The Setting

A four-lane boulevard somewhere in San Francisco—capital city of the TechnoFascist mafia. Three different bus lines pass through this corridor; a Muni train track splits the lanes; it’s a commute route populated by every kind of vehicle, from electric scooters to big-rig diesels. Planes launching out of SFO carve their way through the sky at impossible angles. Maybe a hundred yards out from my post at the shop door, there’s an Amtrak train line too.

In Friedrich Georg Juenger’s book The Failure of Technology, written back in the 1930s and suppressed by the Nazis, he discusses the enslavement of “elementary forces” to industrial technology—the mechanical cages that extract the power of fire, air, electricity, water, steam.

Stand here with me on this boulevard for a moment, and listen to the sounds of those elementary forces—screaming, whining, roaring, hissing; the torture chamber of mechanical life. From the growl of the diesel engine to the high-pitched flying saucer hum of electric cars and driverless drone cabs, these are the sounds of natural forces chained and yoked.

Those forces are waiting, at all times, to unleash their fury—people crushed and mutilated in car accidents, flying through the air and crashing down onto the asphalt after being knocked off scooters… and so on.

For somewhere between twenty and thirty hours a week, I stand on the cement and absorb the vibrations of industrial slavery, breathe the smog of fossil fumes, observe the mad rush of cars and trucks and buses and trains, shuttling people to nowhere.

Then a customer arrives at the shop, and I pack away my despair to smile and greet them.

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For the better part of the last six years I worked as a graveyard-shift road warrior (“security guard”), staying up all night guarding warehouses. I had so, so very many glorious hours entirely to myself, to spend talking to friends and family on the phone, furiously typing unhinged screeds, hand-writing letters, packaging up zines to mail all over the country, watching movies, practicing kungfu, writing songs, composing beats, observing stray cats and street people, reading books, and generally enjoying the free mental space that is so absolutely necessary for human beings to have any real sense of themselves.

I also had to carry a gun (9mm loaded with hollowpoint rounds—they’re less likely to go through walls and injure bystanders, and their tips spread when they hit to maximize flesh destruction), and I had several hair-raising, potentially life-threatening encounters… but sometimes that’s the price of freedom.

For various reasons—some economic, and some having to do with the intricacies of professional dope-dealing, (i.e. the now-pseudo-official “cannabis industry”)—the company I work for has been bleeding contracts for years, and the site-options and hours have gotten steadily narrower. Back in June, the company lost the contract for the site I’d been working at for almost three years, and I was faced with a choice: rejoin the daywalkers as a door guard at a cannabis dispensary, or look for another job. I opted for the sun.

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I spent about four months working this site before my boss told me I wasn’t supposed to be carrying a gun there. That would’ve been nice to know; I sure spent a whole lot of time accustoming myself to maneuvering in such a way that my right hip was always facing away from anyone near me. Could’ve skipped that particular Shaolin chamber, boss, but nevermind. Now, I no longer have to carry a firearm (thank the gods—I never liked packing).

But also: now, I have one less force-option for dealing with trouble, while at the same time having many more encounters with people who might make trouble. I’m still adjusting; I feel naked without the weight and heft of the pistol and extra clips on my belt.

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When I first started working for this guard company in 2020, I was vehement in my refusal to work public-facing sites. Having spent ten years in the “service industry,” slanging beer & food and mollycoddling brats, and then another six years working in non-profits & schools with cyborg idiots, the last thing I wanted to return to was dealing with other humans and their bullshit as a matter of employment. I like the lonely night shift; there’s nobody to micromanage me or tell me what to do.

I was also vehement in my refusal to go over The Bridge. This is Bay Area shit—nobody in Oakland really wants to have to drive over the Bay Bridge to SF to do, well, anything, and the same is true in reverse. It’s not that it’s matter of distance—from my driveway in East Oakland to the bank parking lot where I leave my car is exactly nineteen miles, a reasonable urban commute—it’s that The Bridge is a constant traffic nightmare… and the toll is currently up to $8.50—that’s $170 a month for those poor souls traversing the Bridge five days a week… plus the cost of gas, for those of us who can’t afford a car payment (or insurance) on a fancy electric vehicle. As I write this, the price of gas at the cheap spots in town is six bucks a gallon.

The first hour I’m at work, every shift, I’m barely recouping what it cost to get there.

