"Housekeeping - You Want Towels"

Given the pink slip about two weeks ago, I have been left to survive on my salary from stevemcdevitt.com alone, which according to my last calculations was a cool negative twelve dollars per month. Even with the help of unemployment pay the harsh reality has already set it – I can no longer go out every night of the week and blow my money at top notch drinking huts formally known as bars. It is a complete and utter disappointment. I don’t support anyone (other than myself) abusing our government’s unemployment system, however I think I speak for everyone down at the unemployment office when I say they would be happy to know that I’ve now resorted to spending their money only during the hours of 4 to 7pm, Monday thru Friday at local happy hours. I feel they would be rather jovial to hear this. It has been a tough adjustment and several local bars have recently contemplated shutting their doors due to an unexplained recent downturn in business.

At the point of dismissal from my lucrative software job, I figured that job opportunities would be rolling in as I casually took some time off to frequent my favorite golf courses, watch Seinfeld reruns and wake up drooling from afternoon naps. Once my resume was posted however, instead my e-mail inbox was invaded by pyramid schemes, porn site advertisements, Backstreet Boys concert updates and male sex enhancement spam. (Ok…so three of the four I got before the resume was posted…)

The first day I walked out of my place to grab a coffee and some breakfast when I was confronted by a solicitor. Usually I pass by these eccentric characters in a huge rush to get to the fake place or lie that I’ve told them, but today was different. I was unemployed and I had all the time in the world for Green Peace, Jerry’s kids, or whatever other crazy cause some whacko was peddling in San Francisco. The last time I stopped for one of those things, some lunatic was trying to get a waste facility renamed as George W. Bush sewage facility. (This is what people will picket for hours for in San Francisco). This girl, who wasn’t a day over seventeen, was very nice and was concerned about pollution in the Bay affecting the sea lions and I was all ears. Then it came – “would you like to join our mailing list for $50?” I knew it was coming and for once I had the perfect alibi and it wasn’t even a lie. “I’d love to but I was just laid off, so I can’t help you out,” I responded sheepishly, expecting us to then part ways. “Oh I’m sorry, I can probably get you a job if you want, this gig isn’t too bad, I can call my…” I didn’t even hear the end as I stepped into the street narrowly avoiding a swerving taxi. It hit me like a ton of bricks and all I could think of was myself with my arms wrapped lovingly around some amiable sea lion…great software job to slanging sea lion preservation…this was going to be harder than I thought…

Just when I was starting to get discouraged and was one Cialis e-mail advertisement away from becoming a mendicant, begging for leftover Jumbo Jacks on the street, THE e-mail came through. I had just finished slopping up the last few gulps of my 29 cent Beef Top Ramen, when it hit.

“Starbucks Barista Opening!” $8-$10 per hour.

First and foremost I have let it be known that a Starbucks barista is probably the hardest job in the world. How they memorize every possible combination of drinks and make these concoctions at the same time out of their minds on free caffeine is totally beyond me. I could probably perform brain surgery on a cricket with more of a success rate than whip up a double half-calf-decaf-nocaf-extracaf with soy, no cream, with room, extra cream like the baristas do. It is like another language when you walk into a Starbucks. Long story short…my job search continued, but it was encouraging to see that a college education and five years of professional experience made me eligible for the same job as a six-teen year old with lemonade stand and lawn mowing experience.

Then it got worse. I started receiving janitorial jobs, a pet store clerk, and a most recently a shoe shiner gig, not to mention twenty e-mails per day from different Farmer’s Insurance reps. If I didn’t know any better I could swear that Farmer’s Insurance is actually some sort of cult sending out kool-aid-like virus e-mails, pre-programmed to release a deadly insurance selling bacteria turning you into a cold-calling insurance salesman the instant you click the mouse.

Even with all these discouraging job offers I kept a positive outlook, which was mostly aided by the happy hours. The final straw however came just the other day. What started out as the promise of a new day quickly ended when my G-mail alerted me of an incoming e-mail.

The title read “Be my housekeeper.”

