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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 25 November 2021

Hits: 888

It goes without saying that I've never worked anyplace so fancy as this.

The manager introduces himself, French, a proper Sommelier, young, perhaps early 30's, the other staff range in age from early 20's to what I might guess at as late 60's or 70's. I'm paired with a girl working a private party - 25 people.

And I'm schooled. Here, what with the 120 page wine list you don't open the wine. Take the order, let the Sommelier know. They will take care of it.

Absolutely no modifications to food orders without Chef's permission.

You don't touch the food. There's expeditors for that. 

You don't make drinks - the bartenders do that.

And I could go on. 

Suffice it to say, I'm in over my head - there's more "standing around" and being available than there is actual serving. 

The table - they spend approximately $6000, with an automatic gratuity of 15%. For 2 servers - not bad - but - I don't count as a server, I'm on "Observation", unpaid apprenticeship as it were. And even for 1 server - well, factor in the abundant support - Bartenders, Hostess, Bussers, Expeditors, Sommeliers - you get it. 

Wait and see. 

At the end of the night I'm offered the job. I don't even know what the job is - merely get told precisely what i have to do and do it. This will quite possibly the longest apprenticeship I've ever had in a restaurant. Worth it? I don't yet know. Fingers crossed. But - one down, now to deal with housing and wheels. 

And - worse come to worse I can always throw on my resume that I got a job offer from ... - which alone should be worth it's weight in gold.

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 23 November 2021

Hits: 656

Yesterday - apply for jobs online. 7 jobs applied for (I'll get far more traction today on foot). But some slight success. 

An interview today. Upscale Italian restaurant. Good, good. 

And so celebrating - perhaps getting a little too deep in my cups, this morning everyone looking at you: A French girl accuses me: "You hate all the French!!!!".

Mmmm. Did I say that? Me? Moi? Merely when I'm drunk I like to provoke a bit, in the spirit of lighthearted banter. I'm actually not fussed, probably I was just making a scene. She regards me suspiciously.

Steve, bunkmate, gave me a copy of his book. Autobiographical, the oft-told tale of an abusive father, how he came to be and how he gave it all up, tales of his hitchhiking, 26 pages - self published & printed - 4 pages to an 8X11 sheet of paper, double sided, and somehow in his arrangement he didn't get the pages right and so each page when turned brings you to a different idea or time in his life, then back again. It doesn't make linear sense - sort of a post-modern ramble, done better it could be art - but it doesn't matter, I got the idea, made the appropriate pleasing noises and reviews.

I need cigarettes, and it's late, and I'm done with paying full price, there's cheap cigarettes around, I know, $5.00 a pack, and Steve sends me off to a group of natives down East Hastings who are selling them, so I wander amongst the teetering and addled enquiring, amongst the tarp villagers, no one knows anything, surely they know - definitely they know - I'm not yet - although close - closer - at the point where they're going to trust me, addled as I am, a 7 foot native youth tests my mettle - wrestling me, telling me how tough I am, not at all, not at all, merely sinew & bone at this point, I sit down and have conversations with the anguished at the end of the world, there's an incoherent poetry, a young junkie, tormented and wretched beyond description, telling me of her life - when she had a job, children, a place to live, all gone, all gone, and the glimmers of lucidity amongst the ravings - I could listen to this all night - but - careful, caution, listen too long and you'll be drawn into the depths as well.

I give up on the cheap cigarettes, find a shop, pay full price, back to the hostel, sleep.

I think I slept. 

This morning, Steve - sleeping in, always he's asleep in the room - he's pleasant to talk to, discuss things with - but - clearly, given the time he spends in the room - and this room, it's no place to spend time in - he's profoundly depressed.

I'd be as well, only now - at this point in time - I can't afford it.

So now, onward-ho with my day, interviews to be met - and more to be sourced - Step 1: Find a Job - Step 2: Find a place to live - Step 3: Get a Jeep. 

And there's quite a few steps in between so I'm off...

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 22 November 2021

Hits: 680

Not far from East Hastings someone has posted a notice about picking up your dog shit, with a list of the illnesses that can be spread by dog feces.

And you look around, at the excrement that puddles and melts in the piss-washed streets, at the vomit and blood, phlegm, expectorate, discarded needles, trash and piles of discarded clothing and empty food containers, the aroma's, always ripe, and you think to yourself that maybe - just maybe - somebody is missing something...\

And then the penny drops. This "Pick up your dog shit" - it's the beginning of the gentrification of East Hastings.

