(born) work (consume, die)...

(born) work (consume, die)...

Ok, it’s a bit weird thinking about the work ethic and all. I’ll try not to be too naive about it. As an anarchist I believe that work should be done, to benefit everyone. Not to make money for those up above. Their, capitalistic hierarchies, which make us exploiters by striving to achieve a living wage whilst others are homeless. Whilst managers are paid so much more to do, what appears to be so less strenuous work, maybe stressful? Yet i believe in total equality, a levelling if you will, such as the levellers of the 17^th century, English civil war groupage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levellers ?

Yup, being a wage-slave, just as so many are. When those in royalty, or privileged positions due to being born into the rich’s elite, for example. Is abhorrent to my sensibilities, level the playing field – take the money, power, wealth, land, from the richest from all the planet. And re-distribute around the planet and then, only then, may I be slightly happy about doing a job i love.

So by giving my time & energy I got money in return for it, apart from possibly ‘pocket money’ from my parents (which i saved up, took walks into Horsforth with brothers, and bought Airfix model kits to be made at a later time! Good days!!!!) – why i deserved money from my parents for just being there – amazed me totally! But as I could buy stuff, i wasn’t about to complain – especially when later i’d walk, this time on my own to Asda (before the Wal-Mart days) to buy schloeur drinks or the shop at the top of the road to buy 2 or 4 litres of ice cream; vanilla, or choc my fave & guzzle outrageously! Yeah 1^st job i had via my Mum was on a milk round. Was half-way thru middle school at the time. Must’ve been between ages 9/10 – 12/13.....guess in the middle, 11 or 12. It was working on a van, with my boss – who had a beard & another lad, who’d worked a bit longer there & was a year or two older. Can’t remember how much i got but it was a fun time. Getting up at 5.30 am (ish) sometimes very very sleepy, sometimes very very cold. Most of the milk round was around Iveson Drive kind of areas. If you know Ireland Wood aREA of Leeds, that’d help.

Recall, the back of the truck/van – lots of milk bottles, two full bottles could be held by one hand each. The empties, could be collected about four at a time – each hand, due to fingers, could be inserted into the bottle openings. Sometimes we’d sit on the back of the truck, whilst moving & jump off with the bottles ready to deliver. Oh yeah, whilst on the back, we’d make up songs about our boss, cuz of his facial hair, would be about monkeys or the funky gibbon. Relating to the Goodies TV prog that was ever so funny & on TV at the time. The best days were Saturdays – which were longer, yet we used to have a break around 10 or 11 o clock. Then we’d sit in the front of the van, be allowed a bottle of milk to drink and we’d have a mars bar! Wow! What an awesome treat it seemed to be back then. That’s about all i can remember of that part of my life.

March 2013: ok, so that was the earliest I can remember of being a wage slave making money for those up above! (Mob quote in case you’re wondering). It is weird isn’t it when you think about it.

Milk: non-vegans who drink it probably just think it comes from cows, put into bottles or more likely plastic litre bottles & they consume it from supermarket shelves. But it’s more than that isn’t it. Without going into animal rights too much – or maybe i will...who knows at this point! I don’t.

Well, milk is cow milk (or goat or donkey or rat or cat or any mammalian creature i guess who rears their offspring this way – who get exploited or don’t by humans...quite) and for mummy cow to make the stuff they have to be ‘made’ pregnant! Then their offspring have to be removed when they’re born otherwise they’d steal the humans white stuff (for their tea/coffee/cornflakes) hello veal crates etc etc. Yeah so this pregnant cow who is yielding milk about 50% more than they did in the 1950’s have to go to the milking shed where the milk is mechanically retrieved into a big container I guess. Next part of journey is a tanker comes to the dairy farm & takes the white stuff to i guess milk refineries paying an amount to dairy farmer for the yield. 

Now some of this milk will be pasteurised, sterilized, etc for bottling. Some will go to make yoghurt, cheese, and other milk based-products. Of the free flowing variety some will be poured into glass bottles for the minority of ‘milk-men/women’ to deliver to doorsteps (i guess some people still receive milk this way) – i guess much more will go into plastic litre bottles to end up on supermarket shelves to be picked up by consumers for their tea/coffee cornflakes. Fascinating stuff, I’m on a night shift & I’m rambling about stuff i don’t know & am only guessing ha ha ha. Also this is not what I intended with this writing...i was gonna deconstruct the capitalist cycle of paying peanuts to producers...well the cows get grass & stuff to eat...don’t think they have peanuts?! 

But guess i meant dairy farmers needing to sell say a pint of milk for 11pence (as a wild guesstimate) and the supermarkets selling it on for 10pence a pint – therefore making the dairy farms unprofitable & possibly sending them into a despairing round of suicides & closing their family businesses unless it’s a factory farm on agribusiness levels and probs owned by a transnational corporation like a supermarket chain so they could subsidize the loss with profits from somewhere else. Which i know nothing about but like I’ve said about a few times already – i guess.

