On the hunt

There are approximately 11 million illegal immigrants residing within the United States. Of those 11 million, I estimate that at least 75% must have some source of income. Perhaps that's too ambitious. Alright, let's bring it down a little- I put the employment rate of these 11 million at about 50%, with maybe 25% of that irregular income (that is to say, that portion takes what they can get). So why is it so hard for me, 1 out of 11 million, to find work? That's 0.000009090909090909091%! (Thank you, math.com). It's a lot of numbers, but it's actually nothing. The odds are on my side!

Let me tell you about my ride on the employment wagon. It started off promising- one interview, followed by an almost immediate job offer. An apartment, a too-good-to-be-true boss and perks such as free laundry (a rare commodity in a city where laundromats so many people spend so much time in them, they've evolved into an entertainment space, complete with stand-up comedy, like Brainwash Cafe, or need to distinguish themselves from the innumerable others, such as Sit n Spin, clearly located in the gay neighbourhood of The Castro). As is human nature, it's never enough. The small stipend, cute and cosy apartment in one of the city's better districts, the self-imposed lack of work ethic all started to stifle me: I needed more economic stimulation. So I turned to the virtual community noticeboard, the bulletin board to end all bulletin boards, the place where San Francisco, and it seems much of America, goes to when they want to buy, sell, barter, give away, donate, pass on, exchange, advertise, offer ,or complain about someone having soiled themselves in the line for the bank. In short, it's a free interactive community which is the first port of call for the strange sea of San Franciscans: craigslist.

A close friend of mine, let's call her Jezebel, was also in this predicament, only that unlike me, she did not have the good fortune nor the freedom of complimentary accommodation. Together, we trawled Craig's lists. Jezebel noted the number of jobs (under 'event' or 'talent') which required "beautiful females" to send in a picture of themselves in their underwear or, if they so dared, nothing, with the assurance they would then be judged either good enough or unsatisfactory for the job (always found under vague postings such as "underwear model" or "sexy ladies needed") and for which they would be paid a handsome sum of $500 an hour (at LEAST, one ad said). Rather than arty-farty New York photography studio types, we suspected pock-marked, gangly teenagers in Springfields all over were behind this.
During one particular dry spell, we applied for everything: promotional work, door bitching, porn, soft porn, hard porn, animal porn- and got rejected. I was offended: I loved porn. Why couldn't it just love me back?

Of course, I do have a small income. I've been working for Mike since August, and I couldn't be luckier or happier. I just needed something on the side, that little bit more pocket money. But not having the legal right to work makes it harder. I'd been offered a few jobs, all paying about $25-$30 an hour, only to flinch as those words hit me "So I just need you to fill in this form with your name, address and social security number..." The Social Security Number. Tax File Number. National Insurance Number. La Sécu. No matter what the country or the language, without one of these you feel like an alien, barred from the ability to participate in something so prerequisite to being part of society, people start a conversation with "so what do you do for work..." I'm trying to think back to the last time someone even bothered to check if I worked. "So, do you have a job?" Or better yet, assume someone is unemployed: "So, what's it like being on welfare?" "How much does Social Security pay these days?" No, we all work and if we can't, or don't, then it's a form of exclusion. Unless you're rich, and don't have to. Then you're just fucking lucky, and can we swap incomes? (Not lives, because mine is fabulous).
I won't mince my words- my job is a dream job. Let me take you through a typical day, chosen at random:
8.30am: wake up. Look out window. Oh yes, I'm in SAN FRANCISCO. That in itself is enough to make me jump out of bed and approach the day with a skip/spring/mince in my step.
8.45-10.00: Read up about the day's events, and tackle the New York Times crossword. Day by gradually more difficult day, this is becoming less of a confusing conglomerate of words and more of a coherent square.
10.30-11.30: Walk 'Montgomery'. Montgomery is the 2 year old Scottish terrier who I walk each day. He resembles an old man: beard, big bushy eyebrows which hang over his eyes to make him seem a little blinded. At first, the little shit was so badly behaved and disobedient that I couldn't even take him on the street, but instead had to walk him in the park, away from people. I'm proud to say that , after poking, prodding and dragging him along with his leash tied in a choke hold, I can now walk him anywhere. 'Anywhere' usually involves a stroll down to Jumpin Java cafe to attempt a final conquer of the day's crossword. That's how I like it: more Ben-centric, with less focus on the dog.

