Favorite (possible) Celebrity Sighting!

Laura Palmer outside Best Buy at La Brea and Santa Monica!

I had to have the "I am smelling some alcohol on your breath, talk to me about what you are going through" talk this week AND IT WAS AWFUL! It was also Otter.

Musings on Scientology

The Scientology Celebrity Center! So close to my house, I can almost spit on it from bed!

The security guard outside The L. Ron Hubbard Life Exhibit is a weird guy. He often sings a bastardized version of "Tiny Dancer" when I walk by: "Pretty Baby / L.A. Lady / Come learn about Ron Hubbard!" He looks a little like Tony Shalhoub and I'm sure he sings to all the ladies.

The security guards have a Dianetics pyramid patch on their uniforms.

The other day I was walking by the Life Exhibit (just a few blocks from the apartment) when I saw some people standing around with signs. They said "OH-8s Can't Walk Thru Wallz!" OH-8's (or something like that) are the highest level you can reach in Scientology, and they are supposed to be able to walk through walls because all their brain aliens have been scraped out. I made that last bit up, but the guy holding the sign said that it cost $300,000 to be an OH-8 and at first I thought that was a lot but then I thought about how Scientologists are multi-millionaires so I think that guy was wrong about the cost of permeability. Also, his ear was gushing blood.

One time I tried to volunteer at a literacy center in Hollywood. There was no outward indication of it being a Scientological organization. I went in thinking "my, for an all volunteer run organization, this place sure is well funded!" It looked really nice. The lady who met me had crazy eyes, so I should have known right then. She showed me the book I would be working with and it was so stupid. Full of dumb, cheap cartoons that looked like they came off a bottom shelf store brand cereal bag in 1994. The book's author? L. Ron Hubbard. It was called Learning How to Learn but all I learned was that L. Ron Hubbard should have stuck to writing terrible science fiction. The woman held the book and showed me every single page. It was a bit like story time. I don't remember much about it, because there wasn't much to it, but basically it was about this kid who was trying to figure out what the word "run" meant. He went through all the stages of not knowing a word: embarrassed, frustrated, angry, sad. There was very little writing, and therefore very little for the crazy lady to read to me, so she pointed to every cartoon and commented on the current state of the child. "Look at him. Oh, oh he's sad! Look how sad." Turn the page. "Oh, look now! See how he is angry! Can you remember being angry about words? I can." On the last page a dinosaur told the boy to use a dictionary. THE END. Good job, L. Ron. They took me to a back room and tried to get my fingerprints. I, obviously, didn't give them my fingerprints. I also said my name was "Kelly."

Then there was the time I went to the "Psychiatry: And Industry of Death Museum" (run by the Scientologist front organization the People's Commission on Human Rights) and these Nazi youth looking weirdos told me I hated children because I would not sign their crazy petition, but I think that'll have to wait. Isn't that an awkward name? "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Museum."

Otter

One of my favorite clients is named Arthur. [Edit: Arthur now officially sucks! 2.10.10] Is is originally from Hawaii, but his parents were in the military so he grew up all over. Though he was born in America and grew up on American military bases he has a very thick, almost indecipherable accent. Also, he has an odd cadence and his sentences almost always start in medias res. For example, when asking for bus tokens to get to the G.R. building, Arthur might say "like to go again plus I need bus tokens. Gotta go to G.R. building." It would sound like the previous week I had given him bus tickets to go to the G.R. room, and he was correcting my mistake.

At our first meeting, Arthur pulled out a manilla folder full of photocopied pictures of himself with various people (including the chief of police in Santa Monica, and some guy dressed up as a Taco). Also contained in the folder were pages and pages of emails he'd printed off talking about how "Otter would not be working at Snazzy Jeff's anymore." I flipped through the document, trying to figure out why this was important. Everyone at Snazzy Jeff's seemed to love Otter. "Otter was a good worker" one email said. Another said "Otter was teh best we ever HAD!!!!!" I asked Arthur what this was all about and he said "see ok oh that's me. I'm Otter. I like people to call me Otter. This is when I worked at Google."

"Google? Oh... what's this talk about Snazzy Jeff's?"

"Snazzy Jeff's was working at Google. I worked at Google though."

(Turns out Otter worked in the cafeteria where Google employees worked, or something, but to this day I can't really get it out of him. He insists he worked for Google and always makes me put this on his resume.)

Otter is very confusing. One day he came in talking about how he was applying for a cook position at a place called "Creamy de la Creepy." I said, as I imagined you would also say, "What? What is it called?"

"Creamy de la Creepy. It's a restaurant in Manhattan Beach."

"Creamy de la Creepy? Are you sure that's right? Creamy de la Creepy?"

