Scum Art

I've mentioned porto-john adventures before, but not too much about the grafitti that generally adorns the walls. Usually it's racist remarks and crude renditions of blowjobs, doggystyle sex, vaginas, or huge unrealistic penises. In some of the nicer neighborhoods I've been working in over the past couple of years, the scum art has been rather vacant. It can get a little out of control and usually isn't that funny anyway.

I went to a new jobsite for the first time last week and saw that someone had 'tagged' the wall. While I find tagging generally juvenille, I understand its place. If you're in a gang and you need to mark your territory, you should tag. If you're in a rock band and you're trying to get your name around, writing your band logo on the wall of the bathroom at a club you want to play at isn't the worst idea.

But if you're just a dude who thinks you have some clever logo...say a face with a cool hat, ski goggles, some of those beaded braids you get on a carribean vacation and a joint in your mouth- writing it on a porto-john wall really serves no purpose. Once the porto-john door is closed, no one even really knows you did it, so what's the point.

However since it was done in a porto john, you leave yourself open to all sorts of tag-defacing, because again, once the door closes no once can see it being defaced. So as a representative of the company, I thought it my duty to put a stop to this tagging, with the only weapon there is- scum art. See if you can figure out what the tagger drew and what I added to it.

Shed Ahead

Part of me wants to go into extensive detail about work. About the guy I work with, the other guys who work there and the guys I work for...but the other part of me is pretty sure that the higher ups are web savvy and if they ever actually googled crsmal they'd find this and I'd probably have some explaining to do. So I'll say I certainly miss having my own thing going on but have a new appreciation of what happens to the residential construction industry during an economic downturn- especially after a housing bubble was introduced to get us out of a previous recession. I do suspect though that had I stayed in advertising in the city, I'd be sweating it even more- worrying about layoffs and how I was going to pay my several thousand dollar a month rent (assuming I'd live in a several thousand dollar a month apartment by now).

On a happier note. I've broken ground on phase II of the shed-workshop complex. I built the first 8x10 toolshed in the fall of 07 and have been eagerly anticipating the 10x18 addition I'm building off the back of it. With the decent weather we've had these past couple of weekends I managed to find the time to start laying the foundation. I'm keeping it simple and building the whole thing on top of some treated 4x4 posts I bought for 2 bucks a piece last spring. Lowes was trying to get rid of all their old twisted wood that no one would want to pay full price for and they sold me 15 twelve footers for 30 bucks. I ended up using a lot of them for various projects last summer, but still had plenty to build the shop on.



So that was most of step one. I still have to set one more length of 4x4 down the middle, but the digging part is done. Hopefully this weekend I can start on the deck. As I've mentioned before I've been collecting lumber for about 2 years for this project, it's just going to take a lot of ripping (cutting lengthwise) to get everything to the sizes I need.


As I may have said before, there's a fine line between being green and being cheap. As much as I'll like to tout that I built this thing using mostly recycled and leftover wood- I'll also tout that that I was a couple of hundred ahead of the game before I even started. We have some busy weekends coming up, so this thing may drag on through most of April, maybe even May. When it's done though I'll have a sweet shop and a nice little gazebo in the yard for that barbecue that I'll have to have you over for.

Snow Day

I think it's been about six years since I've had one. It seemed like when I was younger they happened all the time, but lately they've really been few and far between.

I did wake up planning to go to work. I got up at six, bundled up, went outside and shoveled the walk to the driveway. Started the truck, knocked the snow off it let the windshield heat up. I finished shoveling the front, took the dog for a quick walk and just as I was getting ready to load my tools in, the phone rang and I was informed that we wouldn't be going in today.

It was such a break too, because this weekend went way too fast. Mrsmal and Rcsmal are out in the greater Pittsburgh area this weekend, giving me my first home alone weekend in over a year. As much as I wanted to go out to the bars and sleep late, it also meant it was the first weekend I could do a bunch of home repairs that just didn't seem to happen with a baby on the scene. So, I spent the previous week making a list of all the things I wanted to take care of. Considering how the weather worked out I got everything I could done, plus a bunch of other little things that had been bugging me.