Starbuck’s jobs, cleaning up rat poop at a pet store, and selling oranges down by the off-ramp of the expressway are not glamorous jobs, but at least I need two forms of identification to get hired. I first tried not to stereotype, but let’s not beat around the whisk broom – most housekeepers are woman and illegal aliens, two identifiers I was not willing to become to obtain work. (I would be willing to do one, but that is my final offer).

“Housekeeping…you want towels…?”

I could just see myself now…

Unfortunately my happy hour money was running low and I was getting just desperate enough to housekeep my way back to the top. I would have resorted to picking up trash on the side of the road, had a pugnacious group of surly thugs in orange jump suits not ran me off of the 280 freeway. That coupled with the fact that homeless guys had now started offering me change on the streets when I walked by them, instead of asking me so I read on...

A thirty-six year old Swiss man somehow found my resume as a dead on match for someone to stay in his house free of charge while he runs his jewelry ring through me at the house. Totally normal, I thought to myself while popping a Lemonhead into my mouth I had unearthed from underneath the deep confines of my truck seat during a recent search for loose change.

According to the Swiss chap’s posting, all I would have to do is maintain the house and sell jewelry to his U.S. clients when he is not in town. While he is in town I would still be able to stay at the house for free (most likely as long as I dress up in a sailor outfit and tight leather chaps). Makes perfect sense…

I am writing this blog jobless and from the porch of a friendly gang member named Blockhead Joe in Oakland. After hearing my tales of non-grandeur he was nice enough to shoplift me a 40 of Old English, once I explained how I had now out-priced myself of happy hour pricing once the housekeeping gig went down in flames…I have to sign off for now, since Blockhead, or just Block J, as his homies address him, has just informed me he needs the porch to sell some rock or something, but tomorrow is a new day. If I’m lucky I’ll receive a job offer for cleaning bird poop off of the pier at Fisherman’s Wharf, an invitation to participate in a case study involving anthrax injected anally or a promising lead for a job as assistant manure cleaner at a local petting zoo. I know these are lofty expectations, but a kid can dream can’t he?

"Shenanigans Volume II"

As usual I have several comings and goings that have absolutely no connection and no real relevance to life…

…I’ve always wondered where all these stray cats come from. I realize some are left for dead, abandoned or just go missing in action, but with all the cats out there I’ve got to think that some choose a life on the streets otherwise people wouldn’t threaten to maim you whenever you go to their house and leave the door open giving Fluffy the chance at a life-changing, split-second bolt towards freedom. These are the people that are keeping these hippie, free-lovin’ felines hostage in a hazy and stoned, cat-nipped-out plastic litter box of emotion. Sick of their caged life in suburbia hell these itinerant cats take their nine lives to the street looking for a local alley cat gang to latch on with in search of a fresh start and new adventures. Or perhaps it could be an insatiable catnip addiction with no outlets to turn for help that send these cats lurking in the darkness of the alleys in search of their addictive desire. I know there have to be some that make this choice; otherwise we wouldn’t see these signs up all over town looking for Scruffy, Scraps and Sammie once they’ve taken off for the door like Rosie O’Donnell at a meatball buffet. When you see these alley cats they are in bad shape; missing legs, fur, whiskers, and hairballs coming out of places I’d rather not speak of in this blog. How bad does the life at home in a warm house have to be to make these cats turn to a life of poverty stricken by the guilt of what was left behind? (I guess I can’t blame them – if I had to defecate in the same place I just did three days prior and it is still there, I’d probably start snorting catnip as well). My advice? Check with the local alley cat gang over on the south side but be careful. If that gang is running the cat nip trade out on the other side of the tracks you better watch your back…You know what they say - catnip overdose killed the cat…or was it curiosity? I trust you’ll choose the most likely answer…

Chances are this feline, high out of his mind on "c-nip" as they call it in the alleys, was later seen at a public litter box smuggling sixty kilos of catnip in his winter coat.