Now a day can include any number of tasks. I like to think of my work days as being in a kind of spectrum of 'intellectual involvement'. Most tasks require a minimum of this. Walk the dog, clean the kitchen (load dishwasher, empty garbage, wipe down marble benchtops), make the bed, put away strewn clothes, do laundry, dust with my feather duster, windex shiny surfaces without getting too distracted by my own reflection... These kind of tasks take up the majority of what some would call 'the working week'. To me, however, it's more like an arrangement a grown-up child would have with their parents than paid employment: in return for doing your 'chores', you get to live rent-free, and I'll give you a little bit of an allowance, plus treat you to lunch, give you a bit more cash here and there when you head off for the weekend with your friends.
Then there are the days when I perform some physical labour: this week, we gravelled the back of the apartment, a large concrete space, mostly unused, from where you can see the ubiquitous San Francisco skyline, definitive against the blue sky most days, completely veiled in fog on some, and in the evenings, glowing defiantly against the black backdrop.
The task of gravelling was lead by Mike (I'm more of a sit-back-and-wait-for-instructions kinda guy), and it involved driving about half an hour to a landscape supply store, and choosing a gravel type. Did you know there are about 15 different kids, with names like ginger (an unassuming light brown), molten lava (a brilliant red colour), marble arch (regal-looking and the most expensive), or pea gravel (shiny and cute like a pea) After choosing our type, a diminutive Chinaman came in his monster truck and dumped a load in the back of ours. And then he gave us our gravel.

Now we needed to get this ginger rock into our backyard and cover the space. Let me preface this next part by saying that if at any point in your life you see someone digging, or using a shovel in any way at all to move materials- this includes roadside workers, construction guys, or any member of a chain gang or other forms of forced labor- you need to stop, and take off your hat or scarf or stole or anything it is you are wearing, and SALUTE THEM. That crap is hard work. I have a new found respect for those labourers, whose intellectual ability I thought was beneath mine but whose physical prowess I can only dream of.

So we had to move the load in the back our truck into a pile in our backyard. Shovel after back-breaking shovel, the load diminished and my biceps ballooned. I did enjoy the kitsch houseboy status- all sweat and dirt and sun, wiping my sweaty brow while taking five, sipping on an iced lemonade, and making eyes with the old neighbours looking through their laced curtains. They have to get their joy somewhere don't they? Who am I to deny them that? We went back and forth about 6 times over the next three days, and now the backyard is as beautiful as the work was repetitive and strenuous. Suffice to say that was one of my harder working weeks.

Some days, however, I will work alone and this is where I thrive: daytime TV, a fully stocked fridge with artery-clogging delights such as blue cheese, cold cuts, ice-cream so creamy you wonder if you've frozen whipping cream by mistake, and views of the city from every room. Of course, the menial tasks ("fluffing the apartment") must be completed and after two hours work I'm ready to head off to the park and perhaps finish that crossword.

Burn baby burn

From morning yoga on the desert plains, to the "Female ejaculation seminar" featured in the week's schedule of events, to "socially appropriate public menstruation day" ('let the rivers of red run free'), the opportunity for participation at Burning Man is endless.
At first mention, many assume Burning Man is like any other "festival"- every event and performance carefully orchestrated and executed to adhere to a schedule. You are the "spectator"; the others, the "performers". You observe, perhaps coolly, possibly halfheartedly, maybe enthusiastically, one show after another, your desire to participate growing as the crowd loosens up. You are an attendee, but the performers are carrying the show.
At Burning Man, there are no attendees. On this unearthly landscape, you create your interactions. You are the performer and the attendee. Once you accept that there is no careful execution of events, no staged performances -or even a sense of conventional time- you will realise that anything can happen. And it does.

