Days 212-220: December 30, 2009-January 7, 2010 (even in death the rich will have it better than you, sort of [photos included])

Position: Tourist

Destinations: Montevideo and Colonia, Uruguay, and Buenos Aires, Argentina

Total Spent on Buses/Boat: $253

Total Hours Spent on Buses/Boat: 33 

After an overnight, twenty-hour bus ride from Florianópolis, Brazil, to Montevideo, Uruguay, my girlfriend and I spend New Year's Eve with her second cousins. They break out Johnnie Walker whiskey (whiskey is really expensive in South America––an $18 bottle Jack Daniels ranges from $58 in Brazil to $26 in Argentina), liters of beer, bottles of wine, various meats piled on a cutting board (and eaten with shared forks), mixed nuts, and a stack of these wonderful, thin, crustless sandwiches, called sandwiches de miga. 

Though Uruguay is supposed to be a poor country, they know how to celebrate. The young residents of Montevideo hit the streets midday New Year's Eve for a street party. People play drums and shout and sing. Almost everyone carries a green plastic bottle of inexpensive cider, which they drink and splash on each other, and then throw the empty bottles at buildings or into the streets (you can see pictures on this blog––be sure to scroll down through all the pictures). Also, when you're walking down the sidewalks, residents dump buckets of water from buildings onto unsuspecting revelers and tourists alike, washing or baptizing you for the New Year, I guess. And the streets are littered with people's daily calendars, which they've thrown into the street like parade confetti. In late afternoon, everyone goes home and the streets look abandoned.

                                                   

Then, at midnight, the city explodes with fireworks ( fuegos artificiales). It's not like the U.S., where people sit around watching an isolated, choreographed fireworks show or light off a few firecrackers and Whistling Petes, though that's done as well. It's more participatory, and everyone lights their own skyward bound fireworks around the city, which has an incredible war zone effect. The explosions last a straight fifteen to twenty minutes, during which time some residents emerge from their homes and burn their wall calendars in the streets. Such a cool, symbolic gesture.

A couple days later, my girlfriend goes to visit her grandmother and uncle in Trinidad, and I head for Colonia del Sacramento, then Buenos Aires. Before I leave Uruguay, I email Daniel Chacón (books by this author), a frequent Buenos Aires visitor, to ask him about cool places I can check out. He emails back, telling me I can just come visit him and his wife, Sasha Pimental Chacón (book by this author), because they're in Buenos Aires right now. I'm telling you all this because when I meet up with them they take me to Cementerio de La Chacarita where the contrasts between the rich and poor couldn't be sharper.

Just past the neoclassical entrance to the cemetery the visitor is greeted by a neighborhood of wealthy family tombs, complete with sculptures and yellowish, brick sidewalks. It's unquestionably beautiful, but, as Sasha points out, a little excessive for the dead, who don't need these elaborate coffin houses.

                               

After being reprimanded for taking photos by a security guard, Daniel says he's not interested in this section of the cemetery; he wants to show me and Sasha "the Bronx" of the cemetery. So we walk. Through a park-like section with white crosses, tall trees, and mosquitoes that attack us (the suburbs); then through what looks like a strange park with cement ventilators sticking out of the lawn and staircases leading into a post-apocalyptic underground section. Down here, we wander through hallways of semi-rusting, filing cabinet-like walls that house coffins (I guess this would be the lower-middle-class apartments).  

                                                   

When we emerge, I photograph the coffin elevator, which looks to be out of service for now.

                                     

We keep walking toward the back of the cemetery, where we take time to inspect the partitioned "Berlin Wall" that houses family ashes.

                             

These less expensive and smaller apartments for ashes are in various states of disrepair, some you can't even read anymore, and there's a whole section of the wall supported by wooden braces. Pigeons rest in the apartment doorways, and some marble wall tablets are broken, revealing wooden boxes of ashes and spiderwebs inside.

                      

We follow the wall to the right around the edge of the cemetery, and finally arrive in "the Bronx": a completely unkempt area of hilly dirt, littered with weeds and broken crosses. This is where the poor have come to rest, in death as in life.   

                    

The only consolation for the poor is that they've been returned to the earth, while the wealthy hover on shelves above or below the ground, never quite returning to their source. What they don't realize is that everything fades, even red velvet chairs and ornate coffins. Their money might have bought a little more time above ground, but, as you can see, everything eventually turns to dust. 