On a good day, I’ve made the journey to work in about 25 minutes. On a regular commute day it’s about 45 minutes. Every single Monday, when I work a double shift from 7:30am to 9:30pm, it takes me at least an hour to get to work in morning traffic—mechanical purgatory in a river of cars and brake lights lumbering off into the horizon. That’s if I leave by 6am; if I wait until 6:30 to get on the road, the commute time jumps to over ninety minutes.

In the evenings when I return home, the traffic is usually thin… unless CalTrans has shut down lanes or on-ramps or entire sections of the freeway for construction—which happens almost every day—in which case I either have to figure out an elaborate detour without the benefit of smartphone or GPS, or just wait out my time in mechanical purgatory once again.

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The block where the shop is located is mixed commercial/residential; it consists of one gigantic block-long building, parceled into sections—you got however many shops on the ground floor, however many apartments on the second floor. People who think that such an urban living arrangement is something worth advocating are clearly insane, and have no understanding of healthy, human-scale community; we’re not meant to be piled on top of each other.

Anyway, this arrangement means there are people who live here; coming and going, commuting to and from work, walking their dogs, going out for a jog, passing by on a regular basis. I have a job to do, but I’m also a visitor to their world, and therefore I behave with the proper respect: I smile, nod, salute, acknowledge all the locals… except the ones who are clearly getting through the everyday trauma of urban living by ignoring anyone they pass by. I respect them by reciprocating; I ignore them.

People live here, so please don’t park your goddamn (bike/scooter/whatever) in front of the neighbors’ sidewalk-level security door just because it’s next to the shop—respect the block. Please move it over here in front of the shop’s window.

“Are you gonna watch my (bike/scooter/whatever)?” I’ll tell you the same thing I tell everybody: the chances of something happening to your bike are slim, because I’m standing here (with an aura that’s legible to petty criminals; it says, “don’t try it”)… but also, I cannot take responsibility for your vehicle.

Translation: I’m not going to fight somebody—to put my/their physical safety and possibly my/their life in danger—to defend your consumer item.

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The neighborhood is ethnically diverse—mostly Pacific Islanders (Hawaiians, Tongans, Samoans, Filipinos) and Chinese (mostly Cantonese speakers), along with Latinos, Blacks, whites, and even a few Middle Eastern folks. It’s at the intersection of two SF regions that for decades have been working-class and/or ghetto areas. I’m purposely being vague about specifics (plausible deniability), but any born-and-raised Friscoan could figure it out.

In terms of clientele, everyone comes to this shop. Working this site has given me a real insight into how much people love cannabis. Name a class or ethnic group, or any combination thereof—they all pass through. From the yuppie twenty-something white girl looking for an edible that will help her sick dad get a full night’s sleep, to the tourists from Texas who can’t wait to buy weed at an actual store, to the Poppy Street, Long Beach cholo kid who was excited when I quoted him some Vince Staples lyrics, to the local regulars who come through multiple times per week.

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The Job

To protect myself—from violence, jail, physical exhaustion, and boredom; to protect the staff and the customers from the first item on that list; to keep my job; to protect the “client’s interests”… in that order.

Current California cannabis law says: if you’re over the age of 21, you can legally buy cannabis products; if you’re over 18, you can do so with a doctor’s medical recommendation. As the door guard, I have to check I.D.s… But wait, there’s more!

Remember, all of this is happening in TechoBabylon’s capital city, and is therefore cyberneticized—you the customer come to the door, I take your I.D., then I use an i-pad to scan its barcode, entering all of your personal information into a private, commercial computer system. Your phone number is required, along with a picture of your I.D. And, by the way, the computer system keeps a record of every transaction you make here.

I think all of this is phenomenally creepy… but the children of cybergenesis value everything in terms of convenience. Here’s an example of a conversation that I have with new customers at least twenty times a week:

Me: “If you come here and for some reason you don’t have your I.D., you can give us your phone number and we can look up your info.”

Them: “Wow! That’s so cool!”

Ugh.

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Block Chiefing

There’s a forty-something Chicano dude who lives in an apartment on the block; we’ll call him Beto. Beto is covered with street and prison tats. He has a pitbull bitch who he exercises by leashing her up and letting her pull him on a scooter all through the neighborhood. He recently made her a harness that can hold weights, so she can get bulked up while she runs.