We told our camp neighbour Geoff we were going in search of coffee and would be back in half an hour. We should have known. I don't think at this time we'd really realised the spirit of the playa. Anything can happen. My orienteering skills let me down, and I couldn't find the cafe whose location "I thought I knew" (its name was Scarbutts: you got a spanking every time you ordered a coffee).
Not surprisingly, we stumbled across a no-name coffee stall managed by a kindly west coast stereotype called Jeremy, all long haired, open-hearted and laid-back, and who seemed to have a PhD on the benefits of the "Burn" brand coffee maker. A girl walked past, not quite yet in the "morning after the night before stage", but well on her way- fluorescent dreads and fishnets a go-go. "Oooh, coffee's good" she says in wonder, eyes like dinner plates. She didn't stop for any herself. A muscled dreamer called Forest arrives, taking a break from "writing the story of life" on the platform which overlooks the coffee stall. He's an illustrator of children's books, but has been asked by his camp to etch the story of our existence onto the floor as part of an art installation. He asks us to join his camp, but we decide to stay in the suburbs with our liberal but stable middle-aged threesome neighbours, Geoff, Eric and Ray. We're kind of curious about who fits in where in that set-up.
It was midday and the desert sun had risen and was at it most menacing. We took shelter in centre camp, a large convivial space loaded with performance space, jugglers and acrobats, artwork, and cushions. It is also home to the only place in Black Rock City (BRC) which accepts hard currency as payment : the cafe.
As an atonement for a small violation of a BRC rule (never let anything hit the ground), we pledge to give back and volunteer that evening at the cafe.
Cycling back, I get heckled by an oversized black man (woman?) with a megaphone to give her (him?) a full moon. I do, and I'm told "it's a great bootie to boot".
We encounter a kissing booth, where my companion kisses a high-cheekboned and full-lipped man under a giant pair of wooden ones.
Meals aren't the focus of our experience, but our stomachs have risen with the sun and at the corner of 7.30 and Hanoi streets, French toast is being served on a silver tray. We line up like crazily dressed POWs for delicious cooked sweetness. Warm oatmeal follows, but true satisfaction comes in the form of a shower. We hear the what will soon become familiar spraying sound of the water truck, of the stream of water hitting the parched road. BRC government uses it as a way of keeping the dust moist, thus lessening the intensity of duststorms. A common practise in the city with no running water is to run behind the truck (clothing optional) and wash the dust, sand, sweat and bodily fluids off. The real challenge is not keeping up with the truck itself (which moves at about 15 km/h, but not slipping in the path of wet clay left in the truck's wake. The question we never want to know the answer to is: where does that water come from?

What is BURNING MAN

"So much of what you project is what will ultimately come back to you". This is a saying that has rung true for me in so many instances- from friends, to relationships, to jobs. At Burning Man, a festival whose core philosophy is participation as opposed to passivity, what you desire will one way or another find its way to you.
Cynics, hush- you are about to hear about something wonderful.

Relatively young, not so innocent, naive but open-minded, Kathy and I arrived in the chilly desert night with a brand-new tent and no idea how to set it up. After being welcomed at the gate by a woman called "Mighty" ("Welcome home!" she says, hugging us) and being made to roll in the dust as part of our desert initiation, it was time to conquer the anxiety-inducing tent pitching (for two relative novices). Headlights trained on our dusty camping spot at the edge of Black Rock City, in Black Rock Desert, Nevada, Kathy and I opened the foreboding object.4 From step 1 ("remove packaging; unfold tent") to step 7 ("tie rainflap onto pole "a" while tying other jargon-word piece of equipment onto impossible-to-find hook"), we had an accelerated lesson in setting it up in the second-harshest conditions (the worst being rain).
Twelve hours, 539km, one Wal-Mart and countless songs on the iPod had summoned up the need for a stiff one, so we cracked open our litre of vodka and downed a quick few, before venturing down 8 o'clock street and into a new definition of the word "participation". In those first few hours on this dusty desert plateau, whose lights and reach seemed endless and whose beyond is known locally as "infinity", both our perceptions were and are still skewed. There are the very first participants we see, beating what is still in our minds, a dead horse, but we know this could not be possible. There is the mutant vehicle, illuminated and blaring trance music, manned by an inebriated girl screaming "Forward hoooooo!" There is the stripper stage, where I discovered my hitherto undiscovered talent for pole dancing. There is Kathy, frozen in ecstasy for two hours, head on an Italian's shoulder, and coming to in the middle of the road at sunrise.
Despite being the most chronologically distant, these memories are the most impressive.