                                               

Days 198-211: December 16, 2009-December 29, 2009 (lobster on your salad?; compare and contrast, Brazilian style)

Position: Traveler

Destination: South America

Drinks on Plane: 4

Round-Trip Airfare: $100

Total Time Spent on Planes (RT): 26 hours

 

I've taken a month off to travel to Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina to see the countries and meet my girlfriend's family. As you may remember from my day 28 post, my brother is a pilot for Continental Express, and I get his travel benefits. While this is great, I spend half the day in San Diego trying to catch standby flights. I arrive in Houston and anxiously await at another Continental gate to find out if I've scored a seat for my ten hour flight to São Paulo, Brazil, where my girlfriend's parents and brother live. 

I'm ecstatic when the gate agent hands me a ticket with seat 3K on it. First Class. I'm even more excited when I settle in, order a Jim Beam and ginger, and then realize no one is even going to sit next to me. As the coach passengers file past, I get that weird privileged feeling again, thinking the passengers must be speculating about my occupation and ability to fly first class. In my mind, I usually pretend to be a famous author, but I know when I walk through first class to the coach seats, I don't think anything about the first-class passengers except that they're wasting money. 

I get the usual perks of first-class (the hot towel, the free Heinekens served with a real glass, the real silverware, plates and cloth napkin with dinner) but this time we're presented with a restaurant-like, four page dinner menu that spells out the five-course meal, and includes four main course choices (I choose the Southwest stuffed chicken breast). During the salad course, I'm asked if I'd like lobster on my salad. Of course I would. After the main course, they present me with a cheese and fruit plate, then, get this, roll out a metal dessert cart with all kinds of ice cream options. Even though I'm already stuffed, when they announce all the available toppings for the ice cream––sauces, nuts, whip cream––I say, "Yes, please." The flight attendant also asks if I'd like a cognac with dessert. Why not? Pass the Courvoisier. The downside to all this overindulgence is that my sinuses are three-quarters stuffed, so I'm only experiencing food textures (the lobster wasn't such a good idea), an occasional strong taste, and I'm now totally bloated. Which means I can't sleep almost the whole flight, am too tired to read, and end up watching The Time Traveler's Wife and flight data between cat naps.

I also experience a fair amount of flight anxiety, not about the flight itself or the idea of crashing, but from knowing when I land I'll be in a foreign country, thousands of miles from home, where I've been told it's dangerous––my only reference point is City of God––and I don't speak the language. I experience this feeling even when I return to countries I've been to before, like Mexico and Italy. And when I land, I'm usually fine. (Strangely enough, the only time the anxiety never went away was when I landed in a place that I do speak the language: Australia. But that had more to do with my recent divorce at the time than the country itself). 

When the plane turns for its approach into São Paulo, and I see the size and extent of the city, my anxiety kicks up a notch. But when I land, like in Mexico or Italy, I instantly feel relaxed and fine, and my girlfriend and her mother are there to greet me. After spending almost two weeks in this massive, traffic-choked city, I realize something. People here are living out the human tragedy/comedy the same way they do all over the world. People fall in love; they make wedding videos; they divorce; they eat meals (especially meat, lots of meat); some people are rich, many are poor; people go to hospitals for hurt fingers; that woman is sleeping with that other woman's husband; people die from natural causes and car crashes and murders; some people rob other people; a man spreads his seed, and when he dies he leaves children all over the continent . . .

In a massive city like São Paulo (population, 11-19 million), though, life is altered by fear of violence, and the contrasts are magnified. Those with money hide behind taller fences, gates and armed security guards; those without live in shanty towns (favelas), their houses constructed of pallets, scrap wood and tarps. Those with money don't usually flaunt their wealth like in the States, instead choosing to drive modest, compact cars. Those without money take whatever they can from those that have money, usually by force. This makes the rich prisoners of their own wealth. But like anywhere else, the everyday people are kind and generous and gracious, and they live out their lives walking the streets to work, relaxing in the parks, or eating (lots of meat) at one of the many restaurants. 

While I spend a short amount of time in a wealthy man's house, a business friend of my father's, I never spend time in a favela; I only see one or two from the highway. But I learn something very interesting from that business friend; he says many earnings reports in Brazil are fictions, and it's unwise to invest money here. Own a business, fine, but don't invest, because he's been at board meetings where the financial officer went around the room asking the executives their expenditures for the year, and that's what the financial officer reported as their earnings. Cover what you spent. The rest isn't the government's business. They do nothing for us. 

