd yell at me.. Sure beat the shit out of working, sailing around the Bay looking for girls on boats.

I never worked in a fucking factory again.