Enjoyable manifesto celebrating rootless irresponsibility, with rueful acknowledgement of the pitfalls therein.
From the creator of one of the 1990s’ best ’zines, a debut memoir chronicling his mission to wash dishes in each of the 50 states.
A San Francisco kid who spent his youth getting in trouble with cops, the author found that he liked wandering around the country much better than attending college or maintaining any sort of steady work. Dishwashing, he discovered, was the holy grail of itinerant employment. Being a “suds buster,” as Jordan memorably dubs it, isn’t exactly high in prestige—he quotes an opinion survey that ranked dishwashing #735 in status out of 740 jobs—but there are always openings and few expectations, since most dishwashers last no more than a few weeks at a time. The profession’s traditions include “laziness, drunkenness and ditching jobs without even a minute’s notice”—and you have to quit, since it’s basically impossible to get fired. Jordan was in Alaska when he got the notion to wash dishes nationwide and create “a little dishwashing publication” as well; a knowledgeable subs-busting buddy explained what a ’zine was and handed him a copy of Down and Out in Paris and London. Inspired by Orwell’s memorable delineation of the plongeur ethos, Jordan photocopied Dishwasher #1 in Arizona, put out a second issue in Texas and managed to squeeze out 13 more over a dozen years of hitchhiking, bumming rides from friends, crashing on people’s couches and getting dumped by girlfriends. (A postscript tells those who ordered #16 to get in touch, and he’ll make good.) Among his most challenging gigs: an isolated post on an oil rig and an attempt to disprove the received wisdom that a white guy couldn’t get hired in New Orleans, where all the suds busters were black or Mexican.
Enjoyable manifesto celebrating rootless irresponsibility, with rueful acknowledgement of the pitfalls therein.Pub Date: May 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-06-089642-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Perennial/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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