America has it's own business fictions, such as Enron, Arthur Anderson, and the recent bank failures, and I sometimes feel investors are unwise gamblers at the mercy of wrongly motivated executives, many of whom are more interested in their own wealth than the company or country's economic health. And even those these types of fictions and corruptions are just magnified in Brazil, they're coming up as a country (not to mention they have the Soccer World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016).  

I also spent time in a young couple's nice, high rise condo, where I ate a wonderful pasta meal and sipped red wine a few blocks away from a favela. And that young couple, their son asleep in his crib, had an infectious optimism and sense of hope for the future. My girlfriend says this is the spirit of the Brazilian people, that no matter how bad things seem or are, they have hope. And they keep on living . . .

Day 196: December 14, 2009 (keeping up with the Joneses holiday spirit, the fat man and his enabler, and the end of life)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 8

Sales: $273.45

Tips: $41

Hours: 3.00

Total Wage: $21.67 per hour

One of the cool things about my job is getting to see inside people's houses. Out here, every night is like one of those fancy home tours people pay tens of dollars to attend. And this holiday season hasn't disappointed. I've seen some of tallest, most elaborately decorated Christmas trees in my life. I've seen teams of immigrant men stringing lights around trees and houses. I've seen homes where every square inch inside has some decoration, be it a nearly full-sized reindeer, a Santa, wreaths, ribbons, or what have you. I've seen a beautifully carved ceramic nativity set that looked like it costs over a thousand dollars. I think these people would probably pay to have Jesus in their houses if he weren't already dead. Their holiday spirit can't be questioned. 

Not to be outdone, our Jewish friends have created their own displays: the pizzeria's neighbor had a Chanukah party in the parking lot tonight with a ten foot tall, tinfoil-wrapped Menorah and speakers blasting a mix of hip-hop and traditional music. And, of course, a man gave a maudlin speech about miracles. 

In the ultimate show of American religious fusion, I saw in the foyer of a house tonight a snow-flocked, Christmas tree with large, blue ornament balls and miniature Menorah ornaments throughout. Happy Chris-hanukah!

But sometimes it's not that cool to see inside people's homes. Like the time in Encinitas when I was called into a house with the front door open. The floor was stripped of its carpet, and the residents appeared to be remodeling. I assumed that's why they called me inside––they were stuck in the bedroom painting or hanging drywall. Instead, I found the most overweight man I've seen in my life practically squatting in a room with only a bed and stacks of papers and magazines. He wore sweatpants and a dirty white T-shirt. I suddenly felt bad for delivering a large pizza and a 25-pack of chocolate chip cookies to this lone man. I felt like an enabler, like I was giving crack to a crack addict. I'm not even sure the man could fit through his door. On my way out, he called to me and asked if I would grab the newspaper out front and deliver it to him. I did. I've never been able to shake that scene.

And tonight, I deliver to an older couple, by no means elderly. Maybe they're in their early 70s at most, but the scene inside their house disturbs me. Within the side door, where the man disappears to sign the credit card slip, they have two, faded La-Z-Boy recliners crammed into this small room, facing the television. On the wall hangs one of the most beautiful, vibrant paintings I've seen––a house and tree, all bright blues, oranges, and whites. It's clear this is where they spend their time, nesting among the T.V. and the painting. Along the floor, and lined up on the wooden T.V. tray (you knew there'd be one, right?) are bottles and bottles of prescription pills, vitamins, and dietary supplements, like the couple can't be bothered to put them in the cupboard. Here they are, living in one of the richest neighborhoods in the world, and their lives have been reduced to this single room, these bottles, this T.V., that painting. It depresses the hell out of me. Better to die young, I think. At least they're together. For now.

Day 194: December 12, 2009 (the economic grinch rears its ugly head this holiday season)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 10

Sales: $445.07

Tips: $58

Hours: 3.42

Total Wage: $24.96 per hour

It's easy to live in a bubble in Rancho Santa Fe, even for me. While sales drop off earlier in the night, between 7:30 and 8:30, we still have good, early rushes and some big orders. When I arrive at the pizzeria tonight, the manager clocks me in early and gives me a $172.05 order. I haven't had a big order like this in some time, so I'm excited. 

I arrive just before the scheduled 6 p.m. delivery time. The tall, gray-haired man, wearing a festive, red sweater, takes the items in bunches––the 16" salad bowl and dressing containers, then two trays of pasta, then another tray of pasta and a tray of garlic bread––and walks them into the kitchen while I wait at the door. When he returns for the final time, looking serious, he pulls out a money roll. My eyes widen as he releases a twenty from the wad and hands it to me, saying, "Happy Holidays." I return his holiday greeting, but am upset when I realize it's a five dollar bill, not a twenty. I think maybe he's going to tip the rest on the credit card slip, but he hands it back with a signature and a blank tip line. Happy Holidays, Mr Scrooge.

