My Robot Is Pregnant theme song!

Can’t see from laying in bed but I think the elk has 11 or 12 points and the head hangs with soulful dark eyes in the living room.

The cat jumps up on the tv stand, scrambles up the backside of the flat screen and leaps on the neck of the mount jutting from the wall.

She nestles at the base of the antlers and naps.

Down the street Jimbo bought a 1966 Ford Ranchero. You remember Jimbo is my partner at the shop. He named it “Mixed Nuts”. The shop not the Ford.

Sometimes I worry having a partner. He’s younger and more handsome than me. All sorts of things could go wrong with that combo, then you throw a bad ass old car in the mix, one with a 289 and glass packs, then who knows?

I’m feeling like an old man with bad hips. One who isn’t sure what hip hop is when it comes on the radio. Time to stop worrying and get to work in the shop. It’s all gonna work out great.

The neighbor’s kid calls me poo poo head. The cat walks across my face. Life isn’t necessarily hard, But why does the coffee lid always leak on my shirt?

This store may never open. We spent a day renting a stripper – for the floor. Most strippers wont take their hat off for 30 bucks, but this one got down and scraped the wax off linoleum.

Let’s see if we can get the merchandise in the showroom tomorrow.

Called my friend at the dump and secured permission to spend the afternoon scavenging for wood. Came upon this mannequin laying on pot plants.
But I don’t miss hanging around the tipping floor. I also saw mattresses wrapped in plastic – bed bugs. And the dark brine at my feet created in the unhealthy swirl of misters, dust and garbage leakage creates what I call dump juice.
I brought home some old fence planks to use at the new shop. Didn’t have quite enough but my old pal Seano came through and gave us a beautiful barn door to cut up.
Finished at 1 am and forgot to take a picture. But you’ll see it tomorrow.

Take a look at why this blog has not been performing up to speed. This is the new shop. We moved here from the old one two days after the grand opening party. It was too small.

Having to patch/sand/prime/paint walls and otherwise transform a neglected space all over again is overwhelming.

Luckily Jimbo is excited and his energy is carrying me through. The shop is 1000 square feet with two giant skylights set in a row of 1930′s art deco storefronts. Really beautiful. Wish they were on the sunny side of the street where it was 10 degrees warmer but it would be too expensive to move the building.

Signed a three year lease. The Kung Fu shop to the left, dog grooming to the right. A famous Chinese dumpling restaurant and a place that teaches the lost art of fencing join us as we squat in fog at the edge of San Francisco in the neighborhood no one knows: The Richmond.

Woke up early from an amazing dream to move the truck before 7 am street cleaning. Couldn’t find my keys. Get a spare, get to truck and back door is part open. Yes, they stole my belt sander.

Drive along beach for the scenic view and see someone else is gonna have a bigger loss than me this morning.

Ive been warned myself not to risk parking at the end of a long street overnite. The fact there were no skid marks explains the problem.

The transfer station will charge you to drop them off and the scrap metal place won’t allow you to drop them off but I found a place that buys them at 20 cents a pound. So I was in the yard loading a big rolling cart up with ballast. That’s the long black box in a flourescent light that controls the flow of electrical current. The scrap yard is worried I’ll drop off the old ones that were filled with PCB laced cooling fluid.

The guy next to was sorting his metals and I asked if he had anything I could resell at the flea market.

“I got some Christmas decorations. Some other stuff too.”

I was expecting something from his metal pile, but he pulled out a box and showed me a bunch of stuff.

A merry-okee microphone that has prerecorded Christmas carols and a setting that pitches your voice to elfen heights caught my attention.

“How much for this? My girlfriend will love it.”

“Make an offer,” he countered.

I started at 2$ and got it for 3. With my money in his pocket he told me a secret.

“I get this stuff from the dumpster. After its on final sale they throw it out. I take it in and get credit on gift cards. They give me the lowest sale price but that’s cool. I’ve got a wallet full of cards, 180$ bucks all the way down to 75$. And there’s a Walgreens on every corner.”

Doug came through for the holidays. LA is treating him, and it’s mail carriers, well.

Thought for a moment Ru Paul was running for office, it turned out to be Ron Paul. Similar to the leprechaun that turned out to be a leper colony.

Don’t know why I don’t have the option of adjusting photo sizes any more. They look huge. For instance this example of what to do when you run out of screws, nails, and duct tape but you gotta get the shelf hung.

The well educated carpenter wanted me to move some art for him. We threw this street-found painting of a dolphin breaching a pot leaf in the back of the truck and brought it to his work shop where generations of children will ask,”Is that a hippy?”

I haven’t even pulled the curtains back and seen what kind of day this is. The thick elderly hair on my chest is sticking out straight with static from tossing and turning in bed all night. I’ll put a shirt on soon, it’s cold in here.

About a month ago I started paying rent on a storefront, going in with Jimbo, a guy I work with hauling. I realized if I quit drinking, I’d have enough money to to afford it.

It’s almost two months now and we havent opened, but by January first we will swing wide the gates of garbage.

It’s been ten minutes since I wrote that last sentence. The nice leather work gloves my parents sent me for Christmas are laying on top of the stack of invoices and bills here at the desk.

I’ve been working so much my girlfriend went and got a kitten for companionship and I haven’t gotten a single gift for anyone this year.

The storytelling part of me is turning into a hoarders backyard, the broken bit of conversation I see so much potential in isn’t even under a tarp, it just sits and rots. The pictures I could have taken at these foreclosed homes, the eviction cases, the old folks who’ve passed away and the basement sat untouched for years, the possibility of taking those pictures vanished when I threw everything in my truck and hauled it to a transfer station.

The end of the year is a quick right and another left away and I’m not mourning it’s passing, I’m hoping that this next one I handle a little better, squeeze more of the juice from it, now that the tree is growing stronger.

Cleaned out an apartment after an eviction. This is how we found the living room.

This nut comes by and tells me stories about the old days and I give him junk from my collection in trade.

Jimbo and me, we’re getting all the junk from the backyard been under tarps, knocking off the rat turds and settin’ up a shop. Gonna sell it all, and more keeps comin’ in so we figure we’ll pump till the well runs dry.
This storefront we rent from a couple old Chinese guys and they said “Hell, knock down walls ‘n whatever” so there’s Jimbo’s finger startin’ to knock down a wall.