The symbolic meaning of X-mas decorations and...., nothing

One of my three part-time jobs, in this wrecked working-class culture of Wisconsin, has me recently toiling in Down Town Janesville, Wisconsin. Starting this new downtown project, I had little time to notice the latest nuances of said fair city. And, we went with out snow for all of December 2014 - a very rare occurrence.  So, it was basically at the 30 mile-per-hour drive-by, just another dreary downtown in Wisconsin in a snowless December. 

Deciding to take a break on Christmas Eve, and all my family out of town, I drove downtown to the site of my latest project to use it as a base for some evening debauchery. There would no doubt be a couple adult beverage haunts still open late. In other words, I was not planning on diving home.  I planned to and did indeed, just stay downtown at my studio for the night. As I drove, I took my mind off my abysmal work world, and..., I thought of my studio, my only bright spot in a city and work world ravaged by out-sourcing and left with minimum wage part-time jobs. But, when I drove to said base station early in that evening of the pending Christmas Day, it hit me between the eyes like a rock.

There were literally....., no Christmas lights in the downtown....., on Christmas Eve.

It was a stunning absence of a tradition.  It was a compelling statement of...., nothing.

Later the next night while working a production job on the evening of Christmas Day, my mind could hearken back to the former evening's discovery.  There were just nine..., yes nine, sad light-pole decorations on Main Street.  Some kind souls had paid to put them up - some lighted snow flakes as large as basketball hoops on their sides. And Main Street in Janesville oddly enough, is a side street.  The lights just happened to be on the block in front of my studio.

I had heard a few days later on the radio, the new City Manager, trying to explain his five-percent pay raise in the midst of a city with....,  no Christmas lights.  He basically said something to the effect (and paraphrasing here), "You guys need to bump up my pay or I'll leave too. If you want decorations..., you pay for it."  He makes well over 140 grand a year.  I on the other hand, got my last pay raise in 2007, and it was a 15 cent raise per hour.

There is an old theory in Communications called, "Symbolic Iteractionism."  It basically, in a nutshell, says, non-verbal signs and symbols are powerful messages.  In the Vietnamese section of greater Los Angeles for example, they still fly the old South Vietnamese flag on their light poles in Westminster (Little Saigon). In Northern Iraq, they refuse to fly the Iraqi flag and fly their own Kurdish flag. That would be like Wisconsin refusing to fly the American Flag.  Powerful omissions without speaking a word.

What was the wordless message that hit me between the eyes on that quiet Christmas Eve as I drove around the curve on East Milwaukee Street hill and looked down into Down Town Janesville? A city of some 63,000 people. The flagship County Seat city of Rock County. A county of 160,000 people.

Here is what I was told by...., the...., nothingness.

"Hi silly traveler. Why are you going through our downtown?  We don't give a fuck about our downtown. Why would you? Take another route and find another town if you want to see Christmas lights.  We damn sure don't care about our town and we sure the hell..., don't care if you care."

In the City Council meetings however...., we will ring our hands and gnash our teeth over the 50-year plight of Down Town Janesville, and say with a sly factious grin..., right after we vote the City Manager a fat pay raise....,

"We gotta fix Downtown...., so people use it!!!!"

Looking Glass - Janesville, Wisconsin - (Redux) - Friday Night Fish Fry - burgers and breakfast too

The Looking Glass tavern down in the bar district of downtown Janesville has been a haunt of mine for a while now.  They have managed to get on my "Breakfast" Category list, my "Wisconsin-esque Tavern" Category list, and now, my "Burgers" Category, as well as my "Friday Fish Fry" Category list.  I think they are one of only a handful of taverns that have made all those benchmarks.  And now, we are doing a fish fry redux. 

As I have written previously, this is a tavern that transcends the new era of the sports/entertainment what-can-you-do-for-me-as-a-patron style of taverns, and the old wood interior Wisconsin tavern presentation.  While Karaoke is belted out on Wednesday night, the old stuffed taxidermed moose on the back wall dangles his perennial cigarette from his big snout.  There are a few flat screen televisions behind the old bar usually tuned to sports.  

