Many Americans have today off in honor of all the folks who struggled to bring justice to the workplace and helped to make America an industrial and business giant.
Many of you will watch people drool all over themselves while watching the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. I'm talking about Jerry and his vaudeville-era guests of course.
Labor Day also makes for a good day to have a backyard cookout...
But don't forget that Labor Day also marks the last day it is acceptable in a fashion sense to wear white until next summer.
Unless, you look like this...
If you look like that in white...you can wear it year 'round.
Alas...I will be working at the Beer Mine from 10-9 today, but that's okay because...
Just like I did when I was union rep for some years with SEIU, I don't mind working hard so you don't have to...
Bottoms Up and Solidarity Forever, Bitches!!
Cheers!!
Another Labor Day…another unofficial, yet bittersweet farewell to the Summer of 2009.
I thought that since today is a day that honors the American worker and the union movement in general, I would take a walk down Memory Lane.
Please, walk with me and share in some of my memories from my days working as an Administrative Organizer (Union Rep) and Political Director for SEIU District 1199 WV/KY/OH.
I advocated on behalf of employees who had been terminated or otherwise disciplined in arbitration. I helped to negotiate contracts, facility closings, and other issues. I sat through hundreds of grievance mediations.
But…
While those things were important, my fondest memories were things that happened on the fringes of my day to day duties.
I remember helping to run a picket line when our nurses and other hospital employees went on strike at Highlands Regional Medical Center in Prestonsburg, KY.
No one enjoys going on strike, but when you do, you have to try to have some fun with it. Harry, another organizer who was a black guy, mid-late 50’s, 6’5 and about 120 pounds would constantly berate one of management’s security guards.
This guard was about 5 foot nothing, black, and 300 years old. He kept falling asleep just inside the barrier fence. We nicknamed him, Benson. Ha. When he was awake, Harry would get in his face and calmly say, “C’mon brother, you know your mama wouldn’t be proud of what you’re doing.”
Harry was a hoot. He bought a dashiki for me, and called me, Snoop Matty-Matt. He called another guy on our team named Pat, P-Bone Thug.
When he first met Schmoop at our union Christmas party, all skinny 6’5 of him looked down at Schmoop and said to her, “Man, why you be dating this white boy? Don’t you know he’s always tryin’ to keep a brother down?”
Ha, Harry and I dug each other.
As I mainly represented health care professionals within the Corrections system in Ohio, I spent much of my time dealing with wardens.
What a sorry lot most of those fuckers are. I fucked a warden once…Literally and Figuratively. If you have never read that lengthy yet amusing story, you can click HERE to peruse it. It’s a keeper.
I remember when a warden was giving one of my nurses at Noble Correctional Institution a cell full of crap because she was off sick so much. The nurse in question had legitimate doctor’s excuses and so on. She hadn’t violated any rule. This guy was just a dick.
I was arguing over the phone one day with him about her, and he said to me: “You know what? When my wife was dying of cancer last year, I still showed up everyday. What do you think about that Mr. Mahoney?”
To which I diplomatically replied, “I think that makes you a major league asshole bub.” There was a brief silence, a click on the phone line, followed by me laughing and giving the middle finger to my phone.
A similar incident occurred when I was representing a MR/DD nurse at a facility here in Bagwine. She was in the middle of heated scheduling conflict that had been going on before I even started with SEIU.
In the midst of our battle with the head of HR for the facility, the nurse, who was in turmoil over the issue in question, died.
I received a phone call shortly afterwards while traveling up I-675. It was the HR bitch.
She said, “Matt, it’s Jill “Smith”, I just wanted to tell you that I am truly sorry and incredibly upset about “Joan’s” death.”
I paused and then said:
“Truly Sorry? You’re INCREDIBLY upset, Jill? Holy Shit…You’re the goddamn bitch that killed her. Have a nice life honey.”
Once again…I heard the familiar click of the phone line. Ha…
While I was very good at what I did, perhaps my tactics aren’t the best model to follow when entering a career in Labor Relations.
Nonetheless, the 4½ years I spent working for SEIU were the most incredible learning experience I ever had.
It was definitely a love/hate relationship, but I wouldn’t trade those times for anything.
Happy Labor Day all. Kiss a nurse or a carpenter, or a steel worker…or better yet, kiss a beer mine worker.
Cheers!!
Ahhhhh, the first day of September, and Labor Day Weekend is just a couple of days away.
It’s an extended weekend for many Americans, including myself. I am off Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and guess what I shall be doing…
Drinking mass quantities of potent potables and watching College Football!! Damn Straight!! The 2009 NCAA Football season begins Thursday night, and the initial week of games continues right on through Monday.
Oh dear God, I do love it so.