Beto knows everyone on the block. He works for the city as a street cleaner—the people in iridescent vests who walk the neighborhoods, dragging garbage bins, picking up trash. Even when he’s not at work, he makes sure the block is tidy; twice a day, every day, he walks up and down the block with a battery-powered blower, blowing trash and dead leaves off the sidewalk. Whenever I work, we exchange daps and greetings.

Beto drops off and picks up his kids from school. Beto plays loud Reggaeton music through a wireless speaker. Beto sits on the front stoop, smoking blunts and scrolling through his phone. Beto watches the turf.

If someone attacked me, Beto would help me.

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The Fine Art of Telling People “No”

Parking ain’t allowed on this block of the boulevard. Shop rules—and the weighted sign I put out on the curb in the mornings—say: no parking, no drop-offs, no pick-ups out front, otherwise you will not be admitted. The city of SF can and will levy fines on the shop if customers are obstructing this part of the boulevard; it’s a bus route. By far, the most amount of conflict I’ve gotten into has been from explaining and/or enforcing these rules.

My second month on the job, a guy I’ve taken to referring to as Hoodrat Jackson spent almost thirty minutes ranting, raving, and threatening me, all while stalking up and down the sidewalk in front of the shop… because I refused to let him in.

It was Shakespearean melodrama of the highest order, as if at any moment it might turn into a music video: half a dozen of his miscreant buddies would materialize and commence a dance number, and I’d be the bad guy because I’m the Authority Figure—You’se a BITCH! Ah hee-hee!

I didn’t refuse admittance to this dude because he broke the rules by getting dropped off out front; I refused admittance because when I attempted to explain the rules, he immediately got aggressive, domineering, and rude. Not gonna fly.

This was not a fun experience, but the way I handled it made me somewhat of a hero at the shop; this dude screamed and cussed and insulted my ancestry, and I just stood there leaning against the doorway watching him, calm as a Hindu cow. The biggest challenge for me, after the initial “oh, shit—conflict!” adrenaline dump, was refraining from laughing at his ridiculous behavior; me giggling at this weak-ego bitch boy would almost certainly have escalated the situation.

After that incident, all these stoner kids in their twenties who work in the shop now remember my name; we’d been introduced of course, but they didn’t bother to actually learn my name until they read it on my incident report to management.

Now, they trust me. They’ve brought me food and coffee. They tell me personal stories and gossip. I’ve proved my worth to the tribe.

By the way, Hoodrat Jackson wasn’t the last guy to scream at me, cuss me out, threaten me, or try to punk me out. It’s happened several times since then—ex-cons, hoodrats, spoiled rich assholes… Many flavors of douchebag have tried to dominate me in the course of my job. They’ve all failed.

I’m negotiating… until.

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People usually associate the term kungfu with martial arts; this is only partially accurate. Kungfu, actually means something like, “skill acquired through time and effort.” In other words, anything someone is highly skilled at is a form of kungfu.

My “Diplomacy Kungfu” has gotten a serious upgrade in the months since I started working at this site. I have several spiels regarding shop rules that I regularly have to deliver to customers, but I’m not a robot, and I refuse to treat people as if they were interchangeable; every person is an individual, and it’s my duty to read their aura and respond accordingly.

There’s a great scene in the Patrick Swayze movie Roadhouse (1989)—the main character Dalton, a bouncer and professional problem-solver, is talking to his mentor Wade Garrett on the phone; Garrett, played by the incomparable Sam Elliot, is on duty as the bouncer at a strip club when a baby-faced army dude partying with his squad buddies starts getting pawsy with the girl on stage. Garrett checks the army dude in a way that not only prevents further conflict, but leaves the kid feeling like a kind old uncle just gently steered him back onto the right path.

Wade Garrett is fictional, but the professionals he’s based on could have easily opted for stomping out the entire cadet squad; “violence is the first option and last choice of the competent.” Instead, he bonded with them. Being a good professional thug requires a love for other people.

Dalton says in the beginning of the film, “Wade Garrett is the best.” This is now my daily mantra. Wade Garrett represents a standard to live up to—the bodhisatva of door guards.

A few weeks ago, after watching me diplomatically check a woman at the door who was acting up, I overheard one of the shopkeepers say to another, “Malik is the best.”

Nah.

Wade Garrett is the best.