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 21 November 2021

Hits: 700

Tuesday night. A knock at my jeep window - the gym across the street, the owner, he wants to know if I need anything - a shower?

And I think of the smell when I open the jeep. Yes, Yes I do. But I'm fine, I'll wait, there's many a misstep ahead.

He's persistent. The customers at the gym apparently have been complaining. 

Wednesday: Go to see the free matinee at the Cinema. Today they're showing "The Goonies". It was good, more than I remembered, but - a perfect exercise in the old-timey craft of writing movies with practical special effects. People in line talk of taking a helicopter in to Vancouver, $600 per person, some think it reasonable.

Caseloads, by the dozens, Bananas, Apples, Mandarin Oranges, Granola & Chocolate Bars, hundreds of cases of bottled water, arrive at the church. Anything you might want or need. By 4:00 the Pastor has an announcement. Highway 7 will be opening westbound into Vancouver, and easily half the church is emptying out, packing their stuff, preparing to leave.

*** 

The food arrived in anticipation the roads would be closed for a lot longer. Now that people are leaving the church is giving away bananas by the bunch, bottled water by the dozen, salads, apples, oranges, candy bars, cookies, everything, and there's still a surfeit of food, too much, they're making care packages for everyone departing, so for the first time in days I'm eating, lots, before a little wary of charity - but, fucking hell, it seems I'm the only one, so today, last day, not packing any food with me, too much to carry, but definitely eating - and it could be a while until I eat again next. 

They're warning everyone to get out while they can. The road could be closed again tomorrow.

I need daylight to leave - the jeep, it's on it's last legs, I want daylight. 

Hanging out now, in the much-deserted church, I notice how substantially the internet has improved - the lack of competitors means I can actually see what's going on in the larger world around me. Not that it should matter - there's enough going on in my immediate environs that needs my attention. 

Help them fold the blankets, there are dozens, hundreds, donated by the townsfolk. Peruse the internet, eat, eat again, and again, and leave.

****

Thursday morning, hungover, in no mood to travel. And the jeep - the stress of the jeep - it isn't helping. 

Make my way to the church. There's not even a dozen people left - everyone has made their way to the coast, the few that remain are waiting for rides, transport. 

Use the Public Bathroom - meet grandmother, brothers. She's in a wheelchair, they are all standing about talking. The Bathroom, it's the warmest - and driest place - in town. Grandmother is kind, looking at me, sizing me up - "You need some money?" she asks, reaching into her purse. 

Here I am. Here they are. The poorest people in the world  - me, the too white brother - and they're offering me money.

FUCK FUCK FUCK.

I'm overwhelmed, really, with the kindness this town has shown - to me, to everyone else. 

I do laundry. Read my book. Pass the time. 

I want the fuck out, but I'm in no rush to leave, the stress of the jeep dying is too much, I'm living in my head, positive thoughts only, I'll need a place to live, this is it, don't want to be homeless as well as vehicle-less, postponing the imminent separation, finally, finally, time. Take it to get gas. Max $20. But it doesn't make it up the slight hill, fails. Hood up, meet an older hippy off delivering joints to a friend, he's interested. Later, I got errands. Get oil, get transmission fluid.

Stop at McDonalds, order Filet O'fish, poutine, they fuck it up yet again, they're "out of" poutine, fries, substitute it instead with a hamburger. 

2 times I've been her, 2 times they fucked it up. Mother of God. 

***

And then, since she's ready, fuck it, I'm gonna do a runner - go for it - blaze out of town. Blaze in this mighty chariot of the Gods. 

Blaze blaze blaze!!! I'm on fire, baby!

Only, no, I make my way about 1 KM and this at a rollicking 3 KM per hour. 

And it stops. It's done. The engine is smoking, in front of the "Red Roof Inn" in Hope. 

Sooooooo

After a few more stops & non-starts I manage to push the beast into the parking lot. 

"Red Roof Inn", as humble a roadside inn as you're liable to come across anywhere in the world. I mean humble, and trust me, I've stayed in some pretty sketchy accommodations. No TV, No Internet. And all this for a mere - wait for it - wait for it -

$!43.75 per night.

He must have been watching push the Jeep into the parking lot, knew he had a sucker on his hands.

I'm not making this up. I took a photo of the receipt. Yeah, The town was kind, The Red Roof Inn, not so much.

