The Wall Whisperer

Saturday, November 9, 1996

Running electric cable through wall cavities from an upstairs bedroom, I had to saw two small holes in the vast ceiling of a McMansion living room.  If I was slightly off in my positioning, if the wire wasn't waiting where I cut the ceiling, I'd have to enlarge the hole.  Which would be bad. 

Sometimes everything goes perfectly.  The wires were exactly at the cut.  Twice.  Minimal work, minimal patching required. 

The client was watching me, amazed.  "Dead on!" he shouted.  He was a banker, but he seemed like a pretty decent guy.  "How'd you know it would be right there?"

"Just lucky," I said.  Not true, of course.  I knew from measuring that I'd be within a couple inches of the spot.  And then I'd studied the ceiling — you learn how to interpret drywall, after a while, so you can almost see the joists in a finished surface, especially in a tract house.  A McMansion is basically a big tract. 

"Now would you hang a mirror in my bedroom?"

My screw hit the stud, first try.

"How'd you do that without using one of those stud-finding thingamajigs?"

"After a while, you get a feel for these things."

As the banker paid the bill, he gave me two bottles of white wine.  "You're a wall whisperer," he said. 

Sometimes you get praised for silly things.  I'll take it, though, and I won't worry until the walls start whispering back.

The Paper Route

1958 Joe Cottonwood, paper boy

November 6, 2012

Twice I had a paper route when I was growing up in the D.C. suburbs.  This was in the late 1950s.  First I had a morning route delivering the Washington Post, and later I had an afternoon route delivering the Washington Star. 

It gives you perspective, tossing papers to a front porch in the dark of morning on a snowy day.  It gives you perspective, seeing the senator from Minnesota come out in his bathrobe to pick it up.

They're just people.  Politicians, yes, but still they were people and they knew, most of them, how to get along with other people.  The best tipper was a lobbyist.  The worst was a member of the President's cabinet.  The scariest was a general.

Snowy days, sometimes my best friend and I would knock on doors, offering to shovel sidewalks for a buck or two.  It was probably the hardest I ever worked, but the money came fast.  One man invited us inside for a cup of hot cider, and then he wanted us to watch his model trains, but the vibe was creepy and we got the hell out of there.

Fifty years ago I saw a congressman painting his own garage.  I saw a member of the President's cabinet wearing plaid shorts and a T shirt in his yard raking leaves, and when he bent over I saw his butt crack.

Never, in those days, would a member of Congress have shouted at a President, "You lie!"  I had an extremely low opinion of President Eisenhower (much higher in retrospect), but I would never have shown any disrespect in his presence.  You just didn't do that.  The White House wasn't on my paper route, but some big white houses were.  People lived there.  They had dogs and kids and smelly garbage cans.  Just like the rest of the world.

Barack Obama could not have lived on my paper route back then.  No black people could.  It just wasn't allowed.  My parents, and a few others, would have welcomed a black family, but we were in the minority.

In some ways, the world is better now.  In other ways, meaner.  Today I'm voting for Barack Obama.  Again.  Welcome to the neighborhood.

Paying for Power in Palo Alto

Monday, November 2, 1981
 
A pleasant street in Palo Alto.  Plush lawns.  A man asked me to repair the wooden fence that separated his property from his neighbor.  A small job.  He said he'd pay me in full: "My neighbor should pay for half of it, since we share the fence, but Bella's such a cheapskate, I don't even want to deal with her."

When I show up, there's a problem: the man isn't home; his house is locked, and there's no outdoor power supply.  I need to use my electric saw.  Next door, Bella has an outlet on her porch.

I ring the doorbell.  She's an old woman living alone in a nice house.

"I'm repairing the fence," I say.  "Could I borrow a cup of electricity?"

"Whose paying for it?" Bella asks. 

I'm surprised.  Never been asked before.  But: "Okay," I say.  "I'll reimburse you for all the electricity I use."

She narrows her eyes.  "How will you know?"

"Hm.  I tell you what.  I'll keep track of how long the saw is running.  It's rated at thirteen amps, so at a hundred twenty volts I can calculate the number of kilowatt hours.  Then we can calculate the cost."

