Duncan's Blog

It's short for office temporary; an office worker hired, usually through an agency on a per diem basis, for a short period of time. I had done it mostly in the capacity of word processor/typist, data entry clerk, filing clerk, or--in the later years--administrative assistant. I also worked as a temp in the travel industry. My last short term assignment was supposed to have lasted 6 months. It got extended to two years. I entered the backlog data from one system into another for the Forensic Outpatient Program of the Department of Mental Health located at Men's Central Jail in Los Angeles County. Quite a mouthful.
I did get to meet celebrities, victims, and accused persons such as Rodney King, the Menendez Brothers, and others whose names I would not care to mention in polite company. (This was during the era when the Twin Towers were being built in Los Angeles).
I did other things that didn't secure me a spot in the world of commerce, trade, science, arts... I was also a background extra for television and movies; a face in the crowd, a juror in the jury box, a waiter, a patron at a bar. Sometimes there was need for a large group of humans--a cattle call--and background extras were summoned not only through Central Casting, but also from the Employment Development Department (the unemployment insurance division in California).
Back in the day before personal computers and cell phones, all assignments were made by telephone. When I was looking for work, I would sometimes call a dozen agencies two or three times a day to let them know of my availability. I'd have piles of time cards from different agencies... and I remember having to trudge my way to the agencies at the end of the pay period to pick up my check (because who wants to wait a week for the check to arrive in the mail?).
I worked in banks, law firms, architect firms, and non-profit agencies. I worked for a man who had Westinghouse quality parts manufactured in Taiwan and shipped to companies in South and Central America. I did bookkeeping, worked a switchboard, was a towel boy at a men's sauna, and worked as a sitter in a hospital. I even had an off-the-books job of driving female escorts to their appointments.
Now I work as a nurse and a labor union representative. My work days are Monday through Friday with federal holidays off. I accrue sick leave (something that doesn't happen in the temp agency world).
I took a look on GOOGLE to see if any of the old names I knew are still in business. ADIA has been around for a while. AppleOne is also a tried and true name. Kelly Services (makers of the Kelly girl) and Adecco are also names from the past.
Sometimes I do think about getting a second job. It's not as if I have a ton of free time, but getting overtime from my current employer isn't always easy. At 60+, however, I must look examine my options realistically.

Etymology
Middle English, from Medieval Latin comoedia, from Latin, drama with a happy ending, from Greek komoidia, from komos revel + aeidein to sing

a medieval narrative that ends happily
Dante's Divine Comedy

a literary work written in a comic style or treating a comic theme
the ancient Roman comedies of Plautus
a drama of light and amusing character and typically with a happy ending
a comedy about parenthood

the genre of dramatic literature dealing with the comic or with the serious in a light or satirical manner
compare tragedy
a ludicrous or farcical event or series of events
a comedy of errors
the comic element
the comedy of many life situations

humorous entertainment
nightclub comedy

As I age, I find less and less humor in the challenges brought about by life. I'm spending a holiday weekend at the home of a friend. She has back aches and muscle spasms in the lower half of her body. She walks with a walker that offers scant little assistance as an assistive device when ascending or descending the steps from her home to the street. She is in constant fear of falling or of losing her balance. In short, falling down is not funny and should never be a laughing matter.

While here I got to binge watch a season of Grace and Frankie, the story of two aging women who form an unlikely friendship after their husbands reveal they are in love with each other and plan to get married. I don't know what is worse about the story line; how strange the grown children are? how unaware the wives are that their husbands are absent? how self-absorbed the aging women are in their own development?

Stories like these make me reflect on my own life. I have never been unfaithful while in a relationship and I have also never tried to begin a romantic encounter with someone if I knew he was already engaged or committed. If that person wanted to be with me, that person would have to terminate his current relationship.

There are plenty of oddities in my life that don't involve the human relationship condition. Food, money, animal care, faith, spirit... I wonder about the family line and tribe into which I was born inasmuch as I think of becoming part of something else. Do I really need such a thing at this time in my life? Would my life and thoughts and feelings and visions be relevant in and around another group.

Going back to the original definitions of comedy, I feel angry at the notion of thinking about my life as comedy. It is not lighthearted and it is not serious in a way that it should be treated lightly. I think of my life as meaningful and purposeful and significant to me. I also think that my life will always be relevant. And as long as there is toxicity in it, there will be no comedy.