As mentioned in my "Breakfast" Category, the Looking Glass puts on a dandy breakfast during the Saturday Janesville Farmer's Market and all year actually. The Farmers' Market is from May to October. The Looking Glass has the breakfast  from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. every Saturday morning.  For a blue-collar sum, you can get scrambled eggs, cheesy potatoes, bacon, sausage, biscuits and gravy, and French Toast. But what gets my attention is they also offer Corn Beef Hash. 

Normally, The Looking Glass is a late night haunt in the tavern district of downtown Janesville. But, the Saturday breakfast is a departure from the bar scene.   
  
The cooks are around a good portion of the open hours.  You will find a variety of drink special offerings posted on the wall.  At times on Sundays, you can find certain beers for one Buck - "Crappy Beer Night."

The crowd is eclectic and breaches several generations. You will not find a jukebox - the music is a la carte via computer.  The big window lets you keep an eye on Main Street.  

The bar, floor, and furnishings are mostly old wood and distressed - as they should be for it is an old Wisconsin tavern.  It is a typical long and narrow brick building with a high ceiling - the classic Nineteenth Century American downtown architecture. There is a newer patio out side. And like so many old storefronts, there is a large picture window to admire Main Street through.
The staff is easy going and sociable.  

They usually have a salad and soup offering during the noon-ish hours Monday through Friday.
From time to time, I find myself in The Looking Glass in the late afternoon for a burger, beer-battered fries, and a pitcher of Miller Lite beer. The burger is cooked just right for my taste, not too red, not too well-done. I opted for a slab of Parmesan cheese on the affair.  I order the beer-battered fries to finish off the burger basket.  A few pickle slices accompanied the presentation. To top the whole chow extravaganza off, I ordered a happy-hour pitcher of Miller Lite.  On Mondays, they offer a two for one burger option. 

The burger, fries, pitcher, and tip, and my general debauchery, will never set me back to much.  

The first fish fry review I did for Looking Glass and to accommodate my sporadic work schedule, I ducked in The Looking Glass about one o'clock in the afternoon on a Friday for a fish dinner.  I ordered the two-piece Cod basket with onion rings.  The rings tasted like they were beer-battered as well. Two large chunks of fish come with the affair.  The Cod was lightly breaded and very tender on the inside.  The tarter sauce was tasty and the cole slaw was good and fresh.  A lemon was tucked on the side.  The whole presentation came in a good-sized wicker-esque basket. 

 This most recent fish fry expedition found me popping into the Looking Glass a few weeks ago this time on a rainy early August evening. I was about to participate in the Janesville Story Tellers' Club which was starting at 8:00 p.m. on said Friday night at the coffee shop next door.  Dadio told some dandy whoppers, all recorded live on Janesville Community Radio.  

Dadio participates in Story-telling night hosted by Open Mick, Friday, 1 August 2014

Two crispy logs of deep fried Cod on a hot bed of lettuce was the main entree.  The cup of cole slaw was beyond tavern. The tarter sauce was smooth. Hot French fries covered the dinner. Dark toasted and buttered marble bread topped off the presentation. 

Similar to the burger basket, my fish basket, pitcher of beer, and tip did not set me back too much at all.  

{ 6 July 2010 fish fry review }    WordPress backup

The Looking Glass is cool with Cool Dadio.  It is certainly worth having a beer and some eats there.  Try it once before you die.  Find them at 18 North Main Street, in downtown Janesville. Call (608) 755-9828 for more information.

Note: You can find a chronological list at the Cool Dadio Media Fish Fry Page of these fish frys as we have visited them.  The list presents the most recently visited fish fry at the top, in lieu of alphabetical order.

Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit - The 15 month employee longevity rubric

Dadio has embarked on his literary war plan, "Operation: Lame Employer Shouldn't Piss off a Guy who Buys Ink by the Barrel."   

One of my lame new norm America employers has totally broken my spirit.  They don't care about their employees, make no bones about lack of empathy for said employees, and basically celebrate their own bad behavior.  It's all so necessary for a new-norm America.  