The big project was recaulking the bathtub. Back when I did that bathroom I was certainly in a 'knew enough to be dangerous' phase. I knew all the steps involved in taking a bathroom apart and putting it back together, but I didn't quite have the experience. When I tiled the walls, I didn't pay as much attention to line where the tile meets the edge of the tub as I should have and left a fair amount of wide gaps. I grouted that line initially, but it soon turned moldy and cracked away. I then caulked it, but didn't really let it dry out enough so mold formed again.

Without ripping out the tile and redoing it, the only way to really fix it is to dig out all the old caulk and grout. Spray the void with bleach and let the area sit for about 12 hours with the heat on high. Then clean it and vacuum it again, squirt silicone caulk in the deepest voids and let that set up on high heat for about another 8 hours. Then I got a tube of caulk that matched the grout and went over every seam to make it look I grouted to the tub. Then let it dry again. The whole process takes a few days, which is tough to do when you have 32 inch dictator living in the house who needs to bathe at least every other night.

So that's done, I also re-worked the baby gate, put the finish panels on all the cabinets*, surge protected and reworked the entertainment center, tightened up a ceiling fan that wobbled**, installed some trim to keep small fingers from exploring a hole in the wall, built a little shelf under the kitchen sink, fixed the toilet paper holder, brought a table downstairs, brought another one upstairs, washed and folded about 8 loads of laundry, put a roof on my mother's shed and finally, thanks to the snow day, waxed my countertops.

I also got a chance to check in here. With the new job and all, either nothing exciting is happening, I'm too wiped at the end of the day to write about it and im not sure if any of it will come back to haunt me. When I was a freelancer, it was a little easier to write about my co-workers, knowing if it was good what I wrote wouldn't matter, if it was bad they probably would never find this page and if it was about Snake I know he doesn't go on any website that doesn't have tattoos, porn or heavy metal information.

That being said, work is going as well as can be expected. I'm still getting used to working in the same place everyday. I'm also kind of missing the whole work like hell for two or three weeks, then have enough money to get me through the next couple of weeks. Of course in this economy in our current situation, that kind of boom and bust income doesn't allow for a good nights sleep. In the end I'm probably making about the same as I used to make per month when times were good, I just don't have the free day or week that I used to.

It is kind of amazing how much work these guys have considering what is going on. Either they actually know enough about this business and have a good enough reputation to keep working when fewer people can afford their services, or they're a madoff type construction ponzi scheme which is incredibly difficult and would be equally impressive if they were pulling it off. All I know is that my check is there every week and it clears, for which I am grateful.

I do think a lot though about what kind of work I can do in the new green economy. I do the like approach right now to our energy situation- although I believe there are going to be radical changes in the future, but right now the focus seems to be on identifying and repairing situation where energy is just being wasted. While I don't see myself assembling wind turbines someday, I can see myself doing energy audits- where I go to homes and businesses and figure out where they're wasting energy. Then either making the repairs myself, or contracting them out to someone who does. I've looked into the energy audit business and basically they require engineering degrees, which I don't have. But it has put the thought in my head that maybe I could get one.

We'll see, paying for school right now isn't really an option on the table, but things sure are changing these days. I do hope to make it back here soon, but if not, know I'll be thinking about you. I do have some big projects in the works for the spring. Mission one when the weather warms is to build my workshop, I have all the wood for it, I just need the ground to soften to I can do some digging, after that, I should get it up in a couple of weekends. Next is my brick barbecue pit, complete with deep frying station, smoker and grill. I've kind of gone as far as I can with slow roasting ribs, so now its time to learn how to smoke them. I hope to have it done in time for the party which will be held on July 11th this year- so mark your calendar.





*a two year old project)

** it was in no danger of actually falling, but it looked bad- especially in a babys room

July 2, 2001

Back from another relaxing weekend at the Jersey Shore, if you don't consider the travel. My girlfriend and I took advantage of our summer Friday and managed to make it to Penn Station by 230, just missing the 227 express train. So we waited another half an hour and watched the waiting area fill up with hundreds more "Bennys". "Bennys" are what the Jersey Shore folks call the tourists that come down from the city in the summer. It all started because back in the old days, the trains to the Jersey Shore used to originate in Bayonne, Elizabeth, Newark and New York- so the luggage stickers had the initials BENNY on them.