***

Friday morning. I manage to find a wrecker to pick up the Jeep. After that - thumb out and lets see how long it takes to get to Vancouver. I checked for buses, there are no buses at the moment, and I missed - by a couple of days - the train in. 

The Jeep is gone, "MADE" a cool $150 on it, given I was expecting to pay to have it towed.

Now to Vancouver.

***

10 minutes hitchhiking gets me 30 KM out of town, pleasant native couple picked me up and dropped me off outside a reservation. Bleak as all out, an old church, doorstep covered in teddy bears. A cold half an hour until the next ride, pleasant lady, chat, dropped off in Mission. From Mission, bus to Coquitlam, from Coquitlam, Train to Broadway, change lines, then to Waterfront. From Waterfront struggle under the weight of too much badly packed luggage to The Cambie, a hostel in Gastown. 

Drop the luggage, then off to see the daughter & forage for food. It's 7:00 PM.

***

Vancouver, it's overwhelming really, the quantity of people, sketchy people, that populate the streets. And how they slide unnoticed amongst the tourists and people that live and work here - they're the invisible. Walk up to Chinatown, have a BBQ Pork/Duck combo, at a fraction of what this would have costed in Nelson, I'm back in the land of reasonably priced food. Eat, be satisfied, daughter's working but she finishes up and we go for a drink.

I like it here, remember it from when I was very young, tonight, it's dark but I'll explore further tomorrow. 

The hostel, well,  I'm not a fan - a shared bedroom, 2 bunk beds, 3 people so far, travelers, junkies, people that work here and can't find reasonable accommodation

***

Saturday, today - this morning. Up bright and early - 7:00 AM - before the tourists, the street is filled with the junkies, homeless, addicts, prostitutes. There must be - easily 10, 000 within a 1 KM radius. But I'll see the true extent of it later - right now, for the moment, it's a ballet of sorts, modern, interpretive dance, someone has just shot up and is doing the heroin teeter - don't fall over and crash or you'll lose the high, you see them everywhere - little foil packages with the brown gunk, discarded needles, shooting up, standing, holding on to the high for as long as they can, because when they fall over, they're done, they'll crash and it's over.

Someone else, skipping, high as a kite but it's gotta be something else, uppers of some sort, crack, maybe? Speedballs? I don't know. I thought I was pretty familiar with a lot of drugs, but there's a lot more I don't know. Someone else with a wagon filled with rubbish, I'm sitting on a bench rolling up my butts, he stops and asks me for a cigarette - I point out that I have none, hence the rolling of the butts, he walks a way, opens an eyeglass case and returns again a moment later to offer me a cigarette. 

Always, always, it's the people with nothing who are eager to share.

Watch the Pantomime of early morning, The shuffle, the dance, the skip, the teeter, the uncertain or confident swagger of the drunkard, someone who got too deep into the mouthwash, the crack-addled, chilling potheads, despairing newly homeless, the resigned, pushing trolleys or shopping carts or dragging wheelers or merely out freestyling in the street - before the tourists and people that work out here block the view, obfuscate them all, vanish them into the woodwork. 

OF course, they never vanish, you simply become habituated to their suffering, until you no longer see them, and they disappear. 

A hipster barber - inside, furnished with Edison lights, overstuffed leather, posters, customers inside the window getting a shave, they had to step over two people to get in, this is it - surreal pockets of gentrification, blight, vacant lots and shell-shocked buildings surrounding fashionable cafes, pigeons eating off the outdoor tables set up in Chinatown, luxury handbags and clothes in the worst of all possible neighborhoods...

For me - at this scale - it's all new, when I was a kid - 15 yrs old - East Hastings and Gastown had a reputation, since when, the Opioid crisis, the increasing inequality, price of real-estate - and it's grown, by 100, even a thousand times. 

Walk around East Hastings, the junkies in the alley shooting up, not even trying to conceal it, the prostitutes, homeless people with as much luggage as I have bravely picking up and marching on to their next destination. Discarded needles and puddles of vomit and diarrhea everywhere dot the street - stream down the sides of buildings, vacant buildings boarded up, half the real-estate in this area sits vacant, covered in graffiti, yet there's a "housing" crisis, the neighborhood, always rough - is 100 times rougher than ever. The insane, mentally ill, addicts, homeless, all are everywhere here - my camera - (my phone) - is damaged beyond repair and I'm loathe to repair it -but from the few photos I took - quality, not so good, but you get the idea.

And - now - long post, but I'm not always close to my computer or the internet. 

I'll post the pictures when I can.