What Happens in Brazil Stays in Brazil

The days and nights all seem to run together now, but I must put down on paper, or electronic media, what my fuzzy brain can remember for posterity.  The world would never believe what we saw and did.

I can’t even remember where we went for dinner.  Was it the pizza place down the street?  Did we have dinner?  I just remember ending up in a dive called Ó do Borogodó.  Fernando told us it was the best Samba in town, I’m sure he was right.

Places like this don’t exist in America anymore.  They’ve all been put out of business in the name of ‘safety’ or ‘improper licensing’ or taxes just a bit too high for this low end crowd.  Everything has to be ‘nice’ in America, perfectly clean, perfectly ordered, perfectly tailored to fit the perfectly ‘in’ crowd.  Sometimes places like this get started, but soon the government steps in, discovering unsafe conditions, like tables with sharp edges, or mold on a window sill.  Now all you can do in America is go to an overpriced, glitzy, bar, playing overly loud horrible house music to disguise its lack of heart.  People snap tons of photos and post them on Facebook pretending something interesting is happening when actually it’s so deadly boring that you just want to smack your face on the floor to remind yourself you’re still alive. 

We get there just before the music starts, luckily reserving a table in the back.  There is life in this place.  People are coming out at 10 P.M. on a Monday night to dance, sing, and enjoy life, instead of falling into bed and answering the last e-mails of the day on their cell phone before rolling over and passing out with exhaustion so they can give their all for their employer the next day.  No, people here know that life is short, you’d better ride this train as far and as fast as you can or you’re going to wake up one morning dead with a tombstone that reads, ‘Always kept his e-mail inbox clean and tidy’.

It was quite small for such a famous haunt.  You could cross the room in 5 seconds when it was empty, or 5 minutes when it was full.  A small bar was off to the left of where we sat.  Michael and Fernando would head over there every few minutes to bring back yet another pitcher of beer.  The entrance and restrooms were off to the right, and the band sat up against the wall directly opposite us.  The furnishings were strictly utilitarian.  They looked like they’d been salvaged from people’s homes over the years as they had upgraded their stuff and no longer wanted it.  But Ó do Borogodó would put it to good use.

The entire interior was brickwork that looked like it had been laid by a blind man.  No, that’s not true, a blind man would be able to feel the bricks and know they were sticking out all over the place and corrected it.  Perhaps it had been renovated a number of times and this was the result.  A tall roof provided the perfect acoustics for a band.

A half a dozen bandmates began playing some rhythms foreign to American ears but hearty to the human soul.  After a few numbers a lady got up to sing and she sang for the rest of the evening.  A man went up to a woman at a nearby table and asked her to dance.  For some reason in the puritanical U.S. we are no longer allowed to dance cheek to cheek with strangers, but these two swept up the dance floor.  The man’s moves were good, but the woman’s were better.  She strutted and curtsied and kicked her legs high.  They were both skilled, not from lessons at a strip mall, but from many years of genuine experience.

More and more people began to dance.  We hugged the wall just watching the action.

Then out of the corner came a man no one could ignore.  He was big, black, bald, and fit, with a smile as big as a house.  He hit the dance floor and swept women off their feet with the grace of Fred Astaire and the power of M.C. Hammer.  He knew exactly what moves to make and when.  Spinning women around, stopping, dipping; most of them didn’t know what was happening, but they all enjoyed it.

After a dance he glanced our way and spotted dois novas senhoras new to his abode.  He strode forward and thrust out his hand to Dory.  Dory was caught totally unawares and screamed and pulled back, after all, American’s don’t dance.  And the last thing they want to have happen is somebody to display how uncoordinated they are on the dance floor.  But everyone pushed her forward, knowing this would be good fun.

As promised the man twirled her about like a rag doll.  Pulling back, spinning, and moving her across the dance floor with the ease of a matador.  We all cheered as we watched.

Dory came back to the group flushed but giggling happily.

We went back to drinking and people watching for a while when the man walked up again and asked Janet to dance.

Unlike Dory, Janet accepted full throttle.  She practically leapt across the table to get a chance to dance with the maestro.  The man whipped her about with a flourish, most of the other dancers leaving them room to samba about the floor.

The man moved on, dancing with many other ladies, but never taking his eye off of Janet.

A group of women moved in next to us, the mother asked me to dance and I figured I’d might as well give it a try.  The last time I had dancing lessons I was nine years old.  I don’t know how to Samba, but I can do a pretty mean tap.  Even though it looked like I was leading, the woman moved me through the paces.  How can four steps be so difficult?

