fightin the battle of who could care less.

day five, second week. I didn't update last week, because I didn't want to. I don't really want to now, but I'm going to do it anyway because I want to try and use this thing a little bit.

first off-- I'm working in the Basilica, and the power tool that I have had most contact with is Bosch Hammer-Drill. Now we also have Hilti and DeWalt Hammer Drills, but they are much more badass and larger, and so up to now, I have only had access to the little guy. I am told that I will be able to use the Hilti tomorrow though, since my current task is becoming increasingly impossible and dangerous with the little bosch hammer thingy. I spent essentially all of today after morning break cuting a hole in the ceiling of the crypt/vault place under the alter. Basically I'm demo-ing a portion of ceiling that the pope has stood on while doing a service and delivering delicious eucharist… mmmm good. The plaster was simple and fell off, but the two layers of vaulted brick took me the entire day to chip through and as I reached what was supposed to be a ‘void’ under the marble, i.e. a big empty pocket space, it turned out that instead of a void, I instead had a foot of two hundred year old concrete and asbestos laden pipes to deal with. So my boss of bosses revived the plan, tomorrow I get to actually sit on the alter, while poor catholic worshipers are trying to pray up front, and drill a shitload of holes down through the marble and into the room below, where I was working. This is a. very cool to be doing this kind of stuff in that kind of place and b. great because none of the stuff will be dropping all over my head, face and body. It was great fun because I needed a mask to combat the hundreds of plaster, concrete and brick particles I was creating, and then also a hard hat to deal with the falling bricks, and then safety classes to protect against the aforesaid dust. That was all well and good, and I was thankful to have that shit. But I could in no way get the dust mask right so that my hot, moist breath would leave through the filter, instead of through the top and into my glasses. The result is that I was effectively blind the whole time, so I’d drop the glasses, decide which brick I was going to chip away at for a half hour, and then put the glasses back on and hammer somewhat blindly at the brick. It was really swell. Oh well enough of that.

<>There was also a time last week where I helped build the decking over the main dome opening, which is suspended 300ft above the sanctuary’s beautiful and incredibly hard green marble floor. The opening that we had to deck in was about 30ft in diameter, and while the materials were already up there, since they had had a deck before and ripped it apart, we still had to screw it all together again. My favorite part was when my immediate boss and working companion, George, decides to sit on the unfastened TGI Joists and plants himself out over open space in order to screw in a base board that is out of reach. He did not have a harness on, and I think about all I might have been able to do if the wobbly pieces of wood had fallen on their side is grab his belt… His comment about that little episode was simply “Huh, that used to be so much more fun when I was younger.”<>Then there’s Randy, the Forman for our Concrete Sub-Contractors. He’s an older guy, looks like he might be a nice old man, but don’t be fooled. I paused for about 30 seconds in between debris hauling to watch his crew pour concrete. In that time he called numerous members of his crew ‘silly fucking cunts’ and ‘dumb fuck coons.’ Then he saw me watching and yelled something more or less indistinguishable but involved lots of ‘you stupid fucker’ and ‘don’t fucking watch me.’ Later, when I was taking a tour of the trenches with George to see the progress on the Concrete, Randy favored us with this lovely joke in front of his crew, who are entirely black: “What do you call a busload of niggers heading to hell with an empty seat? … A Goddamned Shame, that’s what! HAR HAR HAR!” His laborers just shook their heads and George and I looked really uncomfortable. He has been much more cordial to me since he found out that I can shovel, and probably likes me because I am white. I am staying away from that man. <>

As well, in the realm of racial fun, I listened to a Masonry foreman bitch about Mexicans and how useless they are for a full half hour while I was doing ‘housekeeping’ work in the basement. The construction culture, or I should say lack of culture, never ceases to amaze me. But I shouldn’t act so shocked, I mean I knew what these workers would be like, but still found it interesting at how racist they can be on a project that is being run by a black man, my ultimate onsite boss. There are a lot of bosses, or I guess I could just say that since I’m at the bottom of the totem pole, everyone is my boss. Except Randy and thank god for that. <>I’ve never worked this hard before in my life, at least not physically, and I have to admit, I kinda like it. Shout out to my sister in arms Adrianna, who toils to make some drunk Scot moderately happy. Here’s to you banana trashbag.