CHRIS SULLIVAN once found two never-worn Beneficial Suggestion Award pins from the SF Naval Shipyard during a neighborhood cleanup campaign; he gave one away and lost the other to fire.  He thinks about the one he gave away and wonders in what sort of state it is kept. He fears it is at the bottom of a jar with pens and marbles in it. He should have liked to have been awarded a Beneficial Suggestion Award, if not from the Shipyard, by now. He thinks he merits many of them. Once he built a 15 gallon chemical mixer from a rolling mop bucket, added a pump with a little plumbing, and this solved a problem at the workplace.  Michael Schindler chose to memorialize the RA-4 chemical mixer at the demise of the workplace during the dot com bubble, when companies like Petopia were moving into the neighborhood.  Mr Schindler said it took what was a nasty and all too potentially messy chore and turned it into an easy routine set of tasks that were by comparison, a joy to perform. Chris did that, yes he did.

diagnosis

it happens you can be here decades (much) more f/u
than you know, and for this you may be called an original -

I feel shy about my writing
I've been working a bit more than I ought
and it impedes almost all sit at the table
thought posse, but sometimes when
I'm painting (this ceiling had years
of nicotine grime such that it took
two coats of oil based primer before
white paint would not turn yellow,
but the walls are Bermuda Sand and
that blends right in) I think of phrases
"like the factory scene in the feel good
movie of the year" Ry Cooder is singing
work together $25.00 an hour
seems to stimulate me unnaturally
but today I loved the backer rod caulk seam
I put on the stair landing, I rooted for it to last
Jason's taking pabst blue ribbons for lunch
and liking this job why don't they put
roach clips on paint can bottle openers
anyway

yes I admit a working class scowl
at certain things happens to me
so it is I've grown to walk
on the other side of the street
it must be known as mine by now
I have a companion, and the fence
is nicer than you

I would remind myself the three things
I could honestly say to an encounter
"morning"
"afternoon"
"evening"

even-ing, I'd say, if necessary

Over time these condensed
to a quick purse of my lips
new peripheries of aversion
to did I burn my own apartment down?
asked the owner of two big white houses lady
with a stack of a/c condensers easter island
might envy, for I had left some lint
on the screen of her dryer

and that left some - thing on me
a hitch, for she was referring to letters
of mine, and a big blob of 300 vinyl records
I'd collected, to a lot of things, no I did not
burn my 3444 16th sf ca 94110 flat down but
as you mention it, on my 39th birthday
a shrug was born
obdurate as the day is long
bet the house
take it to the bank
nor whistling dixie
say that again
ain't kidding
got that right


I do enjoy the sight of fancy decals hvac service van
blocking that driveway, sure they'll move it , truck charge
plus $95 an hour and sharp overall suits they say
a lot of things and are just sooooo nice she reports / admires
imagine that and I root for their affable laconic manners
I'll get you an ace for $65 an hour
no sales of service you do not need
What-ever

we liked to call work berkley farms and some nights it was like the factory scene in the feel good movie of the year I'd multiply my overtime rate too often but one friday evening some tiny dabs of a powder I took and as thursday was payday 4 pickers did not show it did not matter for 12 hours I pulled my big blue pallet jack through the u shaped warehouse maze like a train setting speed records I remember the foreman after studying the tallies looked at me disbelievingly, would you believe one of my finest moments, I think it was methamphetamine, from a nice lab, 1989.

I always felt fine, making $12 dollar an hour, in San Francisco but I forgot the whole idea was to remain a resident after a while you want to live with fields and clearings and meadows and mountains under the tree you love I did not urinate in a porcelain bowl for a year I took strolls accompanied by an orange cat named Rivers the desultory country mouser god that sound of dripping into the earth how I loved and felt right by it was at the end of the day, I wanted to tell someone about these ceilings and the gap between molding and chimney next to the stove, and what I pulled out of it and stuck to the ventilating hood, oh my god a worst thing you ever saw it made me laugh but you did not have to be there I do not know about doing this one more month
$25 an hour though

this is in and around area code 504