In olden times, before the internet, I published a questionable little magazine (I use the term loosely) called The West Virginia Surf Report. It was filled with absurd articles and straight-up silliness, very similar to the stuff I’m now writing for Mockable. Like this, and this, and this.
It was all “material,” completely and quite obviously fabricated. I was influenced heavily by the National Lampoon, and was trying to duplicate the tone and brilliance of their writers. Unsuccessfully, I might add.
When I moved to California, in 1996, I started hanging out with Mark Maynard, who, along with his girlfriend (now wife) Linette, published the legendary zine, Crimewave U.S.A. We had a lot of ridiculous fun out there, pulling stunts (like wearing sandwich boards outside NBC studios — offering to make their sitcoms funny), and engaging in all manner of stupidity.
Mark asked me to write an article for the next issue of his magazine, but I didn’t think my stuff was a good fit for Crimewave. His zine was all about personal stories, autobiographical humor, and that sort of thing. I just made up silly bullshit; I’d never written about myself, had never even considered such a thing.
But he kept pushing me, and I decided to give it a shot.
After some frantic contemplation, I decided I might be able to get some mileage out of my time spent working at a convenience store in Dunbar, WV, back during the mid-1980s, and went to work on it.
Not wanting to embarrass myself in front of the entire zine community (Crimewave was very popular), I spent an inordinate amount of time on it. I sweated bullets over that article, and tried to make it as good as my talents would allow.
And it actually worked. I was pleased with the results, as were Mark and Linette, and there was a lot of positive feedback from the readers, as well. In fact, that article was better received than anything I’d written before. It was an amazing turn of events.
During that same approximate period I discovered Krista Garcia’s online journal (the word “blog” hadn’t been invented yet), and the idea for TheWVSR.com began to take shape. I’d write about my everyday life, like Krista does, and maybe duplicate the convenience store triumph. And occasionally sprinkle in some silly bullshit, for old time’s sake…
Fast forward to 2009. TheWVSR is still going strong, and I’m wanting to offer a free gift (bribe) to people joining the mailing list. Maybe an eBook of some kind? But what would be the subject of said “book”? I thought about it for a few days, and then it hit me: just go back to the beginning. Why not simply republish the convenience store article that started it all?
It was a good choice, because the piece hasn’t been on the site in a long time. I removed it, because I wanted to include the article in a book project that hasn’t gotten off the ground (yet). Plus, people still occasionally ask me about it, so there’s at least a small amount of interest out there.
So that’s what I’ve done. I renamed the article “A Convenience Story,” and enlisted the help of a graphic designer. And my very first eBook is born. …I’m sorry, I’m getting a little emotional here.
I announced it to the mailing list last night, and it’s available to everyone today. All you have to do is join the list, and you’ll receive download instructions via email. Here’s the form, which is quick and painless.
I hope you enjoy the story. Please let me know.
If you’re so inclined, I’d appreciate a mention of the book on your blog, at Twitter, on Facebook, or wherever. Please send readers to this page, and NOT directly to the download link. Thanks in advance for helping spread the word.
And if you don’t blog, or waste loads and loads of time at social networking sites, feel free to attach the file to an email and fire it off to your friends. I’d be much obliged.
Finally, I’d like to know if you’ve ever worked at a job where the inmates basically ran the asylum? A place where there was rampant theft, violence, and general grabassery — and management had no control over any of it? If so, tell us all about it in the comments.
And that’s all I’ve got for you guys today. I’ll get back to the normal stuff on Monday.
Thanks for the continued support!
HI!!!
I did work in an insane asylum. it was called the **PD Laboratory. I still have PTSD.
#3
Tada!
Good Afternoon Surf Reporters……
As close as I can get was a brief time in the earlier days when I worked as a night stockboy at a K-Mart (hey I was a night stocker!). We reported to work at 9 pm, was locked inside the store and released at 7:30.
We worked for about oh, I dunno, 15 minutes?, then basically goofed off the rest of the time.