The woman moved in close.

“You and your friends must flee this place”, she whispered.

I looked at her quizzically.

“You are in much danger”.

“Why?  Is this place going to be robbed?”  We’d heard about the crime in Sao Paulo, but this place seemed supremely safe.

“No, worse.  You have entered the den of He Who Must Not Be Named!”

“You’re joking”, I responded.  But the number ended and we went back to our tables.

We all danced the night away getting up and cavorting in a circle as a group.  Every now and then the woman would look at me and motion us to leave.  But why leave when you’re having so much fun?

Dory and Janet took a break and went to the restroom, it turned out they didn’t know their own strength and pushed down the door.  At the sound of the falling door the man’s head snapped up in alarm.  Dory and Janet came back laughing at their proclivity for destruction. 

Finally around 2 A.M. the songstress announced the last number of the evening.  Everybody grabbed a partner and hit the floor.  The man grabbed Janet and finished the evening with a flourish of twirling, swinging, and prancing.

We all piled out into the street, our hearts full of glee, trying to decide our next move.  How dare they close down so early, things were just getting fun!

We talked to the women and the mother looked left and right and whispered to me, “You must destroy the silvered orbs!”

What the heck was she talking about?  We all realized we were hungry from dancing up a storm like that and excused ourselves.  We hopped into Fernando’s car and began driving away.

Out of the blue Janet announced, “I was mouth raped”.

“Whaaaaat?!” We all wondered.  All of us being in a state of tired, drunken, loopiness, we didn’t know what to make of her ramblings.

“On the last dance he shoved his tongue into my mouth.  All of it.  There was no tongue left in his mouth, it was all in mine.”

We were all in disbelief.

“I was violated out there on the dance floor and you did nothing!  Where were my friends?  Where were my protectors?”

Out tumbled out a series of questions and denials from all of us.  We were busy.  Sorry we didn’t notice.  We were dancing.  How big was his tongue?

“How big was his tongue?  You people are no help at all!  Each one of my teeth was personally probed and examined by his tongue.  He knows all my cavities.  My epiglottis lost its virginity and is clinging to the top of my throat weeping!”

Fernando stopped at the light.  None of us knew what to say, she was right, we had let her down. 

“Fine, nobody believes me” Janet mumbled, “I’m hungry, he reached down into my stomach with that giant tongue and cleaned it all out”.

She paused.

“And none of you noticed!  I looked like something from Alien with that tongue thrashing about my stomach!”

“And…”, she continued, “He gave me his card.”

“Whaaaat?!” We all wondered aloud again.  This just got better and better.

“Look at this!  It’s a trifold card with all his information”.

We were amazed.  Nobody’d ever seen a pickup artist like this before with his own card.

Janet held the card up to the light and read aloud, “Carlos Ultra”.

CRASH! 

Behind us down the street there was a huge explosion.  We all looked back to see a giant tongue come slithering out of the Ó do Borogodó.  It was so large it broke open the front wall of the place, leaving bricks tumbling in it’s wake.

“Go!”, Michael yelled to Fernando, “Let’s get out of here!”

We sped down the street in a panic.  All of us looking behind us at the giant tongue chasing us through the abandoned streets of Sao Paulo.  It was flopping about, sometimes tasting a car or two on the side of the road, then spitting it out, but always pursuing us.

“Step on it!  Get us back to our hotel!” Michael instructed.  Fernando hit the gas and we took off.  We went right through red lights, careening around corners.

“The woman told me!  He Who Must Not Be Named!  You named him!  Get rid of the card!” I yelled.

Janet opened the window and threw out the card.  Before she could roll the window back up again the card flew in and smacked Dory in the jaw before dropping back into Janet’s hand.

*Pling*

“Ow!” Dory cried, “My tooth got knocked out!  Help me find it.”

We all began searching the back of the dark car.

“Here it is.” I said, holding up a tooth.

“That’s not mine.” Dory said, still scrambling about on the floor with her hand.

“It’s not?  Who’s is it?”

“What happens in Brazil stays in Brazil”, Fernando answered from the front.

“I found it”, Janet held up a large fang.

“That looks like a caiman’s tooth”, Michael said, turning around to help.

“What’s a caiman’s tooth doing back here?  Look there’s more of them, both human and caiman.” Janet announced.

“What happens in Brazil stays in Brazil”, Fernando answered again matter-of-factly.

“I found it!” Dory said, trying to shove her tooth back in.