"YES! Creamy de la Creepy! Is where I want to work!"

"That sounds weird, Otter. Write it down."

He wrote down "Creme de la Crepe."

Otter is at least one foot shorter than me, always in a rush, and constantly carrying around lots of things he's printed off the internet (craigslist ads, coupons, photos of Geena Davis, etc). He gets beat up a lot, because he is tiny and lives in Skid Row. He also always has a lot of money on him from his job as a chef.

Otter has a few constant requests. Things he asks me every day. Here they are:

1) Can I take a picture of him to attach to his resumes? (I tell him that people don't do that, but I started to take his picture for him anyway because he was so damn insistent.)

2) Can I photocopy the picture of him with the Chief of Police of Santa Monica? And also the picture of him that was in the newspaper when he was in culinary school?

3) When am I going to get married? Doesn't my boyfriend know he needs to lock me down?

Otter can be very annoying, but he works regularly and is nice enough so I am happy to have him as a client. He likes to send me emails from the lobby to let me know when he arrived. The other day he sent me an email with "Otter" as the subject and the message being "I am here." He came in to my office with his usual stack of papers. Among them I saw a craigslist ad for a job at a gentleman's club. I ignored it. He announced that he had "a very weird thing to say; a very odd request."

"What is it, Otter?" I prepared to answer in the negative, because clients always have very "odd requests."

"Well, it's just. I need a private photo session. Well. I need a picture of me... for a job. I need you to take a picture of me in my underwear."

"No. Absolutely not." It came out really quick, because I knew before he asked that it was going to be my answer.

He got bright red and buried his head in his hands. "I'm so embarrassed, Miss Allison! I can't believe I did that!"

I started laughing, because I didn't know what else to do. He laughed too, but you could tell he was pretty embarrassed. I got up to get something from the printer. I was wearing my criss-cross tights that day. They look a little like this:

Believe it or not, I don't show this much leg at work. It would probably be wise for me to wear Mormon underwear to the office.

"WHOA! Look at your stockings! Where did you get those stockings?"

"I don't know. Macy's, I think."

"Whoa. Holy cow. When I have a girlfriend again I am making her wear those. You look like the president of Scotland."

?

Today I introduced myself to a new client. He responded with "Oh yeah... I've heard about you. Everyone at Harbor House as heard about you. I'm so glad you're mine."

Harbor House is a home for violent ex-felons.

Who Rides a Reindeer, Darnell? No one does. Stop it.

The holiday party was held two weeks before Christmas. I first heard about this party back in September, when Darnell told me that last year's venue in the Old Bank District didn't have a large enough dance floor. "There's dancing at this party?" I asked him. I was surprised because our non-profit prides itself on its sense of professionalism. "Oh, yes Miss Allison. And you're gon' dance with me first" he said with a smile made up entirely of glassy dentures he had done while in San Quentin. "You definitely gon' dance with me first." This comment came during my second week, so I was a bit unnerved and definitely not looking forward to this party. (I have since gotten better at dealing with all the unnerving things that come out of Darnell's mouth. Some of his creepiness he can't help; the dentures make his mouth look fake. You don't know how disconcerting a fake-looking mouth is until you see one.)

Clients had to sign up with their case manager to get a ticket to the party. People who hadn't been into the office in months came in just to sign up for the party. They could bring family members, and there was going to be a Santa Claus and gifts for kids. One of my nicest clients came in to sign up and asked to bring two of his daughters. He said they were about to turn 11. I said, "Oh, are they twins?" He laughed and said "Nope." (A side note about this guy; he has like 14 children and went to prison for 20 years for helping to transport 1,500 kilos of cocaine. Do you know how many pounds that is? I do, because I did the math in front of him. Bad form, I know. But that is so many pounds of cocaine!)

Darnell spent the next month or so telling me that I was going to dance with him, and I spent the next month or so telling him I was absolutely not going to dance with him. "I will be working, Darnell. I will be doing my job. I will dance with no one." His favorite thing to do was to tell me that he "doesn't take no for an answer." He also liked to list off names of women, many of them his former case managers, who would tell me that he doesn't take no for an answer. I told him he was going to have to learn. I once yelled at a former Crip in the street for lying to me. I've gotten good at sassing violent felons, and I hope it doesn't get me in trouble some day.

On the day of the party my co-worker brought in reindeer antlers for us to wear. I really like fun holiday hair accessories so I was pretty excited to wear the antlers. I was in charge of the raffle and had gotten all the stuff set and was all ready to go when party-time rolled around. I was looking forward to seeing my clients enjoy themselves, because they're usually down-trodden in the office. I thought it would be one of those heartwarming affairs you always see in movies; you know what I mean. The homeless shelter party on Christmas Eve, etc. This was not to be the case.