From the look on her face, I can see that she doesn't know an ampere from a volt from a kilowatt hour.  But she nods, pensively.  "Okay," she says.  "Cash."

I try to look as serious as I can.  "I shouldn't pay cash," I say.  "This will be a business expense, so I'll have to write you a check from my business account.  Otherwise my accountant will get angry."

Bella thinks it over for a moment.  "All right," she says.  "I'll take a check.  But then the IRS will think I'm getting taxable income, so you'll have to add twenty percent."

"Um, okay."

"Make it thirty."

"All right.  I'll add thirty percent."

I repair the fence.  It takes a couple of hours, which includes about five minutes total of running the power saw.  Let's call it six minutes, which is an even 1/10 of an hour.

I put the tools away, coil the extension cord, ring the doorbell.

"I'm ready to pay," I say.  "Shall we do the numbers?"

"Go ahead," she says.

I press buttons on my calculator, walking her through it: 

13 amps X 120 volts = 1560 watts, or 1.56 kilowatts. 
0.1 hour X 1.56 = 0.156 kilowatt hours of usage. 
Current electric rate [this is 1981] is 6 cents per kilowatt hour. 
Therefore I owe you 0.156 X 6 cents = 0.936 cents. 
Adding 30 percent for tax purposes, 0.936 X 1.3 = 1.2168 cents.

I can see she doesn't follow any of this.  "So you'll pay?" she says.

I write a check.  Generously, I round the 1.2168 up to a full 2 cents.  Signing it with a flourish, I tear the check loose and hand it to her.

Holding the check at arm's length, squinting, she makes a careful study — date, signature, amount. 

"Fair and square," she says. 

Money in hand, stepping back into the house, Bella closes the door.

How Insurance Is Done

August 1989

Isabella, my favorite decorator, sends me to a grand battleship of an Atherton estate, serviced by a flotilla of pickup trucks of which I am but one.  Carol, the owner, shows me a gate post that was struck by a delivery truck.  The post is a pagoda-like structure with cedar shingles.  One of the shingles is damaged.   

"Write me an estimate," Carol says.  Then she shows me a number of projects: widening a doorway, building an elaborate bench around an oak tree.  Classy work.  I've struck the mother lode. 

"Give me an idea what it'll cost," Carol says.  "Something I can tell my husband."  She winks.  "Then once he's on board, we can build whatever we want.  When can you start?"

"I can start next week.  I'll write up some numbers."

"Don't write it up.  Just tell me.  Except the gate post.  I need a written estimate for the insurance company.  Fax it to me.  Don't be cheap on that one.  I'm in the insurance business, so I know how this is done."

She must sell a lot of insurance to own this estate.

So here's the game: She expects me to bid low for most of the work — a nonbinding oral bid, so I'm fine with that — and bid high for the insurance work.  That evening, I write an estimate for the gate post.

Replace one cedar shingle:  Labor $150, materials $50.
Total: $200.

It's an outrageous estimate.  I'll do the entire job in fifteen minutes.  The materials — one shingle, two nails — will cost less than $1.  I'll make $10/minute on labor, with a 5000% markup on the shingle.

I fax it to Carol. 

She never responds.

Next week I call Isabella.  "What happened to Carol?"

"She didn't like your estimate for the gate post," Isabella says.  "In fact, she was furious."

"Yeah, it was grossly inflated.  She told me, 'Don't be cheap.'"

"No.  Not that.  It wasn't high enough.  Didn't she tell you she knows how insurance is done?  She's always saying that to me."

"She wanted it higher?"

"More zeroes.  Each number should've had one more zero."

"Can I change it?"

"No.  She's decided you're an idiot."

Bones

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Jeff climbs down from the cab of the Bobcat 331E excavator and plucks a couple of objects from the pile of dirt.  "Bones," he says.

My heart feels a jolt.

There are three bones.  One is old and large and decayed, the leg of a cow, most likely.  Tibia, I think.  I don't know how it came to be buried in my yard, but I'm guessing a dog was involved.
 
The other two bones are clean, relatively fresh, and a dog was definitely involved.  These are the tibia and fibula from a hind leg of my dog Norm, who I buried ten years ago.  I hadn't realized that I'd placed him right next to my lower septic drain field.