…Why is it that I can play seven full court basketball games in the blazing hot sun and not be tired or crippled with aches and pains, but yet fifteen minutes shopping with a girlfriend and I’m ready to check myself into the closest convalescent home due to back pain, aching joints and major fatigue? I might break a decent sweat on the court, but at a mall after just several minutes I’m sweating like an antelope being chased by a cheetah and rashes start forming. I can literally go only ten minutes before fatigue sits in. At thirty minutes my body is a useless piece of jelly and I have no choice but to sit down and rest. I think it is built in men’s DNA to not be able to handle the strenuous act of shopping. In caveman times it was probably the same for men as they dreaded drudging through the forest with their woman stopping at every tree as the female browsed for the right bark for the inside of their cave…

…Does anyone have normal conversations anymore or is the text message craze finally incorporating itself into the modern language? Omg, ttyl, lmao, the list goes on and on, but yet I don’t understand any of it. I’m just surprised Shaq didn’t opt for the MTV teeny-bopper text message acronyms when requesting a simple message from Kobe Bryant during his recent rap… hmat…ktmhmat…(kobe tell me how my ass tastes)… “You can’t do it without me, ktmhmat…” has a nice ring to it…

… Well the dead pigeon that was flattened outside of the Safeway is still there…sort of. The poor carcass has been run over so many times now it looks like a police chalk line after a murder. The thing is literally flush with the concrete. I still can’t figure out who handles these things…the mystery continues…

"Shenanigans Volume I"

Throughout this blog I’ll be posting some random observations which really have no relevance to anyone’s life. They will not improve your life by any means nor will they probably make any sense. With that said here is the first one…

…One thing I’ve noticed about San Francisco is guys at bars are absolutely drunken Neanderthals and fall, bump, knock and spill all over you. At first you want to turn around and sock the guy in the face until you realize he doesn’t even know where he is and has already spilled his beer on six other guys so you have no choice but to let him slide. I’m not sure if it’s because there are more binge drinkers in this town or if the guys would rather just go out and get obliterated instead of trying to maintain any sort of decency.

… I’ve realized the kickball phenomenon has now gotten way out of hand. While playing as a fill-in in a regular season Sunday kickball game in my roommate’s league I noticed parents actually coming out to watch the games. This may have been standard for Little League games or even an occasional badminton match, but kickball? I guess I’m kind of holding onto the thought that the only reason they came out was for their own piece of mind. I’m sure most parents when they hear their son or daughter who they’ve spent fifty grand on their college education is in a kickball league, they think it is just a cover for their real habit of shooting up paint thinner or participating in drive-bys with the local gang. When they show up at the local park they are relieved, but at the same time perplexed of how their youngster could go full circle – second grade kickball, honor student, Ivy League education, lucrative job and now? Back to kickball. The most amazing thing is there are people in the league that actually take it seriously and actually try to win at kickball of all things. I’m all for the competition but I’d much rather use my competitiveness at something more worthwhile like for instance flip cup or beer pong…well ok, I guess these kickball maniacs aren’t too bad after all…

…Every day on the way to work I pass by a horse pasture in Palo Alto and there is always one horse wearing a jacket. Why must he wear this overcoat I wonder? I have to think that it isn’t his Mom reminding him to put the coat on every day and that the jacket serves some sort of purpose, but what is it? Is he ridiculed by the other horses for wearing the ridiculous overcoat, not man enough to face the harsh elements of the outside, or is he looked at as being too good for the other horses with his ostentatious garments? These are the type of things I think about at night…

My glorious stallion wasn't as fortunate as this philly pictured above who was lucky enough to not only find a glamorous jacket, but a pair (uh times 2 since the 4 legs) of ostentatious green boots to boot. I figure this image might give readers at least an idea of my jacket clothed horse friend. (Either that or cause them to start drinking due to the ridiculousness of this blog).