The party was one block south of the office. Looking back on it, I don't know why I thought having a huge party in a warehouse in the middle of Skid Row wouldn't be completely nuts. The party started at 6 and people were lined up outside waiting to get in at 4:00 while we were still setting up. Darnell was waiting outside, pointing at me and leering through the windows as I hung Christmas decorations. He grinded the air. I shook my head and stapled a snowman to the wall.

I had to stand by the door and take entrance tickets. It was a parade of smells. When they handed me an entrance ticket, they got a raffle ticket. We started handing out raffle tickets beginning with the number "080" and went all the way up to somewhere around "450" (I promise this will be important).

Darnell walked up to me and said "All right Miss Allison. You gon' be a reindeer tonight! You know I like to ride them reindeers!" I responded with "Who rides a reindeer, Darnell? No one does. Stop it." Something I've learned is how to figure out when people are full of bullroar, I am pretty sure Darnell is full of bullroar. He needs to be shut up.

We had about 100 prizes to give out, mostly coats and gift cards. I had to stand up in front of everyone, pull tickets out of a basket and read off the numbers. I introduced myself as "Blitzen the Raffle Reindeer" so people would stop calling me Vixen. The set-up was bad for a number of reasons, one of them being that I did everything mostly by myself. The other one being that I had to cut off karaoke to use the mic. Everyone wanted their chance to sing "Money to Blow" and I was hampering them.

Basically, everyone was screaming at me. They were all mad about something. Many people thought I was fixing the raffle so that my clients could win. The people who had tickets beginning with 0 started ganging up on me because I "wasn't pullin' no zero numbers and stats-tically that ain't possible!" They were, of course, wrong because only 20 people out of over 300 had tickets beginning with 0. They kept asking me to see the tickets I pulled out. Whenever I walked through the crowd back to the table they yelled at me. "HEY! REINDEER BITCH! PULL SOME FUCKIN' ZEROS, BITCH!"

We had a professional Santa Claus at the party. He was an acquaintance of one of our fancier volunteers. Santa was from Brentwood and catered to that crowd, mostly doing private parties on the West Side. (The West Side is the fancy, nice part of L.A.) Santa was there to take pictures which we then printed and put in little holiday frames. He knew he was coming Downtown, but he was expecting to be with the kids the whole time. There were only about 15 kids there, all of which were pretty terrified of Santa, so he ended up spending his time with our regular clients. He was very uncomfortable! He was bright red and sweaty the whole time. The lady clients kept trying to kiss him, and the male clients kept saying stuff like "I know you! You raped my sister! I'm gonna kill you!" and "You stole my mama's purse!" Many flashed gang signs in their pictures. Santa looked terrified in every photo, and left after about 40 minutes.

One of the best characters at the party was this guy I'd never seen before in an electric wheelchair. It was a really big electric wheelchair, the biggest I've ever seen. He was having a blast, spinning around on the dance floor, getting his picture taken with Santa, getting multiple pieces of cake and lots of food. He came up to me to ask how to sign up for the raffle. I asked him if he lost his ticket. He said he never got one. I asked him who his Employment Specialist was. He said, "what?"

"Your employment specialist."

"What?!"

"Employment specialst!"

"What? No one. I'm disabled!"

"Are you a client at [my non-profit]?"

"What?"

"[MY NON PROFIT!"]

"No! I just live here!"

"This party is for clients, sir. You can't sign up for the raffle"

"OK!" He said. Then he sped off and starting spinning around on the dance floor, with two plates of food in his lap.

The night ended on a bad note when Mike, a notorious jerk of a client who wears a Sunbeam Bread hat around all the time (like that's so badass) got angry and dumped seven open water bottles all over the Santa pictures. This was especially bad because Santa had already left so there was no option to retake the photos. The CEO, who is usually very professional, and my other co-worker picked him up by the shoulders and brought him outside. The CEO screamed "You don't come into my house! And fuck with my family!" It was odd.

I am sorry that I haven't posted in MONTHS. Here are some reasons why.

1) November was not a funny month. No one got jobs, people got murdered and I got sick.

2) December was a very funny month, but I was in the habit of not writing.

3) I adjusted quite a bit to the lunacy that is my job. What I would have found shocking, or at least odd, in September no longer seemed blog-worthy to me.

Now I am trying to get better. Here are the things I need to write about:

a) Toothjaw

b) Client Holiday Party INCLUDING: Blitzen the Raffle Reindeer and The Party Crasher.

c) Otter's Inappropriate Request

I will get crackin' with "Who Rides a Reindeer, Darnell?"