It's the Governor Scott Walker, Congressman Paul Ryan, Senator Ron Johnson, and Gubernatorial Candidate Mary Burke, quad-fecta new-norm Wisconsin Soviet-esque work scheme. 

In the interest of disclosure, ol' Dadio is in no way a flaming union Democrat.  Just the contrary fair reader. If anything at all, Dadio is a flaming free spirit Libertarian.  A political and philosophical bent more often associated with Republicans.  

Like I say, "Shouldn't have pissed me off."  Bad behavior is bad behavior. 

The new norm now not-so-new-norm part-time, non-benefited, work place does not function well if an employee stays longer than 15 months.  It is at 15 months that the employer has the dilemma of trying to justify not even a nickle pay increase.  The, too-busy-with-new-productions excuse for no breaks or no lunch times, no longer holds water by the 15 month mark.  

With the realization of no hope, employees too dumb or desperate to flee before 15 months begin to reciprocate with minimum wage work out-put.

A truly disturbing trend is all too familiar. Seeing a couple young workers come through now and then that actually have a spirited outlook is not disturbing. But, over and over again, seeing their faces drain of hope by the end of the first week, is unnerving.  

The employer has little tricks to nudge these stubborn and desperate workers out: They will tinker with work hours like a dope dealer trimming shards off a brick of has```hish with a razor blade; they will harass employees if they see them by the vending machines, if there are even any vending facilities at all; they will keep the employees standing throughout an entire 11 hour shift; they will forbid employees from bringing food or liquid to the work station, yet not let them go on break; they will forbid lunch and say it is just the nature of the business; they will complain if the employee goes to the restroom; they may confiscate work locker space; they will schedule the employee seven days a week, but only totaling 25 hours, and thereby wrecking the whole week for little pay; they will administer rules on a Seventh-Grade rubric as in requiring only baby-bottles allowed for drinking water; they will not call low-level supervisors, "supervisors," but rather "operators," thereby obfuscating responsibility; management will never have an information meeting; they will not fix broken work tools like jacks thereby making workers struggle with heavy production material; yet, high-paid mechanics who are pals of management will wander around with no tools and grins on their faces with the blessings of said management; the same management will hire their children, pals, and relatives, and promote them over you; and, said management will come out to the production floor now and then, grinning, telling stories, move a product a bit, and vanish back into the office bunker.

But, the aforementioned management will never discuss the reality of the desperate situation.

Once the realization of no-hope is absolute, the employee will start missing days, coming in late, stop pitching in, and probably start voicing discontent. Good workers are transformed into bad workers; and, management will pounce on the paradox. It is only a matter of time before said employee vanishes. 

These jobs and employers lean on the excuse that these types of jobs are just temporary. They say,  "People move on as they move up."  But, there is no moving up in the new America.  Many people, especially older people have to work these types of jobs for years.

Employers know workers have become conditioned to except this abysmal life.  Many workers enter their 30s and have never had a real full-time job.  New convoluted norms and mores (culture) blame the workers for their failure.  It is a dandy strategy. 

If you see yourself in the above essay, slip on the glass slipper, it will probably fit. But, your prince will never show up.

People who shower before work in lieu of after work have no idea what I am talking about. What side do you fall on? 

Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit - They took my damn small work locker

I was writing a book about breaking workers' spirits. "Broken Spirit," found on cooldadiomedia.com and plunked on its own page. It all got tripped up about six months ago when I went 75-percent blind. Then, the Go Daddy Internet people who I do a lot of work with, changed their portals and I have had to move 7000 essays, pictures, and postings to Google BlogSpot and WordPress. 

Be all that as it may, the new American work culture is so bleak, it's collective bad behavior just jumps right out of its own pants like projectile diarrhea. You'd think current employers would want to hide, camouflage, and obfuscate their latest shenanigans. Nope, it's low hanging fruit in this era of trying to survive as a worker.