The tongue continued after us.

“He’s after Janet!” Dory shouted, “Oh, look at that hat in the window.  I’ve always wanted a hat like that.  White, with purple flowers…”

“Dory!  Keep your mind on the situation!” Janet ordered.  Dory is super smart, but keeping her focused on the topic at hand can be a challenge sometimes. 

Janet looked at me, “What else did the woman say?”

I sheepish responded, “Um, she told me we were in danger from He Who Must Not Be Named.  She said we must destroy the silvered orbs.”

“What does that mean?” Fernando said, still driving madly.

“How the heck should I know?” I replied.

We got to the hotel and burst out of the car, racing to our rooms.  But it was no use, the tongue could not be stopped.  It easily broke down the front door and headed up the stairs.  We ran down another set of stairs and back to the car, the tongue in hot pursuit.  We took off as fast as we could.

“Now what?” Fernando asked.

“The GRU2 datacenter” Michael responded.

“What?”

“GRU2.  It’s secure.  There’s a cage.  We can lock ourselves in.”

“Good idea!” Fernando said and raced off into the night, taking the bumpiest urban road in the world.

We got to GRU2 and got through security.  We heard the tongue crashing through the bullet proof glass barriers behind us.  We slammed the door to the cage behind us in a nick of time.  The giant tongue hit it and bounced off.  We sighed in relief.

But it knew it had us trapped now.  We had no other plan.  It began wrapping itself around the cage like a giant thick red anaconda, its saliva dripping in through the holes.

“What pretty blue lights”, Dory said, looking at the servers blinking.

“Yuck!  Look at all that saliva, didn’t I tell you?” Janet said, “It was in my mouth!”.

 “Yes, but now what?” said Michael.

“The power cables!” Fernando said, “Hit it with the power cables.”

He and Michael quickly opened the floor, finding the largest power cables to the servers.  They each grabbed one and stood on either side of the cage, the raw electricity spitting from the ends.

“Now!” Michael yelled.  They both threw the cables at opposite sides of the cage at the same time.  There was a huge roar as the electricity shocked and sizzled the giant tongue.  Crackling and smoke came from all around us, hissing and lightning and explosions filled the room as the tongue thrashed about.  It finally collapsed on the floor in a gooey mess.

Everyone broke into cheers.  We’d won!

 “I’m still hungry”, Janet said.

“Let’s go to New Dog”, Fernando said, “Time to celebrate”.

When we got there the first thing we noticed was five disco balls hanging over the entrance.

“Hey Janet”, Michael joked, “This could be his house. I’m sure he’s got a disco ball over his bed.”

“Why is the card still in your hand?” I asked Janet.

She looked down, the card was still there.  She brought it up to look at it.

“I don’t know”, she shook her hand to get rid of it, no dice.  “Oh goodness, will I ever be rid of Carlos Ultra?”

CRASH!

Off in the distance we heard another roar and knew what had happened at Ó do Borogodó.  We watched in apprehension and sure enough a few minutes later the giant tongue came down the street.  It seemed to get cautious as it approached however.

“You know”, I said, “Maybe he only wants Janet”.

“Idril!” Dory yelled at me.

“What?  You know, Spock in The Wrath of Khan, 'The needs of the many outweighs the needs of the one'.”

“Keep it up Idril”.

“All I’m saying is we never got his side of the story”.

Smack!  Dory slapped me.

“Cut it out!  Don’t even say such things!”

I held my jaw.

Then she soothed, “Oh, did I hurt you?”

“Yes”, I responded.

Smack! 

“Good!”

“Guys!  Guys!  We need to find a way out of this.” Michael interrupted.

Dory looked up at the disco balls, “The silvered orbs!  They’re Horcruxes!  That’s why just electrocuting the tongue didn’t work.  He Who Must Not Be Named has Horcruxes!  Destroy the silvered orbs!  Michael, get that broom!”

Michael grabbed a broom and brought it up over his head to smash one of the disco balls.

SLAM!

Nothing happened.

Again and again he struck each of the disco balls, but they were indestructible.

“We need something stronger!” Fernando yelled desperately eyeing the tongue across the street.

“What’s the strongest thing in Brazil?” I asked.

Dory’s eyes lit up.  She reached into her purse and pulled out a piece of paper.

“A Nota Fiscal!” she cried.

She handed the Nota Fiscal to Janet and instructed her, “Put it in your other hand, the one without the card.  Guys!  Lift her up!”

