Saturday, March 06, 2004
Weekender Strikes a Sour Chord (check them out at www.weekender.com)
The Weekender has run an article about the people in the North East PA area including Hazleton who come off factory shift work and other sorts of night jobs and go to the bar. The Weekender's stand on this is that it is totally normal for a person working at these hours to enjoy a drink after work to relax. They even give suggested morning drinks.
Here is where I become enraged. There is no mention about how wrong this is. Not only is it wrong that bars can cater to this with relish; it is wrong that the Weekender plays on this as if it perfectly normal. It is not normal for a person to go to work when the sun sets and leave work as the sun rises glaring him in his exhausted face as he limps home from another freak-shift of twelve hours on his feet if he’s lucky! Gom knows! He’s been there. The Weekender and their interviewees brush it off: “It’s happy hour” for those that work different shifts. That’s where everyone is missing the boat. This isn’t happy hour at 7:30 AM! It’s time to numb yourself so you can wind down and get some sleep to be rested just enough to drag your tired ass back to your miserable job the next night! Why is it that no one is addressing the inhumanity of shift work or how the factory continues to upgrade its ridiculous schedules of 12 hour swing shifts and over time so that a person (remember we ARE still people) are bound to the factory and the line and the job? It all suits the production. None of this helps the common worker.
Alcoholism like this: Drinking your mind away to forget about the hellish shift you were just in is NOT happy hour! Not at 5 PM and certainly not at 7 AM! When you have to pour a quart of booze down your throat because of the job you just got through or smoke a pack and a half of cigarettes to bring yourself down there is a fundamental problem (Not with you the worker, but with the system). No one especially in the mornings goes from work to a Hazleton bar to just have a nice drink and relax. They go and get blasted, pickled, krunked and sometimes smashed beyond recognition.
This is the Coalcracker region, where people have been used and abused and exploited as virtual meat puppets or beasts of burden. They are used and discarded. And alcoholism is rampant because of this abuse of the labor force. You go anywhere outside the Hazleton and Northeast Region and you drink like you do here (like the old miners doing their shot and a beer) and people are horrified! You are a drunk! No, that’s not true, you are just coping with the insanity imposed on your life by the factories so graciously brought in by CANT DO; jobs that make your head spin, you arms tired and your lungs full of cigarette smoke. And that’s the privilege of working in the Hazleton Area. The only reason they don’t try and curb the drinking is that it is the only thing keeping the people around here from using their heads and rising up against the oppressive Haves! The drink keeps us numb. And there is No happy hour. Nothing has changed here since the coal barons ruled us…And no one can see that because their faces are jammed in a bottle trying to forget the night before on the assembly line.
As George Harrison once sang: “Think for yourself”
Bloody Mary (The Drink)
Also in conjunction with this rant is the PROPER mixing of a Bloody Mary. If you have to drink at 7 AM, you might so well have the right drink!
2 oz vodka
4 oz tomato juice or V-8 juice
Juice of a quarter of a lemon (and/or lime)
2 generous dashes of Worcestershire sauce
1 generous dash of Tabasco sauce
Black pepper
Add ice. Shake well. Garnish with a stalk of celery. Drink fast. Repeat.
Other morning drinks include: The Screwdriver, The Fuzzy Navel, and The Hairy Toenail
*See Old Mr. Boston’s for most of these and others. Drink responsibly (yeah right!)
The Weekender has run an article about the people in the North East PA area including Hazleton who come off factory shift work and other sorts of night jobs and go to the bar. The Weekender's stand on this is that it is totally normal for a person working at these hours to enjoy a drink after work to relax. They even give suggested morning drinks.
Here is where I become enraged. There is no mention about how wrong this is. Not only is it wrong that bars can cater to this with relish; it is wrong that the Weekender plays on this as if it perfectly normal. It is not normal for a person to go to work when the sun sets and leave work as the sun rises glaring him in his exhausted face as he limps home from another freak-shift of twelve hours on his feet if he’s lucky! Gom knows! He’s been there. The Weekender and their interviewees brush it off: “It’s happy hour” for those that work different shifts. That’s where everyone is missing the boat. This isn’t happy hour at 7:30 AM! It’s time to numb yourself so you can wind down and get some sleep to be rested just enough to drag your tired ass back to your miserable job the next night! Why is it that no one is addressing the inhumanity of shift work or how the factory continues to upgrade its ridiculous schedules of 12 hour swing shifts and over time so that a person (remember we ARE still people) are bound to the factory and the line and the job? It all suits the production. None of this helps the common worker.
Alcoholism like this: Drinking your mind away to forget about the hellish shift you were just in is NOT happy hour! Not at 5 PM and certainly not at 7 AM! When you have to pour a quart of booze down your throat because of the job you just got through or smoke a pack and a half of cigarettes to bring yourself down there is a fundamental problem (Not with you the worker, but with the system). No one especially in the mornings goes from work to a Hazleton bar to just have a nice drink and relax. They go and get blasted, pickled, krunked and sometimes smashed beyond recognition.
This is the Coalcracker region, where people have been used and abused and exploited as virtual meat puppets or beasts of burden. They are used and discarded. And alcoholism is rampant because of this abuse of the labor force. You go anywhere outside the Hazleton and Northeast Region and you drink like you do here (like the old miners doing their shot and a beer) and people are horrified! You are a drunk! No, that’s not true, you are just coping with the insanity imposed on your life by the factories so graciously brought in by CANT DO; jobs that make your head spin, you arms tired and your lungs full of cigarette smoke. And that’s the privilege of working in the Hazleton Area. The only reason they don’t try and curb the drinking is that it is the only thing keeping the people around here from using their heads and rising up against the oppressive Haves! The drink keeps us numb. And there is No happy hour. Nothing has changed here since the coal barons ruled us…And no one can see that because their faces are jammed in a bottle trying to forget the night before on the assembly line.
As George Harrison once sang: “Think for yourself”
Bloody Mary (The Drink)
Also in conjunction with this rant is the PROPER mixing of a Bloody Mary. If you have to drink at 7 AM, you might so well have the right drink!
2 oz vodka
4 oz tomato juice or V-8 juice
Juice of a quarter of a lemon (and/or lime)
2 generous dashes of Worcestershire sauce
1 generous dash of Tabasco sauce
Black pepper
Add ice. Shake well. Garnish with a stalk of celery. Drink fast. Repeat.
Other morning drinks include: The Screwdriver, The Fuzzy Navel, and The Hairy Toenail
*See Old Mr. Boston’s for most of these and others. Drink responsibly (yeah right!)
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