Skateboard races (or bicycles) up and down the aisles.
Raiding the pantry of the in-house cafeteria.
Pop in a cassette tape of bootleg Grateful Dead and crank it full volume over the house sound system.
Sleep for a good 4 or 5 hours in the employee lounge.
It was a pretty good gig for a college kid. Unsupervised and we got paid in cash every Friday.
You ever look these people up, Jeff? You know – to see if they are on the roster at the WV State Penitentiary?
Well played, good sir. “A Convenience Story” is an excellent introduction to the general happy mischief that is the WVSR.
I’ve worked at a few bars and restaurants and could tell some similar tales. I’ll see if I can put something together…once I get home and pour myself an adult cocktail.
I do remember “The Convenience Store”. Great stuff, funny and probably what got me started on visiting all the time.
Never worked in the asylum field but our band (’70) played three nights in one. Any Cincy folks out there remember “Longview” there on I-75 across from the liquor factory? Great location, don’t you think? Is it still there…either one? Just wondering. Anyway…they must have really liked us. They offered us to stay and be the house band. Room and board. They looked at us like we were nuts when we turned them down.
“Free”- my second favorite word.
I can only imagine what you saw in the BIG town of Dunbar!! Looking forward to reading it. I just dont’ remember you working at a convenience store.
Excellent e-book, Jeff. I mentioned it on my Twitter feed, so I’m sure you’ve received thousands of orders by now.
I remember reading it a while back. Has the new version been edited slightly?
Damn….I missed the top 10 today.
Stupid meetings.
I think the convenience store stuff was what hooked me, as well. Jeff, do you keep stats from the olden days when we were fewer?
I’d sure be interested to know if I know any of the guys who worked with you at the convenience store.
Do they still live here?
They sound like at least a dozen people I know and believe me, they haven’t changed much if it is them.
The stolen fillet mignon sounds like something my brother in law would have done when he was working at a certain high class restaurant.
Great work Jeff!
@JCIII Mine was supermarket shelf stacking at Dominion Grocery (A&P) Turkey Bowling was our specialty: Line up 12 2 litre cokes at one end of the aisle grab a frozen butterball & you guys can figure out the rest!
You should have called it: “Jeff’s Bookie Wook”
I’m here.
hiya
Slip and Slid – Get a soapy mop and wet down an aisle. Get a good running start and then see how far you can slide standing up without knocking over any of the stock on the shelves. Don’t do this in the aisle that has glass items. Bread aisle is the best place.
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I’m not certain about Longview State Hospital, but the Jim Beam plant is still there. You can drunk on the fumes just driving by the place.
There…I signed up. I want to read it again. Grub worms, shumb worms…you can pick bait I tell ya!…cool
@ DTO – Thanks for the words of wisdom. Never thought of it that way but it could be. I hope not. She seems to be a very nice woman. I’l try to get part two of the Paradise story posted this weekend. I got a recording session scheduled on Saturday so I don’t know how long it’s gonna take for the musicians to get the demo on track. I hope they are ready because I don’t like doing takes all day. I just bought some new equipment (Lexicon – Omega) and got to get it up and running on my PC. Then, I have to install Reason 4.0 on my studio PC and download some instrument tracks. man that shit burns up time.
…glad I restocked my liquor again. Balvenie 15, Glennfiddich 18 and Glenlivet 12. I’m gonna need it this weekend.
wow, I would only hope everyone at some time in there life is blessed/cursed with a job that leaves them with those kind of priceless stories. I had what seemed to be a higher than normal number of them. Lets recap shall we:
Locomotive engineer – union slacking, underachievers, and the general slapdickery that comes from working all hours miles from any real authority. Truck driver – same basic deal only more questionable moral standards. We used to race the trucks and fork lifts around the building in the snow at night sliding them like sprint cars. More than one junk car “randomly” caught on fire in the front parking lot. “Production” – This was the late 90’s in Southern Ohio so beer, fork lift drags and the infamous “chair sling” were all fair game on the overnight shift. The greatest of all had to be the Army. Sadly I can’t even begin to discuss the level of jackassery only to say that indeed, we are the best in the world!