The tongue knew it was in trouble, it pulled back and shot forward, galloping across the street toward us.  We lifted Janet high over our heads.

“Now Janet!  Smash the silvered orbs!” Dory hollered.

Janet was held high by the three of us.  She reached out and clapped the first of Carlos Ultra’s balls in her hands, the Nota Fiscal in one hand, his card in the other.

SMASH!

It blew apart at her touch.

The tongue stopped in the street and let out a roar.

“The next one!  The next one!” Dory yelled.

We took Janet down the line, destroying each of the Horcruxes in turn.  With each destroyed disco ball the tongue got smaller and writhed in more pain.

SMASH!

SMASH!

SMASH!

Each one produced a shower of glass and smoke.  The last one exploded with a force that knocked us all unconscious except for Dory who was standing farther away.  We fell to the ground.  There was still one Horcrux left.

“Wake up!” Dory yelled, looking over at the giant tongue.  It was recovering from the shock.  She grabbed the Nota Fiscal and the card from Janet’s hands and jumped, trying to get to the last disco ball, but it was too high.

The tongue knew its only chance was to get to Dory before she got to that ball.  It began moving forward, slowly picking up speed.

Dory pulled our limp forms into a pile.  I began to awaken.  I could barely lift my head.

“Dory?  What are you doing?”

“Trying to save us!” She shouted.  She then moved toward the tongue.

“Dory, keep away!”

Dory got about twenty feet away and turned back toward us, “Shut up and keep your head down!”

Then she got a running start, the giant tongue hot on her heels.  Like a basketball player doing a slam dunk she leaped on the pile of us, springing up in the air. She reached for the last disco ball.  The tongue just touching her leg.

“Take that Motherfucker!” Dory shrieked and clasped the last of Carlos Ultra’s balls in her hands.

A huge explosion rocked the air, glass shattered, the tongue’s roar rent the air and it disintegrated like powder into nothingness.

The police closed their inquiry quickly, asking a suspiciously few questions before letting us finally get a burger.  They didn’t believe us, but they didn’t not believe us either.  They had seen much in the streets of Sao Paulo.

That’s how I remember it my friends.  And if you’re ever in Sao Paulo and looking to have a great night on the town, I’d highly recommend Ó do Borogodó.  But you do so at your own risk. 

Beware!  You have been warned! 

For Ó do Borogodó is also the lair of Carlos Dias, world renowned Ultramarathoner.

http://www.carlosdiasultra.com.br/ 

https://www.facebook.com/Carlos-Dias-Ultra-231673027006203/

I Always Think of Joseph When I Hear People Whine About Their Cars

 “There are unpeeled tomatoes in my omelet!” the angry American exclaimed, “I peeled them myself, where are my peeled tomatoes!”

The man was correct, I’d seen him peel the tomatoes in the kitchen.  How insulted was the lady of the house at his actions on this beautiful lake in Colombia?  An ugly American coming into her kitchen and demanding peeled tomatoes in his omelet.  Unbelievably she didn’t understand English and he was forced to peel them himself.

He was as ugly an American as they come, retired, loud, and arrogant about his likes and dislikes.  Why in the world wasn’t Colombia like his native Georgia?

Somehow unpeeled tomato slices appeared in his omelet after all his work.  Did he miss something or was it done on purpose by a vengeful proprietress?  He looked at me indignantly shouting about his unpeeled tomatoes as if I should share his distress. His wife was obviously used to this and patted his hand knowingly.

When I was young I had the opportunity to study in Communist Poland, the People’s Republic of Poland was its official name, but one thing was certain, the Republic didn’t belong to the people.

I was one of seven Americans studying there that summer along with a bunch of others students from all over the world, but mainly within the Soviet orbit.  Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and even Joseph from Ethiopia.

Joseph always wore a massive smile on his face.  While most Poles went grimly about the business of trying to survive in a Socialist Economy that struggled to provide the bare necessities of food, clothing, and shelter for its people, Joseph was the happiest person in the world, unaffected by the problems around him.  You would see him in the street and he always was beaming like he’d just won the lottery.

Over vodka in our dorm one night Joseph sat down and told us the story of how he ended up in Poland.  At that time Ethiopia was ruled by hard core Communists.  It’s hard to know what ruthless Capitalists the Communists were rebelling against as it was a poverty stricken nation.  I guess the small shopkeepers on the corner were the bad guys.

Between a drought and Communist governance they managed to produce a famine of biblical proportions so bad that the whole world was forced to wake up and do something about it, part of it being the Live Aid concert.