My current employer of nine years has not pinched out a pay raise of even a nickle since 2007. Some of my co-workers were in Fifth Grade then. Turn-over is rampant. No pay increases, no breaks, no lunch, no benefits. The work crew changes over every five weeks. I usually look up from the production line and count a dozen people who have only been on the job for a couple weeks. Then, there is me. 

Hours and hours of re-training new workers that will not stay longer than a month. It costs the product, it costs the customer, it runs off older surviving workers like me, and it is....., insane. All along the way, my employer crosses the fingers and hopes they will never have to give me a penny of pay increase for the trouble. 

What's wrong with me? Why don't I quit too? Two-mile commute; my blindness has not caused my employer to even flinch; no one has been interested in hiring a guy with 50 years of work experience and three college degrees for awhile. At least in Janesville, Wisconsin, anyway. I might as well be an ape on a tire swing as far as Janesville is concerned. Janesville..., a tired city fraught with service jobs, nepotism, and a destroyed industrial base.

Where's this essay going Dadio? The good readers ask. 

It's the little things that finish a guy off. It's what the Nazis, Communists, and Fascists did and still do. They took and take away the simple lives of the Jews, free spirited peoples', entertainers, arts culture, and countless other groups and their simple pleasures one by one. Eventually, they even took and take away the aforementioned beleaguered people's lives. 

What a leap of connection it is then, when I mention that Human Resources came to me today, actually sat me down in a formal "sit-down," and took away my small work locker. 

"Dadio!," you fair readers gasp. "Comparing a surrendered locker to the Holocaust?" Hear me out fine readers. It's the lowest end of tyranny. What's left..., they going to come and kill my kitten next?

After nine years of me having the same small place of respite to park a needed tool or two in (my own tools by the way), keep a soda bottle, and hang up my keys, room must be made to appease all the nieces, nephews, friends, and relatives as they come to work through the revolving employment door. They will work for a couple weeks, embarrass the management class they are related to, then move on, vanish, and/or miss work and get fired. Maybe, even get in a fight or two. 

Really..., my locker? Just when I think they could not possibly have anymore tricks to break a blue-collar spirit, I never in a million years thought of confiscating a simple small work locker. 

OK, after all these years, my good employer seems to want me gone anyway; so..., what the fuck! Their whole shtick falls apart if workers stay longer than a year and a half. These employers are just a microcosm of a greater pandemic of un-empathetic work places in the abysmal Janesville and Wisconsin and American, work culture. 

Game on then good employer. The last straw has been laid on my back. "Cry Havoc and let Slip the Literary Dogs of War." 

Just one caveat to those who have fired a lame work culture shot over my bow. 

Never piss off an old man that buys ink by the barrel.

Note: This blog "Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit" - book version Category is a work in progress. These original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Broken Spirit Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).

Wisconsin Weekly War Casualty Data - week of 10 September 2014

Wisconsin Weekly War Casualty Data - week of 10 September 2014

This entry was posted on 9/10/2014 1:31 AM and is filed under War Casualty Data.


 (Each week Cool Dadio Media collects and updates Weekly War Casualty Data from various sources)

                                        As of this blog entry's posting date:

129,171 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003 (actually documented). 

16,623 Iraqi Security Forces were killed in Iraq since Spring 2003. 

4,491 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003. 

2344 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

318 Coalition soldiers were killed in Iraq from Spring 2003 to December 2011. 

1125 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001. 

5 American/Coalition/State-Department deaths in Libyan "Operation Odyssey Dawn" since March, 2011.

32,242 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring 2003. 

592 Wisconsin military service persons have been wounded in Iraq since Spring 2003.

19,984 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001. 

192 Wisconsin military service persons have been wounded in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

107 Wisconsin military service persons have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003. 

42 Wisconsin military service persons have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

4 Wisconsin military contractors have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003. 

1 Wisconsin military contractor has been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001

3 Wisconsin military service persons have been killed in the U.S. related to "The War on Terror" since September, 2001.

166 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

24 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since September, 2001.

7 journalists (regional and independents) have been killed in Libya since March, 2011. 

68 journalists (Syrian, American, French, UK, freelance) have been killed in Syria since January 2011.

War casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org; Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; Brookings Iraq Index; wikipedia.org; iraqbodycount.org; www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf; and, icasualties.org .

FaceBook, Paul Ryan, Iraq War III, all good reasons to split the new-norm Janesville-Wisconsin-American scene

You know, I was gonna post a couple essays on good ol' fuck'n FaceBook about what a miserable place Janesville, Wisconsin, is, to try to survive in these days (in its perennial happy-assed, part-time minimum wage matrix). And then, I thought about maybe posting another writing regarding how fucked we all are as working Americans now that we aforementioned said Americans are embarking on Iraq War III. Just think of all the funny-money-tax-money this newest war to protect the "Good World," will cost us blue-collar Americans (what's left of us anyway) (We ain't paid for Iraq War II yet).

But what's the fuck'n point? In a couple minutes after posting said essays on FB, my little literary masterpieces, will be lost in a venerable cornucopia of cyber-Zuckerberg-ian, cuter-than-a-kitten kittens, irresistible-as-a-puppy puppies, forced-to-look-at redundant babies, self-absorbed stupid human videos, abjectly-disturbing computer game drama, predictably bad fuck'n jokes, painfully-uninteresting family stories, and, regurgitated self-help crap.

I really am thinking...., and thinking more about it every day, now that I reach that precipice in life of maybe never waking up on any given morning, that little Bobby is all about splitting this lame FaceBook pop-stand.... and the pathetic brick and mortar Wisconsin/American city I live in. It kind of reminds me of when I split "the bull-shit scene" in the mid '70s.

Grinning in the background is, Congressman Paul Ryan, our First Congressional District, new-norm-service-industry-send-jobs-to-china apologist. The back stage of his Congressional District is in a shambles. I am a working sucker trying to survive in his miserable District (a once vibrant industrial region - now mired in fast-food jobs). I will be leaving Ryan's District - and at 60 years old. What a shame. It is called "silent flight." We all just leave - the very young to the very old. And, you all think things are hunky-dory. None of us that are fleeing these new norm economic hells bother to stop by the city council or county board meetings to voice a bitter good-bye. Good luck suckers.

Maybe, after all, upon reflection, there is some poetry here in this "new not-so-new banal American social media, tired Congressman, and new-norm economy crap."

It's all been done before.

Eric Erickson - another big fat, double-chinned, never-serving-in-the-military-x-generation-media-pig

So Eric Erickson, another big fat, double-chinned, never-served-a-day-in-the-military-x-generation-FOX-news pig says, beleaguered "American workers who work minimum wage are losers.....mostly people who failed at life."  The comment was made as he served as a guest host on the Rush Limbaugh radio show.

What the mother fuck'n fuck?

I am so sick of the "big news" assholes marching on to their play house with impunity. While, American workers die at their new norm jobs.

Eric Erickson, you are an opportunistic media prick. You are a fat-faced child of new-media hell.

The powers that be, Democrats and Republicans, businesses moving jobs off-shore, wrecked America. Sent all our jobs to China et cetera. Now those "powers" and their apologists are pissed we minimum wage workers are, pissed off as we said workers struggle to make ends meet with what service jobs are left.

And you Mister Erickson are an apologist for the aforementioned powers. I am calling you out you fat-faced prick.

Don't declare war on what is left of us underemployed workers Mister fat-faced-never-served-a-day-in-the-military Erickson piece of crap.

Sue me fat-faced prick...., I look forward to it...,

You will fuck'n lose.

Not a day in the military Erick has spent. Me...., well how about 'Nam as a soldier and Iraq as a journalist?

Erickson, I am a primarily a conservative and you and your neo-ultra-Libertarian, Ayn-Randian rhetoric, make me sick. Jobs sent to China..., and other places. The economy is crippled by the likes of you. And, now your ilk is mad the rest of us try to survive on what you have left us. Your subconscious sanctimonious self-loathing sees you scramble to blame the very people trying to survive in your new norm America.  

Johnny-come-lately media Pigs like you make me sick. 

Yours truly, Bob Keith

See you in court of the Gods of fairness an decency..., fuck face prick...,