… There seems to be an exorbitant amount of dead pigeons in San Francisco. It seems like they are being run over at an exponential rate in this town. Apparently George Costanza’s deal from Seinfeld doesn’t apply to the pigeons on the West coast, as these pigeons do not appear to be fleet of foot. I saw one the other day lambasted in front of the Safeway parking lot. I can understand the clean up crews ignore the clean up for a dead bird on the side of the road, but at the entrance to a highly frequented food store? You would think someone would take care of that thing. I guess I’ll wait anxiously in anticipation to see what happens…

"Video Camera Dads"

They are everywhere. They invade little league fields, tourist spots, living rooms on Christmas morning and anywhere else they are tolerated before getting a swift kick to the groin. They are Video Camera Dads.
I’ve never quite understood why they insist on video taping every freakin’ moment of life. Maybe they think their far-from riveting production will be enjoyed in households across America, but they are rarely enjoyed in their own household.
We’ve all been over to peoples’ houses and are enjoying a great evening when the words of death are heard - “You’ve got to see the footage from our trip to Montana…” You then quickly grab another piece of chicken and then proceed to fake-choke in attempts to get out of the impending misery.
During a recent trip to Europe I was at the St. Peters Basilica in Rome. It is one of the most magnificent structures in the world with beautiful art and sculptures that attract people from all over. I was absolutely blown away by the beauty of it and only an annoying video camera Dad could take me out of my awe. And sure enough there was one. Here is about how his narration went as the imbecile looked through the viewer. I stood there and listened in amazement.
“There is a door, that is the ceiling, there is the window, that is the floor…” –are you kidding me? Who is watching these things? He also made sure to pause on each interior fixture such as the doorway just so the audience could really get a feel for it in case they’d never seen a door, wall or ceiling before. The guy travels 6,000 miles, pays $200 for entrance for his family, ignores the work of Michelangelo, all so he can tape a blank wall. Makes perfect sense.
The guy will go home and say to his wife, “you know I didn’t feel like I was there and don’t think I really saw everything there was to see. Lets re-watch the tape so we really feel like we were there.” Uh, you were there! If the guy spent one-third of the time actually observing what was there to offer instead of taping the floor he might have actually got something out of the trip.
I have no doubt that eventually he got to the statue of David or the Mona Lisa, or whatever tourist place he was, but he’ll send his family and friends into a sleep-inducing coma caused by forty-four minutes of walls with nothing on them with his boring narrating well before they get to see any real history.
“Well at least we can relive our experience over and over on VHS tape,” the guy will attempt to tell his houseguests as they drool all over his couches that he video taped for hours after bringing them home from Z-gallery six months ago.
These Neanderthals also find it comical to videotape absolutely nothing. They’ll focus in on an unwilling subject for fif-teen minutes and find it completely comical when the person tells them to take a hike, then proceeds to sit there while the camera keeps rolling as they keep prodding the person to do or say something funny on command. “This is my best work,” the video camera Dad will think to himself as the subject tells him to F off a few times then slams the camera to ground and gives the video camera dad a swift shot to the nuts.
Before you start getting irrational and start stalking, tackling and maiming these video camera ignoramus creatures, keep in mind they do not know any better. If you see them politely tell them they’ve gone astray. If they don’t listen then you can strategically remove the camera from their grips and their families will thank you. The world will also become a more exciting, fun place thanks to your efforts.

"A Harmonious Blend of S.F. Misfits"

I’m starting to come to the conclusion that San Francisco, though amazingly spectacular in many rights is a harmonious blend of the world’s biggest cut-throats, rejects and potentially insane. They all exist in perfect comity to co-exist no matter what type of language, race, sexual preference or whether you are just a glue sniffing, three-legged-cross-dressing, swashbuckling, ballerina dancing, alien believing, opium smoking, art gallery visiting, clam chowder eating, going green recycling, save the pigmy marmoset picketing, anti-war rioting, sideways snorkeling, god faring… human being.

It not only is downright crazy, it’s truly astounding. In towns all over the country many of these previously determined itinerant outcasts have been ostracized, beat up, laughed at or downright banned. In San Francisco, not only are they completely accepted – these inscrutable lunatics are freakin’ celebrities! It appears that the more peculiar you are, the more accepted and popular you are in this town!