Joseph’s parents were professors at the University which brought them under suspicion by the government as they were part of the hated intelligentsia.  The government tried to be more Communist than Marx or more appropriately, than Stalin, with their only success being their own Red Terror that killed tens of thousands of people.

They passed a law that if anybody was ‘Anti-State’ you could kill them.  With the result that some poor lady standing in line for food who mumbled, “There’s not enough bread in the stores” would have an undercover officer walk up and put a bullet through her head as she was ‘Anti-State’.  Every morning the carts would come around to gather up the bodies of those unfortunates who had offended the government the night before.

Joseph’s father was the first arrested.  They returned his mangled body to the family with the excuse that he’s been shot while resisting, except there were no bullet holes.  A few weeks later the government didn’t even try and deny their crimes as his mother simply disappeared and the family was told she was executed for being ‘Anti-State’.  I presume it was because she screamed objections during her torture.

Joseph was desperate.  He knew the secret police would come for him next.  He applied for a Student Visa from Poland and somehow got one.  The Communist countries always made a big show of cross country Socialist cooperation with student exchanges, meetings, and great declarations of Socialist assistance to each other.  This made for good PR, but accomplished little except photo ops, especially since underneath the veneer of Socialist Unity, many of the countries hated each other.

Joseph spent the next few weeks moving from house to house with the secret police hot on his tail.

Luckily in those days there were no efficient government systems to keep track of people and one hand didn’t know what the other was doing, especially in a country like Ethiopia.  Unlike today where we have interlinked computer systems and cameras everywhere and can now ensure compliance with the most minor of government rules and regulations.  A mecca of government control where nobody will ever dare engage in any activities deemed unacceptable by our divine, all-knowing, leaders.

So while the police were chasing him he applied for a passport to leave the country to study in Poland.  He needed to give them the date of his departure so he purchased a plane ticket.  They told him to come pick up his passport 24 hours before his flight.

Going to pick up his passport was harrowing.  He didn’t know if somehow the police would get wind of his arrival and be there waiting for him.  Almost worse, when he arrived, he was told that the passport wasn’t ready, he should go to the airport and it would be delivered an hour before his departure.

He spent the entire night awake with the nerve wracking knowledge that his very survival on this Earth depended on what happened the following morning.

The next day he arrived at the airport long ahead of time, he didn’t want to miss his passport.  An hour before his flight there was no sign of his passport.  Thirty minutes, still no passport.  Ten minutes before his flight he was in tears.  His life was finished, he was now out of places to hide.  Everyone who assisted him was either arrested or warned not to assist him and threatened with arrest, he couldn’t put them in any more danger.

Then up walked someone with his passport, handed it to him, and he boarded his plane and flew to life and freedom, in the Communist dictatorship of the People’s Republic of Poland.

Cut irony with knife here --------------------------------------

We were struck silent when Joseph finished his story, he was grinning ear to ear.  Finally my friend, Jim, turned to me and said, “You know, after hearing that, it’s going to be really tough going back to the United States and listen to someone complain about the paint job on their Mercedes.”

Or about the unpeeled tomatoes in their omelet.

A Silicon Valley Fairy Tale

The story you are about to read is true.  The names have been changed to protect the guilty.  It was written at the height of the Silicon Valley bubble in 1999.

The characters in this Greek Tragedy are:
Dawn - Tax Consultant
Marie - Tax Director
Paul - Manager of something or other
Bill - Account Temp type person

Dawn, Marie, and I have been working together very well, they're both knowledgeable and hard working.  Dawn has been trying to extract herself from the company, as she was brought in for a 3 month project and has been there over a year.  A decision to bring in Bill to take over her routine tasks is made and that's when our little story begins.

When I meet Bill, he seems very nice and tells me he was central to his last company's Tax automation project.  I'm relieved, at least he has some experience, this should be cake.

When I begin the training classes, I notice that Bill has the usual problems of a person with no experience with a new system.  That's O.K., he just needs some time to practice.  But as time goes by, I begin to get the uneasy feeling that he's just not getting it.  What I didn't realize until too late, is that he didn't get ANY of it.  None, nada, nichts, keine, neima, ikke.

I went to great pains to create step by step documentation for doing major things.  I'm not talking outlines, I'm talking baby steps, and he's still tripping over his own two feet.