So we squeeze onto the train with our fellow Bennys and sit like sardines with gaggles of twenty somethings discussing what kinds of shots they plan to do at the bars and middle aged folks speaking loudly on their cellphones while ignoring their misbehaving children and ride for an hour and a half to Long Branch. At Long Branch, we all squeeze onto another train and ride another 50 minutes south to Bay Head. At Bay Head we pile into one of those passenger vans with about 10 other people, all of whom get dropped off before us, getting us to my folks place just before 7P. Although we planned on going out for drinks and dinner, we were just too worn out so we barbecued in the yard and drank a couple of canned beers before passing out by 9.

Saturday was kind of fun- we got up early, went to the beach for a couple of hours, hung out in the yard for lunch, went to the boardwalk, had a couple at one of the beach bars, then back to the house for a full on barbecue which lasted well into the night, fueled by Coronas and blender drinks.

I slept in a little on Sunday, finally coming to around 10. We knocked around a bit, however the impending trek back to the city would have to start soon. I like to get back to my apartment by 7, which means the journey has to start around 2. Around 130, as we were packing up, the handyman showed up. When my folks bought the place it needed all kinds of little repairs, so they found this local contractor. As he spent more time there, we got kind of friendly with him and he started keeping his little boat at our dock.

So I was standing the yard, dreading the journey and he comins bounding through the gate with a fishing pole in one hand, a 12 pack in the other and his dog right behind him. "Hey Crsmal! what's up? wanna come fishing?" And I thought for a moment.. I would absolutely love to go fishing. In fact I'd be hard pressed to think of anything I'd rather do on a Sunday than hang out in a cheap boat on the bay and get a sunburn while I chugged Budwisers and tried to catch a fish. But it was Sunday, and in 16 hours I had to be at my desk, figuring out which cable networks a new hemorrhoid cream should partner with- and for that to happen I had to leave now.

So he went off on his boat, and we piled in the car- and joined the Sunday Benny exodus, where it can take up to an hour to travel a mere 10 miles in bumper to bumper traffic. We got to the train station, waited who knows how long, then spent nearly 3 hours riding on 2 trains only to transfer to the subway and spend another 40 minutes getting to my apartment in Brooklyn. The whole time, all I could think about was that handyman out on his boat, swigging beer and wasting bait- watching his dog swim around and not worrying about much else. When it got dark or he ran out of beer (probably the latter) he'd head back to the dock and either go home and crash, or go to a bar and continue his night. Whenever it ended it'd probably give him a rough start the next morning, but he wouldn't really care, because whatever he had planned could probably be done with a mild beer hangover and since he worked for himself, he probably had some flexibility about what time he started it.

And so the thought was now in my head- what am I really doing here? Do I really want to spend the next 40 years of my career in an office building, putting together presentations, going to meetings, discussing all the different ways that my company can increase your product's sales by advertising this way or that. What do I really expect to get out of this? Someday do I want to be the person who has the final say over which cable channel we suggest the product align itself with? Will that satisfy me? Or do I want the option to go fishing on a Sunday afternoon without worrying about how long it's going to take me to get back home? How do you get to be a contractor anyway?

June 26, 2001

The Nickelodeon promotion is officially dead. After a whole year of the 'sales team' telling us that supermarket chains were a hard category for them to break, we finally get them a Nickelodeon back-to-school program with a national-local element and none of them can sell it. You're probably wondering what I'm talking about, lately I'm even wondering what I'm talking about. It's this wacky career I've gotten myself mixed up in- where right now my job is to figure out what cable channel reaches the same audience as a particular product, then try to get the two logos together in a tv commercial. Did you ever see a commerical for ESPN's SportsCenter and at the end it says 'brought to you locally by Bud Light"? That's me. Did you ever buy a Bud Light because you saw its logo at the end of a Sportscenter commercial? Didn't think so.