My theory came to a complete culmination this past weekend at the Haight Street fair. Haight street is infamous all over the world for being a hippiesh, anything goes type of area and my white, Marin-raised, frat boy roots were wandering into dangerous uncharted water like a customer wandering into a 7-11 without an interpreter.

It was either the six-foot-nine Dennis Rodman look alike dressed in high heels and a tight purple skirt dancing to Death Techno or the gentlemen pictured below dawning a tidied shirt, Jesus sandals and a pair of jean shorts too tight to fit even a nine-year old anorexic schoolgirl that made me come to my ignorant conclusions. (This Rodman wannabe busted my hypothetical cherry for a large man dressed in drag, but then again this was my first Death Techno concert as well so who’s counting?)

These nonsensical creatures of lunacy at first made me want to vomit on my funnel cake, but after careful deliberation and several minutes of jaw-gaping astonishment on my part I began to search the crowd, my eyes darting too and fro in a desperate attempt to find more inscrutable misfits capable of satisfying my insatiable urges for eccentricity. It actually was kind of refreshing to be in a scene where people just don’t give a f#@* (expletive). They are who they are and granted I would prefer not seeing two guys dressed up as snoopy characters making out, but if Brandon Walsh never made manager at the Peach Pit on Beverly Hills 90210 then why should I get what I want? The way I figure, as far as these normal citizens are concerned, if I don’t like it…I can take a hike. Because then again – they are celebrities in this town and the normalcy that is formally known as myself is merely an inscrutable misfit just trying to find an identity…

"The Move In"

It is difficult enough to go through a strenuous move into a new apartment in San Francisco, but it is even more difficult with scantily dressed drunk girls everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, some of my friends have actually driven up to fifty miles just at the slight rumor of a drunken young gamine, but trying to move during these circumstances was like trying to diligently follow a calculus lesson during the Hooter’s Swimsuit pageant. Sidestepping a pool of vomit near our box of clean plates and cutlery while trying to maneuver a one hundred pound couch I felt like Reggie Bush carrying a wounded ox. Just as I gingerly did a tap-dance-juke, keeping my fresh pair of shoes from becoming the vomit’s next victim while balancing the couch a drunken passerby shouted some desultory remarks resembling something to the extent of what idiots move during Union Street Fair? Before giving either of us a chance to defend our daft decision making due to his short term memory forgetting he even asked the question, the inebriated sot let out a drunken bellow of “Union Street Fair. Whoo…” Both of his hands shot into the the air causing his beverage to splash hastily all over himself and almost onto our couch. At the time I didn’t think much of it but apparently this tippler was actually giving us the official yell of the Union street fair. Although each following variation we heard from other loaded partiers were slightly different due to the level of their intoxication, they seemed to follow the same basic principal. Each included something about the Union Street Fair, some sort of celebratory chant or scream and usually involved the spillage of some sort of beverage all over their person.

Unfortunately neither myself nor my roommate Tony bothered to check any sort of calendar, otherwise we would have chosen our move in date differently. After a few items had been moved we realized we needed to expedite the process so we too could yell slurred obscenities and spill alcohol all over ourselves.

After finally finishing our move and dropping our U-haul off at a liquor store near the projects of all places we were ready to hit the fair. I’m still unclear on how U-haul came up with the marketing plan of leasing trucks through a liquor store but I’m pretty sure they didn’t have a team Harvard marketing graduates partnering with Mothers Against Drunk Driving come up with the plan.

“Here you go sir, third truck on the right. The clutch sticks a bit and the FM radio doesn’t work, but we’ve left a fresh box of St. Ides forties in the passenger seat for your troubles…on us – really just one of the great advantageous of the U-Haul-Pablo’s Liquor Store partnership.”

What’s next? Hertz Rental car and Jimmy Joe the crack dealer teaming up?