After about 6 weeks I've only been dealing with Bill about an hour a week, but alarm bells are ringing like the Chicago Fire.  Dawn and I begin to discuss our mutual issue, as it turns out she's frustrated because Bill can't do the tasks correctly.  All he has to do is file the tax returns, fairly straightforward considering his claimed experience.   However the day they are due he hands them to her all screwed up and she has to scramble to fix things.  She's tried to express to Marie that Bill can't handle the job.

Marie is just not dealing with the issue.  "Things will work out", she says.  Well they do, for Marie.  A week later she's on her way to a company about to go IPO.

Now Dawn is really upset, and with good reason.  Her credibility may be damaged, if there are big losses, people won't hire her.

Then one day during training, now mind you I'm only training Dawn and Bill at my desk, Bill falls asleep and begins snoring.

Whoop! Whoop!  "Captain!  Romulan Warbird decloaking directly a head!"

“That's OK”, I think, “He's not getting any less than if he was awake”.

By this time I'm beginning to call him Mr. Double Click.  He can't seem to master the art of double clicking his mouse.  He's clicking like mad, but the timing is all off and bizarre things are happening on the screen.  I'm seeing screens I've never seen before.  I'm incredulous.

One day the DBA, Vinod, stops me in the hall to tell me he spent a couple of hours assisting Bill.

"Mark", he says shaking his head, "He should not be allowed near a computer".  Yeah, tell me about it.

Whoop!  Whoop!  "Captain!  Romulan Warbird has fired a photon torpedo!"

But the Captain isn't listening.  Nobody really wants to be bothered, the company itself is going through an acquisition and spinoff to take advantage of the insanity of the stock market bubble.  Management is as limp as a noodle.  Everybody's too busy making money to think about the laws and the future.  What counts is the company's stock price today.  The excuses start, "Well maybe Bill needs more training.  We need to sit down with him and define expectations. Blah, blah, blah".

But now it becomes obvious Bill is not doing anything.  I know the month is over, but not a single question about the reports needed for his returns is forthcoming.  As this is his only job, what the hell is he doing with his time?

One day I come over and help Bill get some reports. He's clicking all over the screen.

"Where are your instructions?"

Bill roots through some folders and comes up with my step by step instructions.  He then proceeds to ignore them and is clicking wildly again.

"Captain!  We're hit!  Shields at 50%!"

"What do the instructions say", I ask.

He looks at the instructions, unseeing, mutters something, and begins clicking wildly again.

"What do the instructions say", I repeat, a bit louder.

"Captain!  Shields have collapsed!  We're at their mercy!"

"Oh, Reports-Run", he replies.  More wild clicking follows.

"WHAT DO THE INSTRUCTIONS SAY!"

"Captain!  We're hit!  We've lost Deck 6!  Shouldn't we respond?"

I'm now growling in rage.  Is it possible to be this stupid?  I begin to envision the 11 o'clock news...

"Reports say the victim was hit repeatedly from behind with a blunt instrument"

This is the last straw, Dawn mounts a full court press to put Bill out of our misery but is rebuffed by Paul.  I really don't get this, he's a contractor, that's why you hire contractors, so you can get rid of them easily.

Now granted there's not a lot of people out there to replace Bill.  I swear as I pass by the county prison on the way to lunch that some days I see corporate recruiters waiting outside the gate to get the latest available labor supply as they are released at noon.

"Do you speak English?  No?  How about computer skills?  None?  Okay, here's your offer, and you get 5000 options to start."

Finally I show up to speak to Paul to put in the word that I'm not going to spend my time babysitting his temp.  I also discover that the reports need to be re-run, so I pop into Bill's cube.

"Bill, we need to re-run those reports". I stop in my tracks.  There on his screen, open in a web browser, is a woman, naked, on her knees, leaning back on one hand in a most unattractive pose, grimacing at me.

Now I'm no prude, I think the massive prevalence of web porn is directly attributable to our Puritan founders and we just haven't been able to relax a bit about sex in 400 years, but you have to be a moron to surf porn at work.  And to top it off I found myself in violent disagreement with Bill’s taste in women.  Really guy?  All the free stuff out there and this is what you like?  You sick bastard.

Bill is surprised and embarrassed.  He tries to close the screen.  Furious clicking ensues.

I stand there speechless.

He can't do it.  The naked woman starts moving around his screen.  More clicks and more web browsers start and more porn pops up, it’s multiplying exponentially like an out of control wild fire. He's trying to close them as fast as they're opening, and having no luck.

I look away.  I just can't watch.  I'm not sure what is more disgusting, the porn, or the computer ineptness.  Seconds tick by as slow as molasses being sucked through a straw by an emphysema victim on one lung.

