Taking out the garbage

The last 24 hours have been, well... somewhat indescribable. But I will make an attempt at it.

In addition to teaching The Music to The Kids, I also do The Catering for The Rich People. I work for my good friend Steve the Caterer, who's quite good at The Catering and thus caterers for The Rich People here in Seattle. Two events were going on yesterday, one for the Nordstroms and one for Children's Hospital of Seattle. I worked the latter of the two, and the event was hosted at the home of Lenny Wilkens and his wife.

Knowing that few people read this blog, and that I know all of you who do, I think an explanation of who Lenny Wilkens is is in order, as I don’t expect you will know who he is. That makes me giddy, but that’s another story. Lenny Wilkens is a former pro basketball player, former coach of the Seattle Super Sonics, and former coach of the New York Nicks. He took both teams to the national championships where they won. He's won numerous awards and has been voted "Best This" and "Best That" over the years. Upon mentioning to some people that I have catered events at his house, they have nearly fallen out of their seats begging to know if would ever be going back and if I could get an autograph and that they would gladly sacrifice their first born child for it and they began drawing pentagrams on my floor to make deals with devil right then and there, blah blah blah blah....

I couldn't care less. Basketball is not something I’m interested in, in the slightest, nor the people who play it, how ever famed they may be. This guy is quiet, doesn't say much, seems perfectly nice, but is really just a regular man who's rolling in basketball cash. His wife is an obsessive compulsive borderline lunatic who's rolling in basketball cash with her husband. She follows us around her house cleaning with Windex each surface we touch, and we're not allowed to get water on the floor of the kitchen. No water on the floor of the kitchen. That's not sane. These are not people to worship and beg for autographs. They are just as crazy as the next person.

In any case, their house is huge, they have more money than they can spend, some people worship them, and they live quite the life. Now and again we serve them fancy food. And we do the same for many other filthy rich people in Seattle. I've been in homes with kitchens larger than my entire apartment, with cabinetry that is worth more than I will make in 3 years of work, and with art work and statuary that is worth more than I will make in 30 years. It is the most comically hideous crap you've even laid your eyes on too. For example, the trio of bronze jack rabbits at one woman's estate, where one is a normal huddled rabbit, one is "jumping" but looks like it's full on pooping (you have to look twice at its butt cause you're sure there's going to be little bronze rabbit poop falling out of it), and two that are fucking. Yes, fucking. And these sit on her lawn, and are only the hideous beginning.

Money offers them many things, like security, and trips to anywhere they wish to go, but it doesn't buy them good taste, civility, sanity, or perspective. If anything it seems to diminish all these things.

Now we skip ahead to today. My friend Andrew called and asked me to drive him to Kent to pick up some Mexican Amway Products for his Undocumented Boyfriend. I like Andrew and I don't get to see him much, so I agreed, despite the fact that Mexican Amway Products sounded more than a little scary, and Kent is definitely WAY more than a little scary. Despite this, off we went with the AC blasting as we are currently ensconced in a heat wave.

Kent. Kent is terrifying. Kent is the Northwest's version of a southern trailer park. In Kent the mullet is alive and well. In Kent large pickup trucks rule the roads. It's a flat flood plain, so there's nothing to look at, and for the most part it is one giant industrial park, which we drove right into the middle of to find the Mexican Amway Products. We stepped into the reception office so Andrew could place the order, and I sat to wait.

Next to me was Achmed, a north African immigrant who's order was soon announced over the PA and he got up quickly, striding from the asbestos ceilinged room to pick it up. A woman wearing a hot pink head wrap, an orange silk shawl and a green and blue flowered sarong type thing came in and sat in his place. When my eyes stopped bleeding I noticed that her hot pink head wrap was peppered with embroidered Calvin Klein logos. I did not know that Calvin Klein made a line of Muslim Head Wraps, but now I do. Very progressive of them, I thought, to be providing Muslim women everywhere with high Muslim fashion. Images of little Muslim women and children bent over sewing machines in south eash Asian sweat shops came to mind, but the irony was desturbing so I pushed them from my mind. To my right this entire time was a white woman with her three kids, two girls and a boy, ages ranging from about 6-8.

The girls were very cute little freckled kids, one blond and one brunette, with innocent large eyes, as yet untouched by the harsh realities of life, starkly unlike there mother’s. They wore unfortunate neon pink and green colored outfits, I believe Barbie was on the front of one. The little boy was about 8, blonde, and had eyes completely unlike his sisters. They were innocent still, but squashed, like his soul had been trampled on for a number of years at that point, and he had already realized the world was against him, and he was on his own. He had his mother's cell phone in his hand, and was telling her how many minutes had passed since they had arrived, every minute, on the minute, they were up to 17. Her commands to stop were ignored. When she got up to go to the bath room and took the girls with her, she handed him her purse to watch. He then began taking money out of the wallet, without shame, without self consciousness, with three of us looking on, Calvin Klein woman looking on in horror. On the coffee table in front of the family’s seats were three empty Mexican Amway No Sugar No Fat No Caffeine Strawberry Flavored Energy Drinks, and I had the vivid image of farmers of the past consuming their own crops for sustenance before they could be taken to the market for sale.

It was our turn to go pick up our Mexican Amway Products so Andrew and I made our way around the 400 lb woman coming in through the door, and drove around the corner to the loading bay. Andrew grabbed one box of sundry bath products and two boxes of Mexican Amway No Sugar No Fat No Caffeine Strawberry Flavored Energy Drinks, and we were off. When we got to the highway onramp back to Seattle, we were the only ones on it, despite heavy traffic on the road. Seems no one had reason to leave Kent that day, they had everything they needed right there.

In less than 24 hours I have moved from filthy rich to dirt poor, from upper class to working class, from security to the lack of it. But there was something vaguely similar to both places, both experiences. Both the presence of money and the lack off money had the conspicuous absence of good taste, civility, sanity, and perspective. From rich trash to white trash, these qualities seemed to be dispossessed in equal and disturbing quantities.

As I looked at both sets of people over last night and throughout this day, I couldn't help but imagine myself in their shoes, and was deeply disturbed by each option, rich and poor. Are those my two choices in life? Is that the future, if not the present I have to deal with? The main question that then came to my mind was this; is spiritually broken white trash a social and monetary inevitability, or a state of mind? Is self absorbed aloof rich trash a social and monetary inevitability, or a state of mind? Do the rich people sit around and think "my my my, but we are the MOST self absorbed asses with amounts of money starving people would die for!", or the white trash sit around and think "my my my, but we are the trashiest white trash that has ever lived, but I love me my Mexican Amway No Sugar No Fat No Caffeine Strawberry Flavored Energy Drinks, dented up '94 Ford Tempo and fanny pack!" No, but they still roll in their money, and drive their Ford Tempo.

There have been a number of occurrences lately in my life that are prodding me to take stock. A friend of mine is broke and being evicted, though his own mismanagement of his life. My roommate, at a faster rate than every before, is transforming our home into a white trash bastion of garbage, Eggo waffles, piles of old mail, dirty dishes and laundry. My car is still beat to hell, and my clothes are getting thread bare. Something needs to change. I don't want my life to ever degrade to the point that I'm getting evicted, I don't want my home to become an urban double-wide, and I don't want others too look in at my life and think "trash," rich or poor.

So I'm taking action. If the rich and poor trash lack good taste, civility, sanity, and perspective, then I will have them. I will clean my house and demand it stay that way. I will make enough money to have security, and then I will spend my hard earned money on good things, quality things, not because of what they prove to others but because of what they prove to me; that I am who I choose to be, and I refuse to be trash.