It's crazy, because some people have been holiday tipping lately: one lady gave me ten dollars for a $38 order and said, "For gas," and another man gave me $15 on a $25 order earlier this week. But just as many people have been giving the tip stiff-arm this holiday season, and I feel like I've been earning less and less this fall. It's going to be a long, cold winter if this keeps up.

I tend to forget, working my cushy pizza job in Rancho, that there's a real economic recession out there. Sure, many stocks have recovered, since companies are cutting costs and becoming more profitable, but unemployment is still above ten percent. And one of my closest friends lost his adjunct teaching job at Fresno State and is fishing around for work, trying to piece enough together to pay his mortgage come spring. 

I've thought about substitute teaching for extra cash and a way to transition out of the food service industry, but when I called the local high school district about next semester, the woman told me they had 130 people at this fall's "guest teacher" orientation, and she's still processing them. When I went to this same orientation last year, there were maybe 30 people. I'm thinking about getting a teaching credential, but the programs are super impacted because of state budget cuts, meaning they're accepting fewer and fewer students. And when I called San Diego City College to check on the adjunct instructor pool down there, the department head told me she has over fifteen current instructors without any classes to teach for spring, so they're "about a year or two out from hiring." Times are tough, indeed. I feel like an ungrateful ass for complaining, but that's what life in the bubble does. 

Day 188: December 6, 2009 (delivering to the other house, boarding the stoner with grandma, Steelers' super fan, and the toothbrush man)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 14

Sales: $422.37

Tips: $68

Total Wage: $23.56 per hour

On my third run of the night, I end up with a triple-bagger. The first one is in Rancho Pacifica, the second one is on Quarter Mile Drive, two miles away, and the third is farther away on Mango Drive. When I arrive at Quarter Mile Drive, no one answers the door. I call, and a woman's voicemail answers. I leave a message saying I'm outside, but I'm splitting for my third delivery if she doesn't call back or answer. The townhouse looks dark in the upper windows. I call the manager, and he tells me to hit my third delivery and stop by on my way back. I do, and the scene repeats, including a voicemail that I'm now leaving for good. When I turn the corner on San Dieguito, the manager calls and says he got through on the phone, and they're in Rancho Pacifica, not Quarter Mile Drive. They own the place on Quarter Mile, though. This happens more often than you would believe (see Day 177). Wealthy people around here own multiple properties and can't be bothered to confirm the address attached to their phone number when we read it back to them. It's been an hour and fifteen minutes, and the manager called them, not the other way around.

When I get to the house gate, I sigh to see it's one of my least favorite customers. The guy who usually comes to the door looks like a college basketball player, and he refuses to put away his Pit Bull, even though I tell him every time I don't like big dogs, and stand by my car. Tonight, a high school aged kid comes outside, while the rust colored Pit Bull barks through the window. The kid signs the credit card without saying a word to me. The silence is super awkward. No "sorry you went to the wrong house, twice, and here we live on a street you delivered to on this same run earlier. Gosh, we're idiots." I get out of there as quickly as possible, and I later find out the man actually called to say his food was cold and the pizza was a little smashed (I had to slam on my breaks at a stoplight with camera enforcement). I have a hard time mustering any sympathy.

Two runs later, and I'm stuck at a gate with the wrong gate code. I dial the last name on the call box, and the lady seems baffled by my presence. She lets me in anyway, and when I turn left, she's standing on the porch, waving me in. Turns out the food is for her son, or grandson. I can't figure out their relationship, but the pasty kid who comes to the door has a sparse "soul patch" on his bottom lip and drug dealer eyes; you know, they look painful to keep open and he speaks in that labored "hey, bro, thanks" way. I can't tell if he's been shipped to grandma's house to shape up, but someone in this house has a big job ahead of them. The kid is clearly a mess.

My next delivery is to the Crosby, and when I get to the guard gate, a new, husky/nerdy guard with thick glasses asks me for the delivery address. I tell him, and he confirms the last name from inside the booth where I can't see him. He comes out and launches into a man-talk non sequitur: "Fuckin' Steelers lost tonight. But they deserved to lose. Oakland's going to be a good team next year." He walks around to write down my license plate number, which is something only newer guards do here. "Chargers' fans don't believe me, but they (Oakland) beat the Steelers and Cinci." He walks back to the booth, and then hands me the pass, while I nod my head to his monologue. "I think the Chargers will fall short. Unless they can get past the Colts. But I don't see that happening."

