My job is awful,
But this album is worse.
I pass him on the stairs. Gazing into the bloodshot eyes of a man whose bowel has erupted in brown rage not once but three times in one day. He doesn’t know that I know. It was like picking up mud in the pouring rain.
My job is awful,
But this album is worse.
It reminds me of the still warm projectile vomit on the shower wall after her own child defecated on her two bare feet. The distorted cucumber of faeces mashed onto the toilet seat lid. The customer who used their own crap as a crayon to write ‘Poo’ on a toilet wall. Shitty hand prints searching blindly for toilet roll in a well-lit and amply provisioned cubicle. The look of achievement on her face as she explained how they got most of it down the drain. The day that it found its way into an already blocked urinal. He hoses it into a corner half way down a flight of stairs. The look on her face when she found it straining through the slats of a wooden seat. Spread it up walls and drag it down halls. Their son’s shoes are trailing dog shit through a shivering crowd. Found it in a bin, concealed under the liner. Vomit, piss, shit, 0 negative thru AB positive, toenails, bloody tampons, used condoms, oozing soiled nappies, no nappies assisted by gravity. There is a stick to push large quantities around the U bend. It’s either that or dig in. Hard water liberates the stink of yesterday’s dried piss. They walk through this with open sores. Tracking wounded animals. The skin on his feet slips easily. He tells me so. I offer him a band-aid. He departs flanked by school students. And leaves me with his pool of coagulating blood.
My job is awful,
But this album is worse.
Conveniences beget inconveniences. They’re completely unaware that their actions have consequences. Your five-year-old has far more insight into how things take time and when closed actually means closed. Toddlers howl at the same subset of minor horrors that their thirty-something parents do. Too hot. Too cold. Waiting too long. Too many rules. “What’s that?!” they cry in abject terror. THAT is a wet leaf or a sodden bread crust. The vending machine won’t vend. It is out of order. They persist in a low blood sugar haze desperately feeding in coins like it’s two minutes ‘til closing at the pokies and they’re on the brink of that big win. The residual stink of hot fried chips in a small humid room totally unfit for habitation let alone a late tepid lunch. They’re mixing sugary drinks again. This time on the floor. Two fully laden school bags drop from the sky. “They’re too heavy to carry,” they say. I explain the situation to their teacher but he’s far too busy being a Speight’s billboard for a lesson in terminal velocity. His eyes fixed on something behind me. I’m transparent again. They’ve been behind that locked door for half an hour. How they maintain arousal is beyond me. In there. In it. Someone threatens to call the cops. The door opens. Four eyes meet forty daggers. Parents peel and re-skin their kids for class. In there. In them.
My job is awful
But this album is worse.
I’m trying to eat lunch but he’s relaying that one of his mates can’t wear a motorcycle helmet in a bank so why should they be able to exercise a basic religious tradition? “Ban it,” he says, and “they’ll take over soon”. They’ll have us working on rice paddies if his worst nightmare comes true. Wouldn’t you be better off learning Chinese? Why should we? But you’re not Māori! They sold that land for a dog and a blanket! They call us white pigs! He’s got a bit in him! Casual racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, it’s all here, in the staff room. “SHE is cute”. SHE is an electrician. He feels a little wrong when he realises he’s been staring at the ten year old ass of your daughter. He’s ridiculed for letting the team down by not sleeping with an intoxicated colleague at the staff Xmas party. She makes a camp hand gesture when considering a gender-neutral toilet, “you know, for people who are a bit like that”. “You’re not in the middle east any more,” he whispers to me. She has olive skin and is wearing t-shirt and shorts. Staring, giggling, and that masculine nudge to the ribs. He salivates over a stranger and his identically dressed minions vacate the room in sly pursuit. I’ve talked to some female workmates about this. To get their point of view. They say they see it. They say it’s a problem. She’s resigned to giving it as good as she gets. They say it’s not worth the trouble. When they’re not around he has referred to them by their breast size. And this one plays an unconvincing support role. He doesn’t mean it but says it anyway. Most of the people I work with are okay. But it only takes a few. He’s twenty years younger. That giggle is a sign. The poison working. Casual. As. Bro.
My job is awful,
But could this album be that awful?
Yes it can. Because of songs like ‘Tits out for the boys’ and ‘Young MILFS’. Sorry lads, you can’t reframe misogynistic slurs, and if do you can’t expect it to come across as satirical or critical of rape culture. Fact is you shouldn’t be saying it at all; let alone using it as fodder for chorus hooks.
Ghosts of Electricity and their new album can fuck off.
Their music reminds me of my job.
And my job is awful.