Waiting.

Waiting..

Waiting....

The clicking stops.  He must be done, we can now do the reports.  I turn back.  The bitch is still there in all her glory.  Mocking me.  Ug.

Bill finally decides to use the menus to close things up.  That's when I notice his toolbar.

Totally empty.

It's not like he was doing work and got distracted, he wasn't doing anything except cruising porn!

"Oh My God!", I realize,"He can't do anything right.  I'm working with George Costanza from Seinfeld!  That’s what this is, I'm in a sitcom.  This is a joke.  If given some more time he'll have a little bed built under his desk so he can take a nap unobserved."  I begin looking under the desk for an alarm clock on a shelf.

Not yet.  I turn around, looking for the video camera.  None to be found, this is real life.

We both act like nothing happened and he re-runs the report with me standing behind him like Dilbert with his boss, directing his actions.

"Now move the mouse left.  Up a little more.  A little moooorrrree...now click.  No, not there!  O.K. close that.  Move to that little 'X'..."

This goes no further.  I finally have a weapon which is unassailable.  I march into Paul's office and explain that normally I wouldn't complain about the web porn thing, after all people surf their stocks and kids stuff all the time, but the fact that the reports are all tucked away where they can't possibly be worked on ticks me off to no end.

Paul cracks up when I tell him the story.  It turns out that he's already talked to Bill about it once.  He was caught printing the pictures!  Paul finally agrees George Costanza, umm, Bill, must go.

What?  He's been caught once, talked to, and is still doing it?  How much more stupid can he be?  How much more stupid can you be Paul?  This is amazing!  This is identical to the episode where George kept trying to get fired by the Yankees and couldn't.  I am truly living a sitcom.  Sitcom Valley, that's what this is.

But in the end it turns out that this will be all for Bill.  He's gone over the edge.  Not because he's stupid, incompetent, and unable to perform the job, but because he's politically incorrect.

Well whatever, as long as he's gone.

Working in the fields

“Where’s everybody go?” I asked.

Someone pointed at the white van parked outside the giant shed, “Immigration”.

I was working out in the fields of Hollister as a very young man. My girlfriend Elvia was this chubby little Mexican girl I’d met at college, being Mexican in Hollister meant you had one skill set, manual labor. It didn’t matter how intelligent or educated she was. But to be fair, those were the jobs in in that area, it was also what she was used to doing, it was comfortable, and she and her family had been doing it their whole lives. She’d gotten me a job at Felice Farms cutting ‘cots with her. ‘Cots was short for apricots, it was an apricot farm.

Cutting ‘cots was hot hard work. There was a giant slab of concrete with all the machinery on it covered by a large tin roof. This kept the sun off you and was much preferable to being outside the shed. Teenagers and the young women would pop apricots into a slicer, it would slice the ‘cots in half, sending them down a chute where they would get dumped on large wooden slats. Older women would then turn the ‘cots face up and remove bad ‘cots. Then at the end of the line men would stack the wooden flats and take them to a shed to be bathed in a sulfur steam bath before being hauled out and spread in the sun. There the sun would dry them in about four hours. They would then be scraped off the wood slats into large boxes before being packaged for sale. The apricot pits were shipped to Mexico to be made into Laitrile, a dubious but understandably popular last ditch cancer hope.

That’s what I did the first day, spread ‘cots in the hundred degree Hollister heat. At lunchtime all of the Americans and green card holders working beside me quit. There was no way it was worth the money, only the illegals were left. The only reason I didn’t quit was I wasn’t going to be beaten.

The second day I was blessedly promoted to handing boxes to the cutters inside the shed and out of the sun. Each box held about 35 pounds of ‘cots and the cutters were paid 35 cents per box. I would remove the old box, give them a new box, and stamp their punch cards. At the end of the day the punches were added up and they were paid in cash. They could empty those big boxes in no time, so I had to move fast. I moved tons and tons of apricots that summer.

I didn’t get promoted because I was a gringo, I got promoted because I could count. The previous day the other guy had punched more cards than there were boxes processed. This was a game the girls would play, they always complained you forgot to punch their card. You had to figure out who was lying and who wasn’t.

I was one of only three gringo laborers, another guy my age on the other line, and a fourteen year old girl named Alice who’d just moved from Iowa and was making some extra summer pocket change. Everyone else was Hispanic, and 80% of those illegal. Who else would want to do that work? I talked with Alice a lot because I didn’t really know much Spanish, and teased her about being from Iowa.