We're repairing the leach line.  After 32 years of service, roots have destroyed the pipes.  Muscular wooden creepers have strangled from the outside, while a solid mass of threads have blocked the inside.  It's all part of the challenge of living in a redwood forest.  The big trees, harvesting my sewage, are thriving.

I'd chosen to bury Norm just below the spot where I'd buried his best friend, my older dog, a golden lab mix named Oak.  In life, Oak had always roosted on a wooden loveseat in a sunny spot on my deck.  Norm would curl up at the foot of the loveseat, as close as Oak would allow. 
 

When Oak died, I buried him on the hillside below the deck.  I placed the old rotten loveseat over his grave, soon covered by vines of honeysuckle and ivy.  It seemed only fitting that when Norm died, I'd bury him at Oak's feet beside that now-collapsed loveseat.

Norm was a bouncy galumphus of a puppy who grew into a bouncy galumphus of a full-size black bear.  He looked like a mix of flat-coat retriever and newfie.  He slobbered.  He loved puddles.  

Norm had a tendency to overwhelm newcomers, so we often had to restrain him.  One day a Hindu panditji came to our house in connection with my daughter's wedding.  This wonderful, wise old man radiated lovingness while knowing only a few words of English.  Norm, of course, instantly loved him.  The panditji was delighted by antics that would lead most people to try to place a chair between themselves and the dog.  The panditji stared into Norm's eyes and said, "Big soul."
 

He could just as well have mentioned: Big paws.

Norm made a great pillow.
 

My youngest son, Will, grew up with Norm.  
 

It was Will who first placed a red bandanna on the dog.  It was Will who took Norm on long walks in the La Honda hills.  It was Will who shared his galumphing teenage years with Norm, growing his hair into dreadlocks, climbing (and falling out of) trees, playing in a rock band, wrecking the car, messing with girls, sampling illicit items, testing the limits of parental patience.  Maybe it's no coincidence that when Will went away to college, Norm declined rapidly.
 

Dogs give you years of love.  Then they leave you with a broken heart.  My kids had all left home; my daughter was getting married, and the day came when I knew Norm was dying.  On the deck outdoors under the trees I sat with him in daylight and into the night, touching him.  His breathing came hard.  "Dream of beaches," I said, rubbing the fur over his heart.  The breathing slowed.  And then stopped.

The big soul was released.  The woods were quiet and dark.  The moon was setting low among the redwoods.

Norm was a giant dog, and the next day I dug him a giant grave.  I placed his head uphill, facing Oak and the loveseat.  The panditji had left us bracelets of bright threads.  I was still wearing one around my wrist.  Now I placed another around Norm's front paw.  He wore a red bandanna around his neck, as he had for most of his life. 

Ten years later his legs, downhill, were clipped by the excavator.  When the work is finished, I'll bury the bones again.  With a fresh bandanna.  And freshly-blessed threads.

May he then rest in peace.

Danny Ain't: The Mitt and Ann Romney Edition

My novel Danny Ain't was written in 1990 and published in 1992.  Some of my friends are claiming that I wrote it about the 2012 presidential election.  I can see their point.

A large part of the story is about work.  About how to get ahead.  Since this blog is about work, I'm including it here.  I've been putting Danny Ain't on YouTube as an audiobook while I wait for the podcast to come out.  Episode 14 gets to the heart of it:

"Danny?  Have you already eaten?  Or would you like to join us for dinner?”

“I might have a few bites,” I said.

I walked over the white carpet down the hallway, following the smell of steak and baked potatoes in the air.

As soon as I sit down I grab a glass of milk and pour it straight down my throat until it’s gone with a few drops dribbling down my chin.  Then I cut off a big hunk of steak and slam it into my mouth, and cut another and stuff it in there before I finish chewing the first one so my cheek bulges out and I can’t even close my lips, and I cut another and happen to look up and see that Mrs. Livermore was just sitting there with her fork halfway to her mouth, staring at me.

“Hungry, Danny?” she said.

“A little.  I — uh — I’m not used to eating so late.”

Mr. Livermore was looking at me, too.  Like he’d look at a big hairy spider.