We headed out to the fair, just a block from our place about nine hours later than most of the partiers had starting drinking and it was absolute total chaos. At one point when just standing observing the drunken disaster a cop confronted an intoxicated guy drinking a 22-ounce Coors Light in a can. In any other city I’ve lived in, this drunk-ass (sorry I used up all the other intelligent sounding vocabulary words for drunkard in this entry), would have been cuffed, pepper sprayed and given a generous cavity search with a rubber glove for drinking an open container, but I watched in amazement as something I’d never seen before happened. The cop actually asked the guy to get rid of the can. She didn’t swipe it from him, threaten him, or beat him senseless with her billy club like I expected. She actually asked him politely if he would get rid of his beer. Amazing, I thought expecting the guy to politely cooperate and thank god for getting off so easy but instead the moron started pounding his beer right in front of her! And still, there was no senseless beating or mace to the face. The cop actually tried to pull the can away from the moron’s catlike grasps but was not successful as he kept pounding away. The moron’s girlfriend started to get involved by yelling at her idiot boyfriend and trying to assure the cop that he really is a decent god-faring individual. The guy finally finished his fraternity house hazing-like gulp and then tried to reason with the cop to let him finish the beer.

Finally after the cop started to finally get a little agitated the moron’s girlfriend had to reason with the cop to let him off the hook. I’m sure she reasoned that being with the moron was probably punishment enough let alone having to bail the loser out of jail. The cop agreed and took off to leave the girlfriend to bitch out her stupid boyfriend.

Drunken Idiots 1, Cops 0

I think I am going to like this place…

"Blog Description - Why Am I writing this Blog?"

I thought I should write a blog about well...a blog! Why would I even bother writing this blog one might ask...

Shenanigans is my first attempt at blogging so if you are that guy who generally calls a five-year old for double dribble during a one-on-one basketball game, then this blog probably is not for you. All I’m asking for is a fair chance before I dribble one off my foot and into the street...

The main objective of my blog is to point out the not so obvious intricacies of day-to-day life with a spin of humor and wit teetering on the border of lunacy. I hope you will find these mostly true tales of debauchery hilarious but if you don’t, please don’t panic. It probably just means you don’t suffer from any sort of mental illness.

The name was chosen after some not so careful deliberation. The word Shenanigans came to my mind one day after trying to figure out what to name this ridiculous thing. It just felt right and then when I went out to a bar later that night a group of people wearing “Team Shenanigans” shirts were at the bar I took it as a sign and from there the blog was born.

If you ARE reading that probably means you are either extremely bored, you are passing time until “The Hills, Season 3,” comes out, you are trapped in a Turkish prison and this is the only website that comes up on your Iphone or you just ate some bad cheese and not thinking correctly.

This blog is usually best when read when under some sort of illegal narcotic or heavy proof alcohol. Both are guaranteed to make the reading much funnier. Girls have told me that I become more attractive and funnier when they’ve been drinking, so I don’t see why that wouldn’t apply with my blog as well.

I would like to ask you to be responsible however, and not operate heavy machinery while drinking and reading this blog at the same time. Or pregnant and drinking while reading. Or pregnant, drinking and operating heavy machinery while reading this blog. I can’t condone such behavior but I can recommend operating heavy machinery, while pregnant and high on large doses of horse tranquilizers while reading this blog.

The first goal of this blog was to put all the crazy, nonsensical stories that happen in my life on paper since with each beer I drink, brain cells are dying at an exponential rate, taking with them my memory capacity. I figured I could relive the chaos on paper and allow more of a green light for the alcohol to finish off what it started. But what happened was that I kept noticing all these strange observations I was for some reason making in just day-to-day life and I thought it might be more fun to put those down as well. So each day/week/month or whatever I’ll be writing some random observations as well as write up some random anecdote, article, or story.

In case you couldn’t tell from all the sarcasm, this write-up is to encourage the reader to read my blog, but at the same time I’d like to make it known that I think blogging is the stupidest idea to ever be created. A blog is basically an avenue for any fruit cake, cut-throat, reject, misfit or well, myself to ramble on and on about absolutely nothing, slap a “blog” title on it such as say…I don’t know…just for argument sake: Shenanigans, and call themselves a blogger. Or better yet – a writer! Bloody ridiculous! It’s completely outlandish, idiotic and ludicrous. With that said, I hope you enjoy my blog written by a tremendous writer – myself…