I’m the Gloomy Boomer

That’s right. I’m gloomy. But you know what? I’m gravitating my feet to the sunny side of the street. That’s my tag. Life is horror and madness but I gotta stay positive. What else can you do? Kill yourself? That’s the easy way out….

The Rope is not easy. I saw those after-pictures of Robin Williams. A bullet in your head is easy but you leave a mess and traumatize your loved ones if you have any. Now I’m thinking about it, your body hanging from a door or the garage rafter is also traumatizing. Any way you look at it, killing yourself will upset somebody. I can’t think of anybody left dangling that didn’t traumatize somebody unless it was Mussolini.

The corpse of Mussolini (second from left) next to his lover Claretta Petacci, (middle) and other executed fascists in Piazzale Loreto, Milan, 1945

Milan is a tough town.

Anyway, say I want to do it right. I’ll need to find a desolate spot like the Grand Canyon where my body will decompose or be eaten by wild beasts so that by the time anybody finds me I’ll be scattered bones. That takes care of the trauma. And to make it easy I’ll take a Death Pill and drift into a pleasant dream of Heaven. That’s my plan. Except I have no intention of carrying it out.

I might call on Sister Morphine to carry it out for me. Not yet. I’m still in pretty good shape.

Things can’t get any better. Things can only get worse.

I’m gravitating my feet to the sunny side of the street!

My crazy former employer

I’m trying to keep my head above water. Doing Blogs is fun but they don’t pay. I’m pushing seventy with no prospects other than the vast fortune of Social Security I’m raking in.

Say you’ve been following the Gloomer. You know I can’t get by on Social Security. And you also know my long term gig in the Window Replacement business imploded.

My former employer’s career as an erect penis sculptor destroyed a thriving window and door business. Not to mention his sanity…

I will admit he got pretty good at sculping an erect penis….

You can’t ask a man why he went crazy. Maybe Freud got answers. All I get from my former boss is excuses. Excuses, recriminations and the casting of blame. His justifications for his erratic behavior is Biblical.

Melencolia I is a large 1514 engraving by the German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer. The print’s central subject is an enigmatic and gloomy winged female figure thought to be a personification of melancholia – melancholy. Holding her head in her hand, she stares past the busy scene in front of her. The area is strewn with symbols and tools associated with craft and carpentry, including an hourglass, weighing scales, a hand plane, a claw hammer, and a saw. 

wikipedia

I’m thinking my former boss just wanted to be creative in a different way. The window business left him with no creative outlet. He got Depressed. And more depressed. He fought his depression by honing another craft. The Penis Sculpture Craft. He got good at it. And the better he got, the crazier he went. Until….he passed over to the dark side.

Nobody’s buying erect penises…except one or two Homosexuals.

His Penis Sculptures are not going viral…

So what’s he doing now?

he’s driving around making ends meet by Scrapping.

Jesus….

Side Hustles

And where does that leave me? I’m not crazy. I don’t think I am. I am left dangling. Not by the rope. By my current life situation’s thin branch above the chasm of want.

I’m too old to grab another window company job. They want Go Getters.

They don’t want aged Prima Donnas.

I had my old job wired. Paid under the table. Worked when I wanted. Where I wanted. Everything was on my terms. I had it made. Well…enough whining.

I went out finally and grabbed my own Side Hustle.

The Gloomer at work…kind of...as a Brand Ambassador!

I’m not Scrapping.

I serve little cups of booze to Safeway shoppers. Been at it two weeks so far. Fifteen days straight. I got the job wired. Pays me a hundred a day plus all the booze I can drink. Scruffy’s bar is packed with Wine, Gin, Whiskey, Tequila…I’ll never need to buy booze as long as I keep this job.

Scruffy’s a floating bar

I meet nice people.

So far the Gig’s working out.

Only this is not a happy ending.

They’re taking out taxes. The I.R.S. will be alerted.

I can’t have that.

I need to find another Side Hustle that pays me under the table. Or at least 1099’s me.

Another Side Hustle

So I’ve been looking. Today 2 May is the first day I’m looking. I signed up for a focus group that pays 400 bucks on a one day deal. Cash. I love those. The last one paid three fifty cash. Under the table. I’d love to have two or three of those a week. Unfortunately they’re few and far between. This one’s a long shot because I signed up too late. Well…no use griping!

I keep looking.

I find this in the Writer’s Wanted on Craigslist:

Edit reference book on Old Master German artist (downtown / civic / van ness)

compensation: $2000.00
Assist in editing the translation of a Werkverzeichnis.

Project is about 90% complete.

– Fluency in English and German
– Knowledge of art history terminology
– Advanced academic degree
– Fluency in InDesign.

Okay, sounds interesting. A couple grand I could use. 90 percent of the job’s done already so I won’t need to work too hard. I speak a little German. Very little. I’m pretty good at Art History. I’m a arm chair art historian. I wonder if that’ll do. As for the Advanced Academic Degree, I could make up some doctoral letters. No big deal. Do I have a fluency in design?

Shit….forget about it.

Keep looking.

I’m intrigued by the word Werkverzeichnis, however. I look it up. It means Cataloguer. Somebody that Catalogues.

Okay, so I image myself working for some stuffed shirt asshole. Not gonna happen. Even if I’m qualified, which I’m not. Kowtowing is not the Gloomer’s style.

But I’m intrigued.

The ad shows images of the old master I’m supposed to be cataloguing. But no mention of his name. Turns out I know him:

Durer liked to draw himself. He did this one when he was thirteen years old.

He’s known for his engravings. No German artist did them better. Or after him attempted them in the same scale. He was also a great painter.

His themes were Christian Redemption, Depression and Death.

The Old Man’s friend

I’ve been thinking about death lately. I think about death every day. Today and Yesterday I’ve been absorbed with Death.

My boyhood pal Rick passed away.

He’s been sick with Cancer for years. Not long ago he was feeling real bad. Worse than usual. They hospitalized him. Then they told him his time was short. Two months. I don’t know how doctors can give you such precise end dates. Two months. It’s like they got a text line to God.

Anyway, Rick went from the hospital to home hospice care.

That was maybe a week ago.

Some friends visited him a couple days ago and reported that he was down to 110 pounds and suffering from pneumonia.

They got a word for pneumonia. Health workers. They call it the Old Man’s friend.

The fact he had pneumonia was a good thing, I guess.

It means he died without suffering.

These friends that visited him. Old friends from the old neighborhood. Two guys I’ve known for fifty five years. They were good friends to Rick. Loyal friends.

They reported back what I told you. Also, they said his spirits were up.

Rick told them he planned to beat the pneumonia.

He died that night. Those Quacks had it wrong.

This is what disturbs me: the fact he planned to beat it. He must’ve know the game was up. I’m thinking he was presenting a positive front for his visitors. He had to know the Angels were circling above. He just wanted to maintain a lighthearted atmosphere for his friends. Keep it light. I mean, why wallow in gloom in front of your old pals? I don’t know. I wasn’t there to observe.

Rick was a tough one in life.

Full of joy…and pain.

Like the rest of us.

My friend Kim I’ve known for fifty years. She knew Rick in the old days. When he was full of hope. Like the rest of us.

She said, in reference to Rick’s passing: “You go to sleep and wake up dead.”

I like to think you wake up happy.

“Me too,” she said.

And like Hemingway once said, “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”