'WEVD was an American brokered programming radio station with some news-talk launched in August 1927 by the Socialist Party of America. Making use of the initials of recently deceased party leader Eugene Victor Debs in its call sign, the station operated from Woodhaven in the New York City borough of Queens. The station was purchased with a $250,000 radio fund raised by the Socialist Party in its largest fundraising effort of the 1920s and was intended to spread progressive ideas to a mass audience. A number of national trade unions and other institutions aided the Socialists in obtaining the station."

When I was a teenager, listening to AM radio was something done by the elderly. Favorite radio stations were dialogue radio (called talk radio in California). However, there was one non-Spanish foreign language station that stood out to me among the rest. WEVD. It had European languages such as Polish, German, and Yiddish. I often wondered what the station must have been like with Jewish and Polish or German announcers in the same work station. It would have been like cats and dogs. Of course, the Jewish programs were probably off the air on Friday nights and Saturdays, so no one had to worry about such potential horrors.

I listened to the music. Most of the time I had no idea what I was listening to. it was just a matter of hearing the sounds and being
able to duplicate them.

These days there is nothing comparable to that. One can find Internet radio stations from just about every country that transmits sounds.

I was going somewhere with this, but it's too late to continue, so I will pick up on it at a later time/date.

A little bit of math might be required for this.

I was born and raised in New York City for 25 years, 8 months, 29 days. As of today, I have lived in California for 38 years, 7 days.
I've been in New York for 40.38% of my life and in California for 59.62% of my life
There are differences in our word choices and it's the New Yorkers who seem to be more uncomfortable or bent out of shape when they hear the alternate choices. Some of the combinations are quite minuscule and hardly noticeable (at least to me); in line vs on line, carded vs proofed, DUI vs DWI. But one of the strangest combinations to me is the waiting for vs waiting on. In New York, waiting on is generally used by employees at a restaurant. "I am waiting on table 9." The patron might reply, "Oh, Miss! I'm still waiting for my tea!"
Another odd pair is come up vs grow up. "When I was comin' up, ever'body knew how to hot wire a car," vs "When I was growing up, we knew basic algebra BEFORE entering high school." I think it's more of an urban vs rural dichotomy than east vs west comparison.
Dropping the use of brand names took a while. Hellmans vs Best Foods. Castro vs Futon. Hostess vs Drake's.


Some of the products never make it to the other coast. Devil Dogs and FunnyBones are a perfect example. That's why it's generally best to use generic terminology when speaking with those on the opposite coast.
When I meet folks from other English-speaking countries (except Canada), I usually ask them if they miss not hearing the sounds of their homeland. Most say no because they tell me that regional differences can vary greatly from hamlet to hamlet. This is something I've noticed, but here it's more based on education level. I am shocked at the number of people who try to imitate the voice of the Jean Stapleton character on ALL IN THE FAMILY when speaking to me. I usually retort with, "Is something wrong with your throat? I couldn't understand what you just said." If the person repeats it, I let him/__/them/her know that that's the last time I listen to that nonsense.
We also have differences in our choices based on our ethnicities, our religions, our superstitious beliefs, and a whole host of other mitigating factors.
That's my two cents for today.

It's a line from a first year French text book, VOUS et MOI, that was used in the New York City Board of Education's public high school in the mid-1970s. Back in the day, the language books had 'typical' dialogues between family, friends, students and teachers, government employees and the public. In this particular dialogue, the family was at the dinner table and the son discussed some of the everyday eating habits of Americans. In one such dialogue, he said that the Americans eat potage (a thick creamed soup) with buttered bread. The sister was repelled by such a combination and uttered, "Du pain beurré avec potage? Quelle horreur!"

As an American, I am quite familiar with the diner culture of having a breadbasket and some easily spread butter nearby (oleo if the home is kosher). What's funny to the English speaker is the use of the partitive.

From the Internet: "Partitive articles are used both in English and in French to express quantities that cannot be counted. While the indefinite article (un, une, des) is used with countable quantities (un oeuf, deux oeufs, etc.), the partitive article is used before nouns that are indivisible or uncountable. In English, we use the article “some” to that end, but it is often omitted."

After years of public school Spanish, I switched to two semesters of French in my senior year. Boy, was that fun and eye opening! It's carried me through life and every now and again I pick up current text books to see what vocabulary is most popular. Mind you, phonograph records that one would hear on the chaîne stéréophonique were all the rage back when The Beatles were cutting albums. Nowadays folks don't even buy or listen to CDs. It's flash drive or thumb drives. I'm not current with the latest technology.

The phrase of repulsion has stayed with me over the decades. I am also an avid soup maker and the thought of having bread or crackers with soup (with or without butter) is of no consequence to me. But, of course, this is from a culture that has normalized the consumption of snails, frogs, and engorged goose liver.

Bon appétit !