NEXT BLOG:
A day in the life of a "burner" (one who attends Burning Man)

Desperate Houseboy part 2

During those few weeks where I had endless spare time and an overriding sense of curiosity and adventure, I'd tramp the streets of San Francisco, observing the Mission district's Latinos, Dolores Park's hipsters, the Castro's aspiring divas and I knew that somewhere, among this mash of humanity, I would slide right in. I was craving a life in Fog City. I was therefore praying that my instincts would tell me that working for these people was the right thing to do, because as my mother always said "Trust your instincts".

As it turns out, my fears that my employers would morph into the Bundys or the Mansons were completely unfounded (and as some psychologists might argue, irrational). My job involved a short day that most full-time workers dream of, consisting of what most able-bodied people would call remedial tasks: washing laundry, drying laundry, folding laundry. Then of course there was the major task of chaperoning my employer to: the drycleaner's, hardware store, dump, supermarket and Golden Gate Park to admire the flowers.

Don't you think I can hear you saying "Oh, Ben has it SO easy, while we are here in our windowless cubicles entering line after line of encoded data into a black and green IBM computer (circa 1988) for 8 hours a day so that we can have our two weeks off a year to go to Fiji and our two weeks off at Christmas and then go back next year and do it all over again."

It will not, then, surprise you to know that as with any job, this one is not without its downfalls. I've left out the other burdens of my daily grind. There's the being taken out to lunch. And the fact that I've never worked a full week- oh the humanity. Then there's the continuous stream of other acts of generosity: home furnishings, vintage clothing from my employer's youth (which as it happens, I look GREAT in- and here's another chance to plug the boots), being driven around in 'The Jag", and the fact that I've had an array of guests, one of whom has been living on my couch for two weeks. All the tangible and material things, however, pale in comparison to Mike's overall friendliness, caring nature and approachability, and that's where I've really lucked out- who would want to work so closely with someone unbearable?

Desperate Houseboy

My predicament was this: I had a new object of my affection (San Francisco) and wanted to stay with this new love as long as I could. However we were having financial issues, and unless we got some money together and worked out our differences we weren't going to be able to continue this accelerated love affair.

If I say the word "house boy", what do you think of? Does it conjure up images of a lecherous old man, a young buff piece of eye candy and domestic tasks which require a lot of picking things up off the floor, preferably in arse-hugging pants, or none at all? Which is why, when I saw the following ad in a small gay media publication:

Couple seeks houseperson to do renovations and some light housework. In return you would get a furnished one-bedroom apartment and a small stipend.


I was slightly relieved to read this at the bottom, in bolder, more obvious letters:
We are NOT looking for a sex exchange

I read the ad, and immediately recognised this as something that I absolutely had to apply for. It meant that I would be able to stay in San Francisco for much longer than I had originally thought. The city was already feeling like home, and at this stage I was sleeping on couches and floors of anyone who would let me. Now I could have my own place, get some cash, and I wouldn't even have to sleep with anybody! Was there a better deal than that?

Composing my email to my potential employers very carefully, I had this objective in mind: sell yourself. I knew I had to convey the fact that the job was right for me, and that I knew that, and that they were stupid if they did not see it. I sent it and hoped that this would be another one of those "land on my feet situations" that I had so often experienced travelling around the world.

A few days and then a week went by.I forgot about the ad. I laughed. I drank margaritas. I rode my bike downhill with no helmet and listened to my ipod (dangerous yet liberating). I had coffee and read the New York Times. I met captivating and fascinating people. I lay in parks in the sun. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, time was measured not by how long it was until something happened, or something ended, or something began, or how much time remained. Instead, it was a period which had had no definitive end nor beginning, it just was that particular moment and I was living in it and loving it.

So when I opened my email one morning, and saw a response from my potential employers asking if I was still interested and did I want to meet up to discuss the job further, I was jolted back into the time approximately two weeks prior, when I had my sights set on a job and some kind of regimented life. Did I really want that again after two weeks of living on what, as someone who worked Monday to Friday, would call "weekend euphoria"?

I didn't, but I did want an apartment, some money to live off, and the chance to continue living in this forward-thinking, anything-goes city. So I replied immediately, saying yes, I was definitely still interested and that they could call me any time.