I slowed down.  Mr. and Mrs. Livermore drank red wine with the meal, one whole bottle and half of another.  I drank two more glasses of milk, ate another slab of steak, and helped myself to one and a half baked potatoes.

Mrs. Livermore with the blonde hair and blue eyes, the diamond earrings, and fancy dress looked to me like a movie star.  She could’ve been dressed for the Oscars instead of just for dinner.  Mr. Livermore had dark hair and one of those faces that always look like they need a shave.  Next to her he looked old and tired and angry.  His shoulders slumped forward, and his jaw looked like concrete.

When Mr. Livermore finished eating, he leaned back in his chair.  “Well, Norma,” he said, “I spoke with that man Henry Hoggle, and he said he could begin work on the pool tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Mrs. Livermore said.  “My, that’s quick.  Oh, this is excellent.”

Mr. Livermore nodded his head and said, “It’s a pleasure to speak to a man who’s eager to earn his money.”  He looked at me.  “Don’t you think so, young man?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.  “I mean, what other way is there to get money?”

“Some people,” Mr. Livermore said, “seem to think they can get money by whining for it.  There’s only one way to get ahead in this world, and that is to work for it.  Work hard.  It’s a choice you make.  You can choose to be poor, or you can choose to be rich.  You aren’t going to choose to be poor, are you, young man?”

“No, sir.  I’m not.”  Hear that?  I’m not.  Sitting at the Livermores’ table with Mrs. Livermore wearing diamond earrings under a sparkling chandelier, I could talk right.  It sounded right.  I said, “I’m not going to be poor.  I’m not going to make any more wrong choices.”

Mr. Livermore raised his eyebrows.  “You’ve made some already?”

“Well.  One,” I said.  A big one.  The first choice of my life.  If you believe that stuff.

Mrs. Livermore smiled.  “We’re all entitled to one mistake, Danny,” she said.  “But be careful.  There are a lot of temptations.  Sometimes it’s hard to stay focused on what you want.”

“I can stay focused,” I said.  “It’s not hard.”  Check it out: It’s not.  No more ain’t for me.  I was feeling like one classy dude.

Mr. Livermore sat leaning back in his chair, scowling.  He spoke, not to me but to his wife: “The main temptation of the poor,” he said, “is that they spend all their money as fast as they can get it.  They get paid, and they go directly to a tavern.  When I drive by that bar in town and I see all those decrepit old cars parked outside — and motorcycles — I can’t imagine what pleasure they see in there.”

“They meet their friends there,” I said.

“And spend all their money, no doubt,” Mr. Livermore said.

“Not really.  Pop goes there, and he doesn’t drink half as much as you do.”

Mr. Livermore winced. 

Mrs. Livermore said, “Danny, that’s not a nice thing to say.”

Mr. Livermore went back to scowling.  He leaned forward.  “Don’t mind what he says, Norma.  He’s just a little urchin.”

I’d seen urchins washed up on the beach.  They were purple with spiny things all over.  I didn’t know why he called me that.  But I didn’t like it.

“Well,” Mrs. Livermore said with a smile that seemed to take a lot of work, “tell me about this soccer game you’ve roped Law into playing tomorrow.  What is the name of your team?”

I coughed.

“What, Danny?”

“I forget.”

The funny thing was, I was taking a liking to Mrs. Livermore.  She meant well.  She could’ve brushed me off like a fly, but here she was feeding me dinner at her table and talking to me like she cared about me and encouraging Law to be friends with me, even though she didn’t know — she couldn’t even imagine — the way I live.  All she knew was that my clothes were raggedy and my skin was brown — two reasons for her to freeze me out of her life, if she wanted to.  But she didn’t.  The one who wanted to was Mr. Livermore, I think.  I guess that’s what he meant, calling me that name.

“Mr. Livermore,” I said, “about what you were saying — about earning money?  Could I ask you a question?”

“What is it, young man?”  He looked uneasy.

“How did you earn the money for that car?”

“Oh.  Well, you see, I was a Cee Eee Oh.  That means Chief Executive Officer.  I was the boss.  I ran a company.”

“You don’t anymore?”

“Well . . . no.  The company doesn’t exist anymore.”

“You mean you quit?”