Great book Mr. Kay, it brings back all the laughs of my own good times as a youngster in WV!
slapdickery and jackassery in one comment. Great work Sam in Rochester
Sam – I’m just touching the surface on my blog from my Navy days. The ram broke on our 5″54 and would not push the round into the breach so we took a mop handle and rammed the rounds in to the breach loader manually. Oh that would have been a story if one of the rounds and gone off. “Sir, the last thing we saw was the Oh shit look on th esailors face.” Oh, the 5″54 is a three story deck gun mounted on Navy ships. We had three of them.
r”eturning to normal content on monday” that should be interesting.
Sam In Rochester: Best gig ever! many moons ago I was a “winchman” on Air Sea Rescue duty in the Med! we were so bored we stole a toilet from the Sargeant’s mess and flew it out to a tiny Island no bigger than a rock that was on the main approachway to Akrotiri (Our base) The next day all the arriving aircraft were greeted on landing approach by a guy sitting on the can in the middle of the Mediterranian Sea waving a roll of toilet paper at them! Ah good times:)
I was an office manager for a Dave & Buster’s sort of place a few years ago.
There was much douchebaggery, dickslappery, asshattery, jackassery and every other type of -ery that you can think of going on in there.
– stealing (money and inventory)
– screwing cocktail waitresses in the walk-in cooler
– drug dealing
– looking at porn on the computer in the cash-out room
– more stealing
– pretty sure we were employing illegal aliens and convicted felons
– a general manager that was using the safe as his own personal petty cash
– same general manager (who was married) having an affair with one of his employees (also married) and paying her twice as much as she should’ve been getting
– a narcolepic bowling manager (that was always entertaining)
– people smoking crack in our restrooms
It was the longest 15 months of my life, and drove me to the brink of a nervous breakdown. Maybe if I would’ve been in my early 20’s, it would’ve been awesome – but being in my mid 30’s with established work ethics and morals….it was a hard pill to swallow.
Hehe…I used hard and swallow in the same sentence.
Things you don’t want to hear at the public pool: “Hey, is that a Baby Ruth?”
ELO Afro! worth the price of admission alone! “Don’t bring me down, Grrooss” Shiny throw that crap in the trash & buy yourself a bottle of Lagavullin!
Worked as machine operator and fork lift driver at Corning Glass in Parkersurg, WV for 8 years in the 70’s. Midnite shift was a drunken orgy at times. People so stoned they couldnt talk, employees screwing in the parking lot and general drunkeness and asshattery.
One guy’s nickname was ‘Percodan’…he had this uncanny ability to discover who had been injured or who had been to a dentist. He would hound you for your pain-killer scrip until you finally gave it to him to get him to STFU.
Plant now closed. Go figure.
NDfan…don’t know where that came (yeah I know the movie) but I’ll play….Things you don’t……”I’m telling my husband”!
Friday…one of my three favorite ‘F’ words…along with free, finished and fuckit. Oh wait…that’s four…see #4
Jeff, I’ll do it as soon as I have time. I can’t wait to read it!
Shiny Rod: Thanks for “following”.
SHINY ROD: I started to “follow” your blog, but the way it is set up. I can’t leave comments, and I can’t find your email address. I just wanted you to know.
kenju – let me see whats going on.
@Pagan, I wouldn’t call Shiny’s Glen* “crap” exactly, but they are kind of generic and uninteresting, right up there with Macallan. Today I blew my Glen* money on one each of Bowmore and Highland Park. (The HP is for my mom: obligatory visit coming up. “But I like it too”.) Lagavulin is great stuff – as it should be for the price – but in some cases one might cut to the Islay chase and have a Laphroiag.
If you like Lagavulin, you may want to sample Bowmore. It’s less salty and iodine-y, more smoky and peat-y, but still has the “ocean” thing going. Just a thought.