Now I must advise you here that I was being rather cautious about the whole thing- I'd heard the stories of "the craigslist killer", and I'm aware of the dangers of meeting strangers off the Internet. Which is why my fears were somewhat placated when Mike suggested we meet at Peet's coffeehouse in SoMa, a few blocks from where I was staying.

On first impressions, Mike was a serious-sounding but young-looking man in his early 50s with a soft California accent and crows' feet from working most of his life outdoors. I learnt that I was the only candidate for the job, and because of the nature of the work and the conditions, a lot of homeless kids and transients had applied for the job. Sweet! Here was my chance to show him he didn't NEED to see anyone else- I was the fine piece of ass he was looking for! The picture on the left shows the outfit I wore to the interview, which I think really increased my chances of getting the job,


I sensed Mike was scoping me out, indirectly probing into my life and reasons for being here. I even got the impression that he may have suspected I was a travelling itinerant, with no family, contacts or ties. Couldn't he see that my generation-Y clothes were of the highest quality? What homeless person do you know who wears Nudie jeans and fabulous sunglasses?

The meeting went well, and we parted ways with a future appointment to meet the other half of the couple, Richard, who Mike promised me was "more fun" than he was.

I mulled over the situation. Work approximately 32 hours a week, doing some housework, renovation and light construction and in return I would get a fully furnished one bedroom apartment plus a stipend of $200 a week. This all seemed as if an angel (and I'm talking a costumed, gay pride-style angel here) had delivered this to me on a sequined platter.

I was invited to their house, in an area of San Francisco where all the gay angels congregate on the weekend to parade their sparkles and strut their stuff. For a second opinion, company and mostly protection, I took the discerning and astute Ms Grace Li, long a lover of checking out strangers' homes. The drive over took us into the higher points of San Francisco, and with every ascent the view got better and, as is the trend in the city famous for its hills, the homes more opulent. We pull up in front of a flat facade fairly uniform building. Decorated simply but tastefully, I can already see myself living on this street, where a break in the groomed homes gives way to far-reaching views to the east.

One half of the couple greets us at the door and we go up a few flights of stairs to the top floor.
Ted Bundy's or Mother Teresa's successor? Will they throw me from the wrap-around top floor sun deck, never to be heard of again? Or perhaps they will offer me an opportunity to stay in this liberal melting pot?

Single white female?

Previously, on couch surfing: was it a case of the bunny-boiling couchsurfing host, or was I the receiver of that old-fashioned "southern hospitality" (only in this instance it would be northern Californian)?
Wrong on both counts. My host was neither intimidating, nor frightening. Friendly and familiar, he gave me and the other surfer complete freedom without obligation. He made no attempt to orientate me with the house, which ironically led me to feel all the more comfortable.

My host, let's call him "E", is no stranger to surfing. He told me he had hosted over 1,000 surfers in his three years with couch surfing. So experienced was he, in fact, that he was a CS ambassador for the San Francisco chapter of the network. An ambassador comes recommended by other CSers, must have ten positive references left by their guests, and a number of other criteria. They must also participate in CS community events in their city.

1,000-plus people in three years. I try to do the maths, wishing I hadn't denounced its function at the age of 14. There's roughly 1,000 days in three years. So you have one person per day? I ask. He tells me that he always has more than one. His most recent guests who (and I thanked my lucky stars for this next fact when I heard it) had departed the previous day were a mother, her 15-month old child and husband. His apartment measured about 25 square metres and held one bedroom, one bath and a small kitchen.

Surely allowing people in your home on a daily basis, none of whom you know from Jack, would cause you to be slightly discerning in your choices. "I once had a guy who hadn't taken a shower in 3 and a half weeks. In the time that he walked through the door, introduced himself , sat down, and asked me if he could take a shower, the stench was so unbearable that I had to open all the windows in the house." How much time had lapsed? "About two minutes."

What's the best thing about couchsurfing? Undoubtedly the sense of adventure it gives you. You don't know who this person is. They could turn out to be the most wonderful, giving person you've ever met, or an axe-wielding maniac, but you learn to trust strangers, for better or for worse; perhaps it's being part of a community, albeit a small role you have played, that gives and takes but not on the monetary basis which we are all implicitly accustomed to; or could it be that everyone is on the lookout for the same shared experience of letting a stranger into their home or going into a stranger's home and giving each other the benefit of the doubt that we will all get on and every human is inherently "good"?

