Last Friday I’m working my booze tasting gig

Bezel Wine by the Cakebread Family. One of those renown Wine Making Outfits that lately sold out to a corporate interest. But still pretending to be a rustic “Estate” winemaker. Another con to add to all the other cons. Still…it’s not bad stuff. Quite good actually. And I fully intend to drink the leftover bottles.

I’m set up at the Andronico’s Market on Irving street in San Francisco. Irving street’s in the Sunset district. What’s called the Avenues. Just up from 19th avenue and a block off Golden Gate Park. The Sunset’s the largest residential neighborhood in The City. It’s rows and rows and rows and rows of middle class homes that sell for a million five or more these days. Used to be Blue Collar turf. Back in the day when a working stiff could afford a home. Now I don’t know what it is. Could be it’s lots of old-ass people who used to be Blue Collar. Ethnically? Way back in the day it was Irish. Now its Chinese. Or better said ASIAN. Do I mind Asians? Shit. Whole damned world can go Asian for my money. A hundred billion trillion Asians running around like Cockroaches. Fine by me. Turn my own ass Asian if you like. Long as I’m not doing time at San Quentin.

Like Kafka does with his characters

Where was I? Oh, yeah, I was telling you about last Friday. I’m over in The City, the Sunset District. The Avenues, all the locals call it. Pouring free booze. I’m working my shift. I pour a few good ones. Collect some pics.

This guy bought a bottle.

So’d this guy.

This guy mooched my free wine. Then he bought a bottle of the cheap shit. Fine by me. I had him pose for a photo rather than catch him on the sly. Told him he’d be showcased in Wine Enthusiast Magazine.

This lady took her time savoring the wine. Like she knows her stuff. Then she bought a bottle.

Nice!

Selling three bottles means I can claim I sold 9 bottles. My Employers don’t know how many bottles I sold. All they know is what I tell them. There’s the off chance that one day they might go out of their way to check up on me. I don’t know how they would go about doing that since they sit in an office in Phoenix, Arizona. They depend on my downloaded invoices for sales info…still, I inflate my sales more if I actually sell a few bottles. I don’t know why I do that. A misplaced feeling of confidence? Nothing makes sense with this job…

Now I’m getting bored. Bored reading my phone, standing around. I’m thinking this might be the moment to pack it in and slip out an hour early. My Employers have no way of telling when I leave. Sometimes I leave an hour early; sometimes I leave half an hour early. I never work a full shift. I always claim the full four hour shift on my invoice. They never dispute my claim. One day they’ll catch wind I’m a deadbeat and terminate my employment. I’m not too worried about it because I suspect I’m already terminated.

They’re not giving me shifts. They used to pack my month with shifts. I’d get an email saying, “You’ve got a shift on such and such a day. Here it is. Please click to confirm.” And I’d click confirm or else send a quick email explaining why I can’t take the shift. I always took most of the shifts and they never failed to load me up. So many shifts I’d be forced to turn down a few. But those days seem to have come to a pause. The month coming up, December, they’ve given me one shift. Another four hour gig here in the Sunset District.

What’s that mean?

I’m thinking yeah they’ve already terminated my employment. I’ve been terminated but I just don’t know it yet. And best of all, I’ll never know it. This is the new way of firing people in the age of Internet Gig Employment: pretend your employee was never employed. That’s the ticket. You don’t actually fire the poor sap. You just leaving him hanging, like Kafka did with his characters.

So if I’m terminated what am I hanging around for?

I stow my left-over wine in my supply bag. The left-over wine is mine to keep. One of the perks of this suck-ass job. This is an extra-added reason for cutting out early. Not only do I get to go home but I get to bring almost full bottles with me. So there’s that. I like extra-addeds.

Just as I’m packed up and ready to slip from the store a routine urge grips me. I’m thinking I could snatch a half-dozen bottles off the shelf and stow those in my supply bag along with the left-over booze. I could do it and nobody’s the wiser. I’ve seen plenty of deadbeats do it. Watched them grab bottles off the shelf and march right out the store…gone before I can say hey wait a minute. And later I’m thinking hey wait a minute I could pull the same trick with less risk, cuz I’m the booze sample dude. Up to now I’ve resisted this urge. How? By reminding myself I’m no longer a deadbeat punk thief. True, I cut-out early and claim I worked a full shift on my invoices. That’s a form of thievery. I justify leaving early by reminding myself I’m a wage slave. By slipping out early I’m merely restoring the balance of the worker/boss equation. I’m still working on my shoplifting justifications….

Give me another year at this job and I’ll be robbing the store with impunity.

A flier on a bulletin board

I’m ready to leave early. But I don’t leave right away. I always linger around a bit, thinking this might be the one time going on three years The Company might dispatch a mystery shopper to check up on my ass. So I linger a bit. I use the bathroom. I check out the deli section and browse the bakery. Sometimes I actually buy something. I move toward the exit. On this Friday, I paused at the bulletin board to the left of the men’s room door, near the front exit.

