Saturday

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The bureaucracy. A social worker half my age on a power trip. The impossibility of explaining things to the unintelligent. That's what life has been like. Thanks for asking.

 

In order to get cash aid from the government these days, you've got to jump through hoops, I know that, but my current hoops are so asinine they boggle the mind.

 

My social worker, Hazel Borjal, a swarthy toad of a woman with a loathsome air of superiority, works for the community jobs program out of the downtown YWCA. Through this program, I have a superb community job refurbishing computers at InterConnection. But there's a glitch. She says she will throw me out of the program if I don't also attend classes. Education is part of the program. I must attend. The classes they offer are no more advanced than beginning typing. How to use a keyboard and mouse. conduct yourself at a job interview. Beginning internet. She could get me out of this. She won't. The nicest thing I can say about Hazel Borjal is that she is not a douchebag since, after all, she does not make your girlfriend taste better after using her.

 

Here's how my "education" has gone so far.

 

My first class was with Aziz. It was about how to find work. He's smart and funny, a journalist and publisher with a day job. When he found out I was a publisher and journalist who knew more than he about what he was teaching, he threw the class open to question and answer with me and the class. It was actually fun. Everyone learned something but me.

 

My next class was beginning keyboard. The teacher couldn't help but notice I wasn't paying attention and was pissed off. [a deliberate split infinitive for you grammar geeks] I asked the teacher to please just give me the final exam and leave me alone. They showed me some sort of typing program they had on the computer. I immediately started typing at my standard 60WPM, clickety clickety clack, and people in the class who were struggling to get past phase one of learning f, g, h, and j, got up to stand behind me like they'd never seen anyone type that fast before. It was a curious experience to be entertaining people with my typing, not my writing, which I'd always considered to be pretty much the same thing.

 

The teacher asked me what I was doing there in a typing class I obviously didn't need. I told her my social worker said I had to attend. "Why?" they asked. "Because she's incompetent?" I said. I blurted out a little of my history. "You know more than me," the teacher said. "You could teach this class." They complained about the social worker wasting both their time and mine. I spent the rest of the class in the back reading a newspaper.

 

My next class was beginning internet. The teacher couldn't help but notice I wasn't paying attention and was pissed off. [IBID] I asked them to please just give me the final exam and leave me alone. There was no final exam. I opened up a browser on one of the class computers and showed her one of the dozens of websites I've designed. "These are pretty good," they said. "Why are you in this class? You obviously don't need it." I told her my social worker said I had to attend. "Why?" they asked. "Because she's a sadist?" I said. I answered a bunch of questions from the class, and from the teacher, who asked me to fix their computer. The teacher complained about the social worker wasting both their time and mine. I spent the rest of the class in the back reading the newspaper.

 

In order to attend these classes I have to take a bus from my home to downtown Seattle. Takes an hour. From there I have to take another bus to InterConnection where I refurbish computers for five hours in order to get paid by the program. If I go to InterConnection without going to the class first, I don't get paid. Then it's another two busses to get home.

 

"Just use the computers in the class to do your work," I hear you scream. Can't happen. The computers have filters that won't let through any blogs. You can only do online job search. I looked through the list and there wasn't a single one I had any experience in. I applied for every single one. What the fuck.

 

When I got home, I checked my email. One had written back, asking me some question about my experience, but I couldn't reply because I didn't know which job it was or what kind of experience they were looking for. I only knew my credit writing Animaniacs probably wouldn't help.

 

Of course Hazel, Miss Brain Glitch 2009, doesn't care as long as it looks like I'm looking for work, no matter how futile. I try to explain to her that I can only look for work from MY computer, where I've got all my email and archives. She doesn't care. She thinks I'm lying, that I just don't want to go to school, like all her other clientele of crack addicts and pregnant teenagers. She complains I'm asking for some sort of special treatment, but I think everyone should get special treatment. There's no cookie cutter solution to everyone's problems. Yeah, many people on Welfare need to get their GEDs and education is important, but my 40th high school reunion is coming up, I'm a professional with a serious 30 year career who's hit hard times like everyone else, and my problems can't be solved by teaching me to type.

 

There are other people at InterConnection who don't have to go to class, but the Glitch absolutely refused to explain why they're getting special treatment.

 

Got a book in the mail this week. It's a textbook from the University of Mississippi, Jonathan Demme Interviews, that includes my LA Weekly interview with him in 1984 for the film Stop Making Sense. The book didn't pay anything but I can put it on my résumé and honestly say from now on that I've written part of a college textbook. I showed her the book. She wouldn't even take it and look at it. The first words out of her mouth, I swear to God, upon being confronted with a client who writes college textbooks, she asked me if I'd considered another career, and repeated her claim that I needed to take a typing class.

 

Next month Microsoft is laying off 5,000 workers. I can only assume that upon being confronted with one of them, she'll insist they take computer classes. Next month, the local daily paper the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is going under and thousands of journalists like be are going to be out of work. I can only assume that upon being confronted with one of them, she'll insist they take courses in how to use a keyboard and mouse.

 

Those journalists, upon being confronted with such idiocy, would be pissed off. Chances are they would write about it. Chances are someone would print it. This could be a PR nightmare. Good idea.

 

So I'm thinking about vengeance. Vengeance is good. I'm a journalist. I'm willing to be a nightmare.

 

I once met the grandson of Daryl Zanuck, a famous Hollywood mogul. Andre Hakim Zanuck ripped me off to the tune of at least $25,000. In order to prevent anyone else from being taken in by him again, I posted his picture to my website with a warning, saying don't get involved with this guy, he's a liar and the biggest asshole on earth.

 

Something mysterious happened. It went viral thanks to DIGG and STUMBLEUPON, which had interesting results. To this day, if you type "biggest asshole on earth" into Google and hit "I'm Feeling Lucky," Andre's picture comes up.

 

Cool.

 

Now I know how to do it.

 

So I'm thinking something like "world's most incompetent social worker." Oh sure, there are probably social workers more incompetent but who gives a shit, this is vengeance we're talking about and I feel devious. For the rest of eternity, if she loses her job, applies for a new one, and they Google her name, up will pop my story of what an incredible idiot she is. I can make it happen. I can fuck her up like she's fucked me up. You can do it too, to anyone you hate, especially if it's someone with a weird name. I've looked up Hazel's name and the only thing that comes up is a six-year-old rape victim in the Philippines who probably won't be Googling themselves any time soon.

 

Okay, she's an incredibly minor league asshole, bossing around street derelicts and the homeless without a care in the world for their actual needs, just pushing paper, a brainless automaton, not even worth writing about if she weren't taking out her idiocy on me. And she's not even as incompetent as Chief Justice Roberts, that MAJOR league asshole who blew Obama's oath. Maybe she's only the most incompetent social worker in Seattle, but I'm too lazy to go up and change the subject.

 

My goal? Anyone who goes to Google, looks up "fucktard," clicks on "I'm feeling lucky," Hazel Borjal comes up.

 

Or I can tidy up this splendid piece of spicy vindictiveness, remove all the slander and fucks and such, submit it to her superiors and request an administrative hearing. The only other person in the program who doesn't have to go to class, the one Hazel refuses to talk to me about, is a black woman who is just as puzzled as I am at Hazel's irrational behavior. I can claim racial and sexual prejudice since race and sex seem to be the only differences between our two cases, other than the fact she hasn't written any college textbooks.

 

Yeah, it's a fucking rant, I said I could type 60WPM but no, you wouldn't believe me. It's the only thing I can do about the situation. Thank God I'm a writer or I'd kill somebody.

 

 

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