Choices

Fuck, why did I get so many credit cards!?!!
Originally uploaded by Phalanx

Today, after being told that my unemployment checks -- due to disqualification -- won't kick in until Thanksgiving Week (applied on August 14th), I went down to the Welfare Office (aka Department of Public Social Services) to apply for Food Stamps. Yeah, it's gotten that bad for me. I'd been looking for a job since August 2008, when I was tired of being the "bitch" ay my job (me! of all people). And after a year of looking, I got nowhere -- and then I was laid the fuck off by this shit ass insurance company (Houston Casualty Company, like they don't have surplus money).

The thing about going to the various public/governmental services offices (and I've been to a few recently: court house for moving violations, court house to file suit against two different landlords, housing department to track down my shady as fuck landlord Steven "Magic Steve" Ringel, etc.) is that you get to see firsthand people who have slipped through the cracks... of the employment cycle, that is. The people look worn down, beat, malnourished (like myself at this point), of a questionable sartorial aesthetic, sometimes saddle with children (who are fucking up their lives, and whose lives they're fucking up -- as poverty has grip that's harder and harder to break these days), and a healthy amount of people of color -- I would say minorities, but in this environment, whites are the minorities (even the workers ain't white). However, the white people ARE down here are the downtrodden dregs; what Nelly Fuller would have called White Sacrifices (further discussion in another post probably, check back in a couple of days). They look like bath water is their mortal enemy, and their dental work is shabby (which reminds me, I'm applying for Medi-Cal, so I can get some much needed dental work done).

There worst thing about waiting for my name to be called is the decor and the lighting. The ugly as fuck white and the ghastly yellow-green that comes from the old and semi-flickering florescent bulbs.

The white woman nagging the black man next to me about how to fill out the form is really annoying. Why can't she just shut her mouth and recognize that she made a bad choice, cut her losses and then keep stepping?

When my number is finally called, I go into the Interview section of the DPSS and meet with a Chinese woman who has pretty thick accent... I have to keep yelling at her through the 2-inch glass to repeat herself.

She wants to know if I live alone, and I have to lie about that one (but it's basically true) and then I have to tell her about why I'm not getting Unemployment--I took money from the state of California in the fall of 2007 because I needed more money to survive, even though working at that shit-ass insurance company--so I'm not getting those subsistence-only checks. The state sent me a bill for the money I took while working, and then claimed that I'd be disqualified for 11 weeks (then it became 15 weeks) if I applied for Unemployment Insurance within 3 years (it would be three years in January, fuckers).

I have to provide my bank statements, which have negative balances, and proof that my rent is super-high and unpaid for this month (and it will be unpaid next month, too). What I don't have is my car registration and the statement from the EDD stating that I'm on disqualification status until Thanksgiving (I'm calling those fuckers tomorrow and asking for an appeal on that 15-week period).

I can't shit-talk my landlord, he did drop my rent by $100, but he's not going to be happy with me. This is one of those reasons why I wish I was paying a mortgage, because I could string the bank a long a little longer than a landlord.

The thing is I haven't eaten in two and a half days, and I need this Chinese bitch to approve my Food Stamp allowance ASAP. But she won't, because she needs these other documents, which I can't fax to her today. I need to come back in on Tuesday -- that means all weekend without eating -- because she's not in the office on Monday (what the fuck is she doing taking a vacation? As a California state employ they're forced to take every other Friday off, because the state can't figure out how to collect enough revenue to deal with all the social services its supposed to provide (in Los Angeles they're cutting back on the police force! yeah, LAPD is getting paired down, ain't that a bitch!!?!).

I try to see if I can come back in an hour with the documents that she needs, but she says she's going on lunch and then she'll have other clients to see. I'm saying to myself, "bitch, you can eat you, but know that I'm not going to be able to eat until you get me my Food Stamps! (and then I still need gas money to get to the grocery store!).

My case worker just isn't budgeting, keeps going back to her default reply, "come in on Tuesday with necessary documents and hopefully I can approve your Food Stamps."

See the tough part is providing her my car registration (something else she wants to see), because while I have paid it, I still have some unpaid tickets that I'm arguing against so I don't have my new yellow 2010 tag for my car.. which is sitting in my parking space for the past month, 'cause I ain't driving it on the streets of LA with 7 month old tags (I don't even know when I can get the $414 to pay those tickets off either... they're from last year, when I struggling financially).

The one saving grace that I have is, I'm suing my previous landlord for keeping my security deposit from back in October of 2008. I taking Steve Ringel to small claims for $6900 (I had medical bills that were the result of staying in his building that was infested with mold, which I'm highly allergic to, so I'm asking for that, plus I had to borrow money via payday loans to pay for the security deposit of my current place, which I could have easily paid back, if this little shit Steve Ringel didn't decide to keep my security deposit.

Anyway, I tried to serve Steve Ringel papers but he provided the city with false place of residence and hasn't paid the Housing Department the yearly fee for being able to rent out his property.

I hunted down Ringel's potentially real address, and expect to have the LA Sheriff's serve him this week, as the tentative court date is November 16, 2009. If court goes well, I can look to pocket $6900 in a few short weeks. I'm going to file all the necessary paperwork to get access Ringel's bank account and other assets to make him pay me.

So this entry is called "Choices" and as you can see I've made some bad choices over the last couple of years and they're really biting me in the ass right now.

The biggest one was taking a job as the office bitch at that insurance company. I mean I was ready and actively looking to get a new gig for over year, before they finally handed me my walking papers.

The thing that has kept me afloat in Los Angeles for more than half of this decade of making less than $25k/year is the honed financial mind that I have, but the shrewd manipulators who ass-raped the economic system made it so my choices were magnified when the bad juju came back at me. The thing is with just a couple of breaks the other way, I'd be sitting pretty right now. The stock picks that I wanted to put money behind during the height of last years turmoil would have more than doubled since I made my imaginative choice. Would that had the money to place those bets, I could borrow against those securities now and stretch out my living situation. However, I'm prevented from making that choice, because of other questionable choices that I made in the last 5 years.

See 5 years ago, I was looking to join the Foreign Service, and was getting ready to do so when I got my first writing gig in Hollywood. And they kept me here in Los Angeles, but I shouldn't have stopped pursuing the Foreign Service goal. Hollywood is really a anti-nigger machine bastion, because it spews out the images that keep black people down more than anything else. And they don't hire or buy Intellectual Property from black nearly enough, even when it could be superior.

But I had a huge amount of hubris, which prevented me from changing careers and/or excelling in my chosen career (it's rare that somebody wants to hire a really smart nigger or even help them out). So the choice to stay in Hollywood and get typecast as the "urban comedy" writer -- Hollywood exec code for "nigger comedies with limited budget and limited upside potential that we'll only make one or two of a year.

Anyway, where ever you are in life, it's because of the choices that you made. And you can only blame or credit yourself for the good or bad places that you've been at, are at now or will be at.