I’m drawn to the bulletin board by this flier.

A memorial service for Jesse Wing Dunkle.

I google his name but all I find is this obituary website called Legacy.com..

Legacy.com is a United States–based website founded in 1998,^[2] the world’s largest commercial provider of online memorials.^[3] The Web site hosts obituaries and memorials for more than 70 percent of all U.S. deaths.^[4] Legacy.com hosts obituaries for more than three-quarters of the 100 largest newspapers in the U.S., by circulation.^[5] The site attracts more than 30 million unique visitors per month and is among the top 40 trafficked websites in the world.^[4]

It’s a kind of a do-it-yourself deal. Like everything else these days. A website with a section for filling in a proper obituary. But nothing much is filled in for Jesse. Just this:

David Dunkle. September 28, 2025: “Very sad goodbye…”

That’s it? Couldn’t think of anything else to say?

And this:

Jesse Dunkle, age 30, passed away on Tuesday, August 19, 2025. To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Somebody posted these pictures:

Jesse holding a power drill

I think this might be a picture of Jesse and his Mom.

No clarification of who this is.

What else they post on Legacy.com?

Jesse will have a memorial service on December 13 of this year. Followed by a scattering of his ashes from a boat docked here in Sausalito on December 14. I know how the scattering goes. I did it once for a pal. I motored him over to the Golden Gate Bridge and we scattered the ashes. Used to be you couldn’t do it there. Now you can.

That’s it. No other words. I’m sure there’ll be some nice words offered at Jesse’s memorial service. But nothing on Legacy.com. I guess nobody felt competent enough to pen something of length in the Obituary section of the website.

This is how DEATH goes in the age of the Internet.

I’d like to make a little request here, to anybody but especially to my sister who’ll undoubtedly be reading this post: DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES POST A NOTICE OF MY DEATH ON LEGACY.COM.

Unless, that is, I provide you with a posting written by me. Including photos I choose. Shit. I think I’ll start working on the damned post now. Who knows when you’re gonna croak.

One final request. Don’t stick any fliers of my passing on any bulletin boards. Because what happened to Jesse might happen to me.

When I’m dead and feeling blue

I’m staring at the flier of Jesse Wing Dunkle tacked up there on the bulletin board and I notice something kind of disturbing. Somebody removed the single thumbtack that held Jesse’s Flier to the bulletin board. Somebody didn’t discard Jesse’s Flier. What they did, they used this single thumbtack to tack an index card onto the face of Jesse’s flier. Holding both notices to the bulletin board.

The index card announces a book of poetry called WHEN I’M DEAD AND FEELING BLUE by a Dude by the name of Jeffrey Zable. Index card sez the book’s on Amazon. Sez you can order it through a publishing company he lists on the index card.

I google Jeffrey Zable. Found an Amazon listing of his book. Including this profile of the Poet:

If by a dog’s chance in hell Jeffrey Zable catches wind of my blog mentioning him, all I can say is, hey Jeff, you’re welcome for the free advertising.

Maybe Jeffrey Zable is a terrific poet.

Still, I’m kind of disturbed.

I’m no moralist. All I know of morality is what Ernest Hemingway said of it, “What is moral is what you feel good after, and what is immoral is what you feel bad after”. 

As for Jeffrey Zable. I guess everybody’s got a right to promote their writing. I wrote a Novel. It’s on Amazon. Maybe I should do more to promote my book. Do like Jeff. Print up some index cards and tack them on bulletin boards. Get lucky and find a dead guy’s flier.

WHEN I’M DEAD AND FEELING BLUE by Jeffrey Zable.

I’m done promoting Jeffrey Zable.

I’d much prefer talking about Jesse Wing Dunkle.

R.I.P. Jesse Wing Dunkle

So I’m wondering why this flier announcing a memorial service for Jesse Wing Dunkle happens to be posted on the Irving street Andronico’s bulletin board. Posted like you do a missing dog flier. Or a for sale item or anything mundane you normally post on a grocery store bulletin board. Turns out Jesse Wing Dunkle worked in the Deli Section of this very Andronico’s. Out here on the Avenues. I don’t remember where I discovered this bit of information. I didn’t ask around. It was mentioned somewhere. Maybe it got snuck in on Legacy.com…

I like Jesse Wing Dunkle.

I found some more photo’s on the Legacy. com website.

One day Jesse took his mom kayaking.

She thanked him for it. How do I know this? Six months ago she posted the thank you on her Instagram account.

The Internet preserves everything…

I might show up at Jesse’s memorial service. I probably wont but it feels kind of good saying it. Here’s the deal. Jesse Wing Dunkle is dead. I know that. But I have a feeling about him. Even though he’s dead. I get a good vibe looking at his image. I get the feeling he was a good dude. And here’s a crazy thought. Jesse Wing Dunkle helps me feel good about humanity. Like maybe Thanksgiving is worth celebrating.

How crazy is that?