Think this was an issue in the news recently – last year or 2 where farmers were asking for solidarity to make sure they were being given enough money & not priced outta business. Think some vegans began debating whether they should support the poor farmers in their plight as it was against big business or not. Ha! The enemy of my enemy is my friend? Or not. Nah, I’m against the exploitation of cows’ full stop – well any animal or human for that matter so NOOOOOOooooooooo!!!!!!

Human freedom, animal rights. One struggle, one fight. Thank you & moving on!

OOOooohhhh next job was.....ummmmmm can’t recall at all, so will do a bit of random word/reminiscence therapy to unlock those hidden texts within my neural relapses – those broken links might once again forge to let the past flow through unhindered by current stuff...well i can but hope.

Milk round, Holt Park Middle school, Holt Park library...a wizard of earthsea trilogy, paper round????? Nope never did a paper round. 11 yo, 12 yo....13yo was when i went to Lawnswood High school...so go back to 11 & 12...middle school classmate: graham, David little (who was little J), Elizabeth <3 (she fainted when we had a bcg injection – awwww swoon), Jennifer, Scott, Clive, Adam whitworth, darts LP ‘daddy cool’ ahhh must you tube this song as it was in the charts & quite fun at the time. Ah I remember bunking off (truanting) for 1^st ever time – my middle bro was doing it a few times & wanting to be a bit like him....also it was Friday afternoon & double maths loomed. Spent the day in Holt park & Ireland wood area. Some of it in the ruins of what is nowadays a pub called the???High farm????

No, still no jobs looming on the horizon but I do remember wanting to join the Royal Marines! Must’ve been all those war films; 366 squadron, the green beret, battle of Britain, commando comics, toy plastic soldiers, airfix kits!!!!! On & on so the story goes. Yeah in the centre of leeds city centre is a bridge. Near the Tetley brewery, over the river aire a kind of weird bit of concrete spanning the river. On it are a few buildings that look like army barracks, a flag pole, parade ground and – the killer – an anti aircraft type-gun-thingy!!! Aeroilken???? That is where the Marine & Sea cadets, in Leeds hang-out. 

At a guess i may’ve been 11 or 12 when i happened upon them. As I said before wanted to be in the Royal Marines, just a bit too young & ever so naive so the cadets were the next best thing! When I applied, found out a fire-fighter buddy of my Dads was one of the NCO’s in the Cadets (so that was nice), the crushing news i found out was that the marines were not currently recruiting for at least another 6 months! Argh and, if you’re of an age like unto mine...time & its passage as a tween seemed to go at a snail’s pace...whereas nowadays entering my soon to be 5^th decade on this planet, it disappears at the speed of light if not faster! So yeah 6 months was almost a fatal crushing blow to me back then, but a life-line was offered...the sea cadets are always recruiting....oh, i suppose i could join them then. So i did.

Continued in sea-marine cadets bit >>>>>>

Back to work...oh the post modernist irony of it!

As of course i was in school – high school from 13 yo to (well, ideally 16 – or even 18 if i’d’ve gone to the 6^th form... but truth be told, i only made it til...) 15 at school then i was suspended many times then finally expelled. Then i went to Highlands Adolescent unit of our local mental hospital or psychiatric facility nowadays lol...sure i’ve gone into more detail in t’other place about this aspect yes?

On me 16^th birthday I was busted out of said psychiatric unit & within about a week I had a job! Working, as a labourer, on a building site. Well, with a building firm actually cos i got to do quite a varied amount of stuff that mostly i found very interesting & hard-energetic work that was mostly fulfilling and i got real money on the Friday in a pay packet & on the Friday night to Sunday morning i could go out & get shit-faced with aforementioned money using mostly alcohol to achieve said state of shit facedness! Happy days!!! Worked with Devine & Pearson builders, situated in North Yorks...skipton, Harrogate type way. 

Often working in places such as pateley bridge or Knaresborough. One time i stayed on site in a teeny caravan with my mate Dave Pratt, in Malton, Pickering, near Scarborough – we were building a swimming pool in my auntie & uncles care home. Playing acoustic guitar in the evening & drinking real ale in the teeny pubs & trying to chat up the female health care’s, and barmaids – all very unsuccessfully. Still, there was a rampaging gun-toting crazy dude on the rampage in the area shooting people dead! They called in Pately Bridge, ex SAS, tracker bloke to try & hunt him down....1983 was the date...again google search for this historical knowledge to further pad out this gobildidook i call my history....anyway its 20 past 6am this fine 29^th march and i’m on company time (doing a night shift!) so i better do what i’m supposed to do. Ta ta for now.