I like football, but it doesn't rule my life. I don't have a fantasy football team, and I'm not going to criticize the twenty million people who do. I understand why people turn to sports for entertainment, or to fill a void in their lives. At the end of the day, the outcomes of games don't affect anyone's lives except those involved in playing them. I oblige the guard, and say, "It will be hard for anyone to beat the Colts."

As I'm about to drive off, he says, "Bring back any extras, man," then disappears into the booth. I make the delivery and leave through the other Crosby gate to the south.  

On my last delivery of the night, I end up at gated apartments with no gate code and no last name. I want to drive back to the pizzeria and call it a night, because if this guy can't remember he lives in a gated community, he doesn't deserve to eat tonight. I call him on my cell phone, but a resident who pulls up behind me opens the gate, and I cruise in. The guy who answers the door is probably in his late twenties or early thirties, sporting a few days worth of dark scruff. And get this: I can't really give him crap about the gate, because he spends the whole transaction at the door with a  toothbrush in his foamy mouth. He signs the credit card, and says "thanks" with that gargled, I can't understand you because you have a toothbrush in your mouth voice. I feel . . . not violated but disgusted. What kind of grown person answers the door while brushing his teeth? And how's that pepperoni and jalapeño pizza going to taste? 

Day 181: November 29, 2009 (dealing with mistakes on both ends)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 11

Sales: $427.86

Tips: $70

Total Wage: $25.81 per hour

On my last delivery run of the night, I deliver to a nice man in The Farms. The bill is $32.03, so he hands me two twenties and asks for three dollars in change. I thank him for the five dollar tip, jump in the car, back up, and am almost out of the driveway when he comes hopping out the front door in his socks, yelling, "Hey. Hello?" 

Now, as a driver I can tell you I don't want to deal with mistakes. No drivers do. First, there isn't much we can do about it. If we forget a salad or a dessert, sure, we can take it off the bill at the door or tell them we'll send it right out. At the other extreme, I've known drivers who have dumped a pizza and still presented it at the door as perfect, and then split before the unsuspecting customer can discover the mess, which usually looks like regurgitated pizza. That's not cool. But, as a general rule, after the delivery is complete, you get out of there as quickly as possible.

The man in the socks special ordered one of his pastas with penne instead of the usual spaghetti noodles, and he added eight shrimp. When he came outside hollering, I assumed the pasta type was wrong, or he counted the shrimp and there were only seven. I'm half-tempted to pretend I don't hear or see him. When he gets closer to the car at the end of the driveway, he says, "I wanted to give you a couple more dollars." He holds out some folded ones. I take them, and give him elated thanks. While I'm driving away, I unfold the money to see he's given me all three ones back. While paying me, I heard his wife in the background asking how much it was. I think she shamed him into tipping me the other three dollars. Thank God for generous wives; I hope there are nine shrimp in her pasta.

Day 180: November 28, 2009 (why they need to offer more logic classes in school)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 7

Sales: $387.63

Tips: $49

Hours: 2.33 

Total Wage: $29.03 per hour

He looks like a computer programmer. By that I mean he's tall, white, hunched at the shoulders from leaning his head toward the computer screen all day, and dorky. He answers the door wearing an old, poorly fitting T-shirt. I tell him whoever took his order got the credit card number wrong, so if he still wants to pay by credit card he'll have to call the manager and sort it out. He says, "Can we just pay cash?" I tell him, yes, that would be even better. Before he walks away, he turns and says, "Well, I want to make sure my card doesn't get charged, though." I tell him we can't possibly charge his card, because we have the wrong number. "Oh," he says and walks off to find cash.

I hear him asking his wife if she has any cash. She, a short Asian woman, runs by in aquamarine sweatpants and matching T-shirt, says hello, then bolts up the stairs. "I have one," she shouts, before running back down and handing him a twenty. He shows back up to the door with two twenties, enough to cover the $36.53 bill and tip. I thank him for the cash, but he wants to say something more. "So, should I call and make sure they don't charge my card?" I look at him, incredulous. He probably went to a good university, has a great job that bought him this nice house, and he even figured out how to find a woman who would marry him. But this stumps him.

"Like I said, we don't have the right number, so how can we charge your card?" He looks shamed, but still doesn't seem to get it. He closes the door, having to trust in the logic of a pizza guy.