“No.  The company quit.  It went bankrupt.”

“Bankrupt?  Doesn’t that mean it went broke?”

“Yes.”

“That sounds like a dsh situation.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“How can you get rich if your company goes broke?”

Mr. Livermore frowned.  He didn’t answer.

Mrs. Livermore leaned forward and explained: “You see, Danny, he didn’t own the company.  He just ran it.”

“Norma,” Mr. Livermore said, “it is not necessary to explain — ”

“The boy wants to learn,” Mrs. Livermore said.  “You see, running a company is a very important job.  So they pay you a lot of money.”

“But if the company goes broke, doesn’t that mean you didn’t do your job right?  Isn’t it your job to keep the company from going broke?  Why would they pay you — ”

“That’s enough!” Mr. Livermore said.

“Yes, Nathan,” Mrs. Livermore said.

And they both poured themselves another glass of wine.

“So,” I said, “the way to get rich is to run a company that goes bankrupt.”

Mrs. Livermore shook her head, but she also smiled.  Mr. Livermore just scowled.

“Going bankrupt,” Mrs. Livermore said, “is very complicated.  I never understood it myself.”

“Then I guess I can’t, either.”

“Some day you will, Danny.  When you learn more about business.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“Good.”

“I’m going to work hard and earn a lot of money and buy a car just like yours.”

“Good, Danny.”  Mrs. Livermore looked pleased.  “We all should earn the money for the things we want.”

“What about you, Mrs. Livermore?  How did you earn the money for that car?”

“Me?  Oh, well, I married Nathan.”

“Is that like going bankrupt?”

Mr. Livermore pushed back his chair with a screech that made me wonder if he’d ripped the carpet.  Mrs. Livermore raised an eyebrow and watched him leave the table.

She never answered my question.

Gone podcasting...

I've interrupted my posting of 365 Jobs.  I'll get back to it in a few weeks.  Every once in a while - I'm sorry - but I have to do a podcast.  I just have to.  I've started recording a new one, and it will take a few weeks.  It's an obsessive, all-consuming project.  There's no time for anything else.

I became interested in podcasting about 5 years ago, when it was a relatively new frontier.  I'd just finished writing my novel Clear Heart and was looking for what every writer needs, the two "pubs": publicity and publication.

I ended up self-publishing Clear Heart and self-publicizing it by recording it as an audiobook to be distributed as a podcast.  I hoped that people would hear the podcast (for free) and then want to buy a copy of the book (for money). 


The podcast was and still is a popular success, but it didn't convert into book sales.  And why should it?   People listen, then they're done with the story - why read it again?

In the process, I came to love podcasting.  I love making audiobooks.  It's like a street performance with my hat out on the sidewalk seeded with a few dollar bills.  There's very little money to be made - a few people leave "tips" for the podcaster, but most people simply listen and then move on.  And that's okay. 

Five years after I started, the podcasting of audiobooks remains a relatively obscure subculture.  With the worldwide reach of the web, podcasting has the potential to reach billions of people.  One could at least dream of reaching millions.

In reality, I've reached about 60,000 people.  I'm still reaching a couple of thousand new people every month.  As a radio show, those numbers would mean I'm a dismal failure.  As a podcaster, I'm not ashamed.

For the new podcast, I'll be recording Danny Ain't.  By now I have realistic expectations.  There's no recognition by any other media.  It won't help sales of print or ebook versions.

I do it for love.  I love giving voice to what I've written, and I get satisfaction from having people hear it.  I love literature as an oral tradition, and I love being part of that tradition. 

I want to thank Evo Terra and all the folks at podiobooks.com for hosting my podcasts and for their technical help.

If you're interested, you can download my podcasts from the iTunes "store."  They're free.  Simply go to the iTunes store and search for "Joe Cottonwood."  The most popular title is Babcock, followed by Clear Heart and then Boone Barnaby.  Clear Heart is strictly for adults.  Babcock and Boone Barnaby are for all ages.

And of course, I'll let you know when Danny Ain't becomes available for downloading as a podcast.

If you don't care about podcasts, my apologies.  I'll get back to blogging (which I love as much as podcasting) in a week or two.  Or three.  It's summer.  Let's have fun.