All for now.
Kenju – I see your linked on my site, I also got your Facebook confirmation. You should be good to go.
Ah crap…I bought some Coors and some Woodbridge Cab…my life sucks…huh!
@ Pagan – I will put Lagavullin on my list to try. Those are the three I like so far. This is the lineup:
Balvenie 15 – is my aiming fluid. Golf, fishing although I don’t get an opportunity to play. The amateurs are afraid of my drive but my short game needs a little work.
Glennfiddich 18 – is the panty remover, never failed yet! Of course unless she ask for coke and then she’s out the door. You just don’t put coke on perfection, ice yes, coke oh no!!!
Glenlivet 12 – is my sipping sauce, it’s smooth and sweet like me. It’s my private reserve. I don’t share this with anyone. Especially if I have the 30 on hand.
@ chill – They have the Bowmore and Highland Park in stock but I haven’t seen the Laphroiag. I’ll ask and see if he has any in the reserve locker. Thats how I got a bottle of Glennfiddich 30. Someone ordered it and didn’t pick it up. Damn that was good scotch.
DTO – Nothing wrong with that, it’s what you like, right? That’s all, your doing what you enjoy and thats what life’s about.
@Shiny Rod, I didn’t mean to disrespect your beverages of choice. They are all very fine whiskies, and I’d gladly have any of them. However, once you start down the road of Single Malt, this is definitely the shallow end of the pool. (mixed metaphors department here.) Everything that’s been mentioned, I can vouch for. But I feel a duty to say that Laphroiag is absolutely not for everyone. It’s… different. Some find it undrinkable. Hardcore Islay, if you will.
I think I’ve seen a few mentions of single malt here before, so let me recommend any whisky book by Michael Jackson – not *that* one, but the fat Englishman who died two years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson_(writer) He also knew his stuff regarding beer, and has written a few books on that topic as well.
I like when “someone ordered it and didn’t pick it up” – that’s how I got my bottle of Pommard (wine) at the grocery store. Long gone, but it was good. Many years ago I acquired a Springbank 30 that way, so I was able to perpetuate the dream a little longer: “the whisky you’re drinking should be older than the woman you’re with” :^)
Cheers!
Let’s see, that would make it a 50 year. I’ve seen 35’s but the next jump is 50 and then 75. But you better wait in line and have some long bucks. I ain’t there yet but I’m getting close.
cill – no disrespect taken, Each person develops there taste as they see fit. I started out drinking JW Dant back in college. Thats what I could afford back then and it was a blended scotch. In the Navy, I drank Remy and Chivas. It was more an image thing than for taste. A few years ago I started drinking Balvenie because thats what my friends drank and I liked the taste. Now my taste is starting to get more refined and I like the single malt scotches. Must be my Gaelic ancestry kicking in. I haven’t braved wearing my kilt out of the house though. Maybe I will wear my family tartan for my next we….. eh I can’t get my fingers to type it less even speak it.
cill= chill sorry bout that…
Worked in an asylum? Actually yes. I worked in a hospital for the mentally ill/criminally insane. They didn’t run the place thankfully. There were some downright scary characters locked up in there.
But a job where the employees ran the place and engaged in wholesale shenanigans? Yup. A couple of different restaurants when I was in my teens and early 20s. Rampant food pilferage, theft of restaurant supplies and actually parts of the building on a couple of occasions. There was also the obligatory skimming of the register by waitresses and supervisors.
It was also an environment drenched in hormones and sex. Like some drama on fox or mtv something. The kitchen staff and waitresses were constantly swapping body fluids. Sometimes it even occurred at work. More than one third shift grill cook ended up having sex with the waitress when things were dead in the store. Even during a fairly busy shift people sometimes managed to sneak off to the walk in cooler, freezer or stock room for sex.
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve had sex in a walk-in freezer I’d have $2.50.
Jason..There’s a cold hard cash joke in there somewhere but I’m not going to go find it.