There are a couple of really good match-ups taking place…Oregon vs. Boise State, Georgia vs. Oklahoma State, Alabama vs. Virginia Tech, and of course Saturday afternoon…
The Wolfpack of The University of Nevada invades South Bend to take on my beloved Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
I have no doubt that ND will suck, break my heart, and leave me spewing expletives from my mouth and steam from my big ears.
I have suffered through the Davie years, lost hope through the Willingham years, and now, I throw things at the TV through the Charlie Weis years.
Charlie “I Helped to Coach 18,000 Super Bowl Champions” Weis, has consistently put a defense on the field that operates under what I call, “The Croquet Wicket System” because ND opponents have no trouble rolling right through it.
He has done a decent job developing current Cleveland Browns and former ND QB Brady Quinn as well as current Irish QB Jimmy Claussen. Quinn and Claussen have become decent players because of Weis’ genius.
The success of those two has been in large part due to the fact Weis is incapable of developing an effective running game even if his upcoming opponent is, The University of Blind Thalidomide Babies.
When a team can’t run the ball, and as a result has to throw it often, a QB can get pretty good at passing and getting up off of his ass after taking a bone crushing, blind side hit from a 325 pound defensive end.
Oh Charlie…How you make us Notre Dame fans proud. In fact, you make the entire Irish race proud, because when seeing a couple of Irish guys like Quinn and Claussen never failing to get up after another pounding on national TV, it proves how tough we Irish truly are.
God Bless Ya, Charlie.
On a sad note…We suffered a death in the Bagwine Family over the weekend. The remote to our cable box, whom I have loved, adored, and long ago named, hANNd Margret, died from natural causes.
My sexy siren who offered me a world of entertainment, ease of channel surfing, and a feeling of omnipotence, could give no more.
As a result of her passing, I must trot down to our local Time Warner Cable office sometime this morning, and pick up a new channel girl...
For this weekend, I have beer to drink, a Charlie Weis Voodoo Doll to construct, and dozens of college football games between which I must be able to flip back and forth.
Cheers!!
Happy Labor day to all of you.
I hope your weekend is going well and that you have today off from your vocational toils.
If you don’t…join the crowd, for I must labor this evening dispensing alcohol to the masses.
Anyhoo, I got back into town at about quarter til’ eight last night from the funeral road trip.
My buddy Mark was cremated. The service was performed by an eclectic, man of the cloth named Pastor Barry.
Pastor Barry may be a man of faith and religiosity, but, other than his cleric dress, he looked more like a 50 something year old man who drank quite a bit of vodka in his life and enjoyed Roman Bathhouses.
He was a bit creepy, with his jaundiced eyes, ragged hair, and speech impediment, but he did a fine job honoring our friend Mark.
Mark’s ashes are going to be kept by his younger brother, Seth.
After the service, thirteen of us who had made the trip, and knew each other, got together at the Hotel and sent Mark off with a bang.
The alcohol flowed…and flowed…and flowed. The party lasted until 3:45 Sunday morning.
At that point, we remembered that none of us had eaten, but alas it was too late. So, we all went to bed.
Seven of us who hadn’t succumbed to alcohol poisoning, met for breakfast at 10 A.M. Between greasy omelets, aspirin, Bloody Marys, and tales about Mark, we made fun of just how plain awful the Jerry Lewis Telethon is.
So, our crew of three, happy with the feeling that we sent Mark off in a way he would have appreciated, headed back to Bagwine. 
Mike and I drank all the way back while Bryan drove us home in his black 2007 BMW 525i. Ha, I laughed at the image.
Mike was drinking Mickey’s Malt Liquor, and I was sipping Wild Irish Rose out of the bottle as we tooled down I-71 South in a frickin’ sweet lookin’ BMW.
Bryan, being so pretentious, that his name is spelled with a “Y”, ate Doritos and drank Red Bull the entire trip home.
So there you have it. In spite of the circumstances that led to all of us old friends getting together, it was an incredibly good time.
It was kinda like, “The Big Chill” only with less overly emoted angst, hotter chicks, and way more fucking.
Don’t think anything about me, I kept my rocket in my pocket. I merely dry humped my old friend Amy.
So that’s it for me today, folks. I hope you all, have a wonderful Labor Day.
Tomorrow, I will be posting your Bagwine Whore-O-Scope© for September.Cheers!!With one last note about Mark, (I promised pretentious Bryan that I would do this) for I do not want to dwell on this. I offer you one of Mark's favorite songs ever...One that we sang all the way home yesterday...
Many Americans have today off in honor of all the folks who struggled to bring justice to the workplace and helped to make America an industrial and business giant.
But don't forget that Labor Day also marks the last day it is acceptable in a fashion sense to wear white until next summer.
If you look like that in white...you can wear it year 'round.