“So Alice, what do you do for excitement in Iowa when you’re not watching corn grow?”

“Mark, you can hear it growing at night!”

“No kidding.”

Or

“Alice! What’s the state motto for Iowa?”

“I don’t know, what’s the state motto for Iowa?”

“Iowa, Gateway to Nebraska”.

One time the machinery had broken down and we were resting against a wall while they fixed it. One of the ladies came back in and started babbling at us in Spanish. I got up.

“What’d she say?” Elvia asked me.

“Get back to work” I answered.

Elvia looked at me quizzically, “How’d you know?”

“I dunno, seemed obvious”.

It was a good life lesson. I always tell people that ever since then with every job I’ve gotten paid more and worked less. But I always knew that no matter how hard the work was, (12 hour days in the heat and dust left my hands with callouses like bear paws), I was going back to college and a better life. I would come home every night and soak in the tub for thirty minutes or more. Even my young body had a hard time handling the backbreaking work.

The people I was working with, men in their thirties and forties, who looked older, had no such future. Tomorrow would be the same as today with no letup. They would pack up their entire family of six to eight kids and head off down to the next farm, following the crops. Their kids never got much schooling except wherever they set down for the winter; I wondered how they would turn out.

It was a hard life, but could be a happy one too. They didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, so they celebrated after work each day with some ad-hoc fiesta at a local park or sometimes right on the farm. They’d just pull up two buckets, lay a board on top as a bench, turn the car stereos up, pop a beer, and party. While I, a white middle class kid, saved and starved and hunkered down for the future. Then you realize the future is always insecure and they were right, live life for today; but my tight-ass middle class upbringing still won’t allow me to live that way.

I remember meeting my buddy Jose’s grandfather who had been a migrant farm worker his whole life, he was 100 years old and he’d had five wives and 162 grandchildren, and counting. He’d lived a good full life that should not to be besmirched by lily white liberals who anxiously wring their hands at his ‘impoverished’ existence. For some people money isn’t everything, or anything.

I learned how the other half lived. The women would all gossip and carry on while doing what I considered a mind numbing job, but to them it was fairly easy work. They didn’t have to think much and guess what, except for some cut fingers, they didn’t bring their work home to worry about every night. They didn’t get fifty e-mails on the commute home and have to attend conference calls at all hours of the day and night.

Our foreman was a guy named Mitch who’s claim to fame was his ability to fart the national anthem. Needless to say, I was not working with rocket scientists.

I looked at the guys from Immigration, they’d caught maybe a handful of people out of a hundred-and-fifty and were taking them away in the van. Like drops in the ocean. These guys would be shipped back to Mexico and the next day would come right back.

I wondered where everyone was hiding, it was an apricot farm and apricot trees are not that big, certainly not big enough to hide behind or up in the branches. And it seem silent, everyone just quietly slipped away. I found out later that the farm owners had hidden some of them under the crawl space of their house. Good guys for helping out those in need or ruthless exploiters looking out for themselves? With illegal immigration there is no black and white.

I’ve always said that no wall will keep out illegal immigrants. Plus there are ships outside the Golden Gate that drop off hundreds of Chinese illegals a week. Multiply that by all the other port cities and people from other countries and you see how big the problem really is. We would need a mile high Berlin Wall around the entire country, and a dome to boot.

There’s only one solution, if you put 100 business owners who employ illegals in jail, illegal immigration will stop tomorrow. As long as there are jobs waiting these poor people would be crazy not to come.

Politicians love to demonize each other about the subject, but there’s actually a conspiracy to continue this horrible game with people’s lives. Democrats love illegals (sorry, they call them ‘undocumented workers’ as a way to make it sound like it’s just a minor paperwork snafu) because they constitute an underclass that will vote for them someday when they will obviously be granted citizenship (you gotta let them stay, it’s only fair, they played the game by the unwritten rules we wrote), and Republicans love them because they provide cheap slave-like submissive labor for businesses and drive down American wages. An article in the Wall Street Journal a few years ago noted that illegals work in the chicken factories for $7 an hour while an American want’s $9 an hour for the same job. Over 20% higher wage costs for an American who knows his rights? You gotta be nuts to hire the American.

La Inmigración didn’t catch any of my new friends, and later one, a youngster named Dorotero, emerged from a cubby hole in the machinery smiling happily, he’d lived another day in America.

But Alice looked desperate, she watched the van as they loaded up, then she looked at me, fear covered her face.

“Oh Mark! Please don’t let them send me back to Iowa!”