My New Job
by John DAgostino, Eccentric Outsider Artist, a.k.a. John Dog

A half bottle of Smirnoff 50 proof was packed solidly into the ice block also known as my freezer. That enchanting intoxicant would have been finished ages ago, if I could have got at it.  The bottle was the major reason for defrosting the damn thing. Defrosting released that glorious prisoner from captivity. Gandhi and I drank it with some kiwi juice and I tossed the yogurt dip.  I made some burgers with the grey ground meat that finally thawed.  Ms. Gandhi had two with pickles and mayonnaise.  People change with time. I've changed.  No more writing t.v. scripts for me.  In this life I am a serious writer.  I'm writing a novel.  And if you are reading this then I must be getting pretty good at it.  Where am I now? -Istanbul, a long way from Gary. How I got here is a long story that involves the CIA, KGB, and Kabul opium smugglers.  I'd tell you about it but then I'd have to kill you.

Hunter S. Thompson shot himself in the head last month.  He was cremated and then they shot his ashes out of a huge cannon taller than the Statue of Liberty.  The size of the cannon, that being taller than that humongous green whore from France who greets the tired and the hungry as they enter the waters off New Jersey, was stipulated in his will. I'm not making this up. That's exactly what he said.  I was there. He asked me how to spell 'liberty'. We were high on mesc and drinking tequila that night.  There were pink and turquoise florescence stars dancing around a silvery Colorado moon as he penned those essential words in his last will and testament.  He once said to me, "John Dog, you know, sex, drugs, and insanity have always worked for me, but I wouldn't recommend them for everyone."  I wonder what he'll come back as in his next life.

A picture of lazy Pedro sleeps on my Mexican hat shaped ash tray which I bought at South of the Border the largest and tackiest  tourist trap on I-95 in sunny South Carolina.  In my next life I want to work at the t-shirt shop there, the one with the 100 foot fiberglass gorilla standing guard out front.  I could get high all day, eat burritos at lunch, and spike my Mountain Dew with vodka and no one would even notice. No one would care. If you are making minimum wage in the US, it is like you don't exist, a kind of death in a way. 

Life as an eccentric dirty old outsider artist and writer ain't as easy as you might imagine. Of course you can make your own hours, but it don't pay shit.  There's something to be said about a steady paycheck coming in.  The dividends from my Halliburton stocks don't pay enough to live on.  Damn, I should have bought more shares and not blown all that loot at the dog track.  I'd be sitting pretty right now drinking dry martinis with Cheney and smoking a big stogy.

Where was I? -  Just got back from the crapper.  Had to drop a few turds. Gonna drop a few more.  Life is hard. It kills you in the end, doesn't it?  My Turkish friend Ali reminds me of that fact every time I see him.  He's the biggest drunken mother fucker that I've ever seen.  No, he ain't a massive hunk of Anatolian meat; he's a skinny little guy it a polyester shirt with some weird ass design on it.  What I mean to say is that he sucks down two bottles of 40 proof Raki a day.  He's a big drinker. He pilots a tour boat up and down the Manavgat River.  I generally see him late at night trying not to fall off his bar stool and steering a glass towards the safe harbor of his mouth. I wish I had a dime for every time he told me, Life is zor (hard in Turkish).  I tell him fuck, you're only 25, you don't even know the meaning of the word.  We drink together for hours sometimes, we argue, he gets really pissed.  But lucky for me he's usually so plastered that he can barely lift his drink let alone a fist in anger. Gandhi would be proud of his restraint.

I come from a big Italian family.  We were pretty poor when I was growing up.  Not like poor in India or Africa. There were few flies, no skin and bones, no stink of death in the air.   But it wasn't until 14 that I learned how poor my family really was.  Dad got a bonus at Christmas and we had a feast. This was the first time mom ever made Hamburger Helper and actually put hamburger in it.  I was so in the dark about things in those days.  Grey meat brings back fond memories of youthful ignorance.  It's all relative.  In American if you don't have a McMansion with a two car garage and a triple digit income, you are poor.  Or at least made to feel that way by a constant bombardment of advertisements and portrayals of fantasy life styles of yuppies, buppies, fruppies, and sluppies on television.  Don't ask me what the last two mean.  I just made them up because I like to rhyme in fours.

I'm really beginning to doubt my sanity.  I think that I am going off the deep end.  I haven't worked for over two years.  I live in a beautiful beach town on the Med in southern Turkey and I'm thinking about going back to America and getting a real job. I got money in the bank.  I'm sitting here in the process of getting stoned with a grin on my face that makes the Cheshire Cat's look damn tame.  I must be going looney tunes.

I applied for a job promoting "cutting edge" artists in Florida.  Art is my field.  I can't sell my own crappy art but I can talk a good line and thought I could be good at promoting others.  About half way through the interview I decided that I really didn't want the job.  So I told them that I thought "cutting edge" was a lot of bull shit hype.  Striving to be avant garde as an artist is a Proctor and Gamble approach to aesthetics.  Everything is better if it's NEW and IMPROVED.   The problem with that is you are only good until the next new kid in town arrives. Fame is fleeting like the polish on a shiny new Ford Explorer.  It's all marketing the American way.  Another product designed to last just before the three year warrantee lapses.

Who the hell is Franklin P. Jones? Nobody knows for sure. (I'm just full of questions, aren't I?)  Rumors are that he was a furniture salesman from Oklahoma who lived in the last half of the 19th century and died in the first half of the 20th.  Where he comes from matters little or maybe it matters a lot.  I don't know, but he passed on some excellent advice and two half dozen or a dozen quotes on life, love, and work which make him immortal.  In my dilemma concerning employment I believe I will take his wise words to heart.  He said something very simple, but oh so meaningful and true.  He said, "Scratch a dog, and you'll find a permanent job."  Where do I sign up?

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