I met some wonderful characters during my first and definitely not last surfing trip. Allis, a softly spoken but strong-willed Tex-Mex who had spent the last four months travelling around the US, and had decided she wanted to make another life in San Francisco, in addition to the ones already lived in New York and various cities in Texas. Allis has a soothing but alluring energy in both her choice of words, her soft American accent, her life experience and general conversation, and I immediately gravitated towards her. Now that she is staying in San Francisco, we are going to be "San Francisco resident friends" (to quote her).
Accompanying her were two more "border babies": Lizeth and Monica, and a dog called Bop. Intriguing but not intimidating, the three girls had just stepped off a 30-hour ride from San Antonio, Texas, which included almost being driven off the road and a probably meth-fuelled driver at the wheel. And these were two different people.

I considered it good fortune that I had only had to ride my bike to get here, I definitely wasn't on meth while doing it and that it took one-tenth of the time to get here. With those thoughts, I burrowed into my hygienically questionable sleeping bag on my foam mattress on the hardwood floor for a comforting night with my new friends.

From one couch to another

Having pledged to myself and everyone I knew that I would eat, socialise and sleep locally in order to enrich my understanding of Americana, I turned to www.couchsurfing.org, a not-for-profit organisation, and quasi "booking engine" to launch my adventure into the world of sleeping on stranger's couches.

Originally started in 1999 by a college student from Boston who decided to veer from the norm of staying in hostels, Couchsurfing is the world's biggest "hospitality exchange" network. Membership is free (besides a small donation of about $20USD) and once you join, you are free to "surf" and host to your heart's content. But is it as easy as logging in, running a search, asking people, "Can I crash on your couch, duuude?" and turning up with your Kathmandu backpack in tow? The short answer is "no". The idea is that the more you host and/or surf, the more personal references people leave for you, and ultimately the more trustworthy you become. I was at the bottom of the food chain. I had never officially "couchsurfed", therefore had no references or anyone vouching for my character, reliability, or even my identity (couchsurfing runs an identity check, but in my opinion this could be easily faked). All the hosts had to go on was a page with some (very detailed) personal information and one photo of my face (although how could you not trust this face?) In that way, both hosts and guests are taking a risk, so I suppose there is an equal sense of vulnerability there.

My first and so far only experience began a week ago and ended three days later. After sending a multitude of emails, only two of whom responded, most likely due to the fact this was my first time surfing, and one of whom accepted my couchsurfing request, I left the comfort of what had become my temporary home in San Francisco, the lower regions of the South of Market district, and headed for the higher and haughtier district of Pacific Heights.
Pacific Heights rises sharply up from the Marina district and provides spectacular panoramas of San Francisco Bay. Its streets have that kind of paving that is only found in affluent neighbourhoods the world over: clean, carefully placed and not your average council-issue cement. And they are quintessentially San Franciscan: steep, full of quad-and- buttock killing hills, and side-by-side homes built on its many hills. Among these homes, I would say more than half are soaring, multi-million dollar Victorian and Edwardian mansions. Latino maids and gardeners quietly entered and exited via the front doors of many.
As I rode my bike along the street of what would be my new but again interim home, the architecture became more grand, the streets more sparkling, my hope that I would be staying in one of these mansions more palpable.
My heart sank only a few centimetres when I arrived at the modest but by no means drab apartment block, whose address I checked, and double-checked (just to make sure it wasn't the Edwardian abode towering next to it), before ringing the bell and wondering who or what to expect. I knew it was a man. I knew he was originally French. I had read all of his (mostly glowing) reviews from former couchsurfers, among which adjectives such as "positive" "joyful" "considerate" "open-minded" and "informative" were used to describe him. Great, but how about "watches you while you sleep", or "keeper of lime and a shovel"? How would I know that? I decided the risk was worth it (or I had no choice in the matter). I climbed the stairs (what! no lift!) and hedged my bets that my inaugural couchsurfing host wouldn't turn out to be the travellers' "single white female".