Posted 10:51 AM by Alfred

Back in my Berkeley days, I had this pizza delivery job at this local little Italian restaurant. They made gourmet corn-meal crust za with fancy ass toppings like gorgonzola cheese, fennel sausage, leeks, the whole 9. it was madd good. (yeah guy?)

So it was super chill, cuz I don’t know how I did it, but I was basically allowed to chill out in the kitchen & watch everybody work while I kicked it waiting for deliveries. My duties were answer the phone, take orders, and deliver that shit. That’s it. the boss was even like “damn, when we hire another guy, we’re gonna make him work, but I understand you’re used to this now, so I wouldn’t make you do that,” and I was like “damn straight, I might get all nutty up in this bitch if you did that.”

But later I had to bust ass, cuz I left for a summer, and when I came back in the fall, he had a new delivery guy named “Ride.” I’m not kidding that was his name. He was this like 40 year old hyper-active “alternative” type dude that lived in his Honda civic. So but the Kraut cut me some slack & hired me on as a pizza cook and part time dishwasher, and I worked my way back into the driver rotation with Ride, who had some good stories about people fucking with him while he was sleeping in his civic. I guess when you live in your car, the nightly challenge is to find some chill place to park where the local flavor won’t jack you for your grits, especially in the Iggedy-Oaktown. I’m assuming he usually drove over into Berkeley, a little more peaceful.

The boss was this German guy with a really heavy accent, and he had a weakness for tall American hoochie-mamas. He always had some conquest he was working on coming into the restaurant. The cooks were chill, and the waitresses were all down ass cool chicks. It was a hep environment to hang out & make some papah.

There was a back door in the kitchen and a little stoop where you could kick it & smoke a cigarette. Plus when the boss wasn’t around there were known to be bonghits in the walk in refrigerator. And plus the Kraut would let us chill out after work, even after he left for the night, and drink all his beer. He said it was cool as long as we didn’t come back later, but we would go close down the bars and then crack open the restaurant again & drink more of his beer and party on Wayne.

It was a pretty regulatin’ little crew, and we got to eat all the food we wanted while we were working. Damn that job was pretty phat.

And the moral of this story is that, um, fuck I don’t know, I just felt like reminiscing.

Oh and for those fans of my fish Wacko, he’s doing an autograph signing tomorrow at Border’s books on Ala Moana between 3 PM and 4 PM. His new book, “Life of a Playa” is burning up the racks. SHIT. I’ve been typing this crap for whut, 9 months now, and this little goldfish pumps out a book & lands a deal within 2 weeks of being the last surviving participant in the Mrs. P Biology Experiment. Whutthefuck?

But hey, I ain’t about playa-hatin’. Play on Wacko, play on playa.

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