When I was little I always had it in my head that I wanted to go into advertising. Of course I had no real idea what that meant, but I thought I'd be good at making commercials and ads. I'm not exactly doing that now, but with a bit more firsthand knowledge of what's involved with that career choice, I'm not really sure I want to go any further. As pointless as my job seems right now, there is some level of creativity involved. When my boss comes to me with a product that has an advertising budget, I get to pick the cable channels I think they would pair with and design a one sheet about some clever way to get their two logos together in a 30 second commercial. The problem is, once I come up with any ideas, she generally shoots them down and goes into our database to pick some old one sheet for a similar product, then has me cut and paste the logo from the current product into those. It would be much easier if she'd just tell me ahead of time which one sheets I should paste them into, but I guess I'd really have nothing to do all day if we did it that way. I had always imagined that advertising would be innovative and 'out of the box,' but I guess not all advertising is like that.

I think I really got turned off when Kawasaki came in as a potential client. As a 25 year old guy who rode a Kawasaki Jet Ski, I really thought it was the perfect project for me to work on. So I went to my cube and came up with 3 promotions that I thought would have appealed to me if I were in the market for another Jet Ski. I submitted them with high hopes, only to see 3 old promotions with the Kawasaki logo given to the sales person to present. I made a little sign that said "back in the box" and hung it in my cubicle.

I'm pretty sure I can't do this job for much longer. I have a one year review coming up and I think I know how it's going to go. Part of me wants to try and find a job at an an actual ad agency, but odds are I'd find myself in another situation where I submit things one way and they get presented in a completely different way. I suppose I could talk to her about this, but part of me really doesn't give a shit. I really don't care about the work I'm doing enough to engage my boss and argue with her about it, Perhaps if we were cancer doctors or something and I really thought that good would come if my ideas were given more of a chance, but nobody would benefit if the "X-Games" were brought to you locally by Kawasaki, instead of "SportsCenter." Assuming of course that the sales person is actually able to sell it, which seldom occurs.

black, white, shades of gray

Ok, cliche title I know, but I'm really fired up about politics right now. Work was pretty blase this week but nothing to write here about- the project manager has assigned me to that fire damaged mcmansion, so I think that's going to be my chance to prove myself- but it's really too early to get into right now.

More importantly though, was the election. I'm not a big sports guy, so I've never really been too excited when a particular team wins, but after identifying myself as a democrat in the late 90s and seeing the democrats lose two elections in a row to questionable results, I've never felt so vindicated.

The odd part is, the victory has really forced me to think about why I'm a democrat. For the past eight years, the answer was easy- I didn't like the way Bush won, I didn't like the way he governed and I didn't like his attitude. I will say I was comfortable with him from about 9/12/2001 until he started making the case that Saddam Hussein was about to attack us, but aside from that I just wanted to be on the side that opposed him.

So now that my side is in and we're about to get all the things we thought we wanted, I've really been trying to come to terms with what those things are- and what else comes with them. So I've been asking myself 'Why am I a democrat?"

I guess the first answer is, because we're a two party system and you have to pick one or the other if you want to see your group get elected. I think if I did the research I'd probably find a third party that was more inline with my political beliefs, but as of 2008, third parties don't win, so unless you enjoy seeing your guy lose 99% of the time, you have to pick one.

The real answer though, has more to do with the ideologies of each party. As far as I can tell, the most fundamental difference between the two parties is this: Republicans see issues as black or white, Democrats see them as shades of gray; Republicans see the rules, Democrats see the exceptions. If you're conservative, you generally want your laws to focus on yes or no, right or wrong. If you're liberal, you generally want your laws to consider all sides of the issue. The problem with each, is the extremes. The extreme conservative doesn't want to hear about the special case, and the extreme liberal thinks everyone is a special case. I guess that's why religious folks like being republicans, because they're used to having a book tell them what's right and wrong. And I guess that's why so many people in highly populated areas are democrats, because with large populations, you're exposed to more exceptions and special cases.

Clearly there are merits and drawbacks to both sides. Without some definition of what's black and white, you can't move forward on anything...and if you treat everything as a special case, well then people try to take advantage of the system. But I think the reason that I lean left, is the belief that the world is generally too complicated to be seen as black and white.

Sorry, I have a Thanksgiving coming up where my wife and I will be the only Obama supporters in attendance. My grandmother has a bit of an 'antiquated' view of african americans, so I imagine at some point, the election may be discussed and I want to make sure I'm on my game.

...thanks george. we couldn't have done it without you.