Left Coasting: Home Discomforts in Berkeley
Away from home among the homeless…
by David Haywood
The most boring event I’ve ever attended was a seminar given by an engineer from California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
It should have been fascinating. The engineer had worked on a number of important space projects including Apollo, Voyager, and Viking. It transpired, however, that he preferred not to mention such quotidian topics in his seminars.
What he preferred to talk about—for nearly two hours—was the design of the New Zealand lavatory. To say that he was impressed by our lavatories (which are of the same type as used in Britain and Australia) would be an understatement akin to saying that Caligula liked his horse. As far as I could tell, the engineer would have {married} a New Zealand lavatory, if only bigamy were legal.
As his audience dozed, he expounded upon the genius of our privies from every conceivable angle. He compared the New Zealand unit with the siphon-type toilet used in California. He praised the numerous advantages of our design; and he dwelt lovingly on the water-saving features and hydro-dynamic elegance.
By the end of the seminar, the engineer had reached a state of enthusiasm that only Californians can truly attain. Words tumbled from his lips at break-neck speed—each sentence terminating with an infomercial-style exclamation mark: “Don’t you see? This means that your toilets are almost impossible to clog!” and “With your simple p-trap system, you can even have half a flush!” and “The volume of water in your cistern is less than that of the bowl—so it can’t overflow!”
After a decade or so, I finally managed to repress my memories of this seminar. But as my flight landed in California last month, the subject of lavatories was—by a curious co-incidence—firmly at the forefront of my mind. I had missed my chance for a last-minute visit to the facilities on the plane, and while queueing for customs, I began to experience considerable pressure in my bladder.
A colleague met me outside the arrivals gate, and I was immediately ushered into her car—for (what turned out to be) a long drive to my rented accommodation in Berkeley. She kindly offered to make a side-trip to a supermarket en route, so that I could pick up a few groceries. “Er… will there be a lavatory at the supermarket, do you think?” I asked.
“Bound to be,” she assured me. There wasn’t. By the time we eventually arrived at the apartment, I was grimacing in pain, and giving serious thought to the fate of astronomer Tycho Brahe—who, as we learnt at Sunday School, died of a burst bladder rather than excuse himself from the dining table of the Holy Roman Emperor*. Mr Brahe, it has always seemed to me, was a man who took politeness a step too far.
Fortunately, there were no banqueting members of royalty in my new apartment, and I was able to rush off and relieve myself without breaching etiquette. The relief was considerable—and, as a kind of lavatorial dessert, I blew my nose on some toilet paper to dispel the last vestiges of ‘aeroplane ear’, and threw the paper into the bowl. I would like to emphasize at this point that the quantity of paper would never have presented a problem to any New Zealand toilet.
It was only after I had pushed the flush button, that—with horrible clarity—the entire seminar on lavatories came suddenly rushing back to me. I watched helplessly as the contents of the toilet bowl dipped briefly, and then surged up towards me, cascading in a nightmarish yellow waterfall over the rim, and swamping the floor with vast quantities of liquid.
There are no doubt people in this world who would—even after a fourteen hour flight—find humour in such a situation. I can conclusively reveal that I am not one of these people. And, if anything, my sense of humour evaporated even further when I discovered that the apartment did not contain a mop (although, thankfully, it did have a toilet plunger). I used fifteen rolls of lavatory paper to soak the liquid from the floor, hand-wring it back into the toilet bowl, and clean everything down with disinfectant. I still don’t think it’s funny.
It took me the rest of the afternoon to recover from the trauma. At dinner-time I ventured out to explore my new neighbourhood.
In the 1960s, Berkeley was famous as the epicentre of the hippie movement, but today this has given way to a distinct tinge of the third world. On my way through campus, I was astonished to witness an elderly woman washing her clothes in a stream (she dried her garments by pegging them to the shopping trolley that contained her bedding). The footpaths of the high street were cluttered with beggars; and the local park was full of homeless people slumbering beneath ragged blankets.
One of the last expressions of Berkeley’s hippie past is Café Gratitude. My friends Lis and Alejandro were waiting outside the door. A waitress led us into the restaurant, and seated us beneath a gigantic motivational painting of a child amputee. Alejandro inspected the painting for several long seconds. “This is a truly terrible piece of art,” he said finally.
Café Gratitude is operated on a business model known as ‘Sacred Commerce’ in which, according to their mission statement, “an atmosphere of transformation is created in the work environment”. It sounds like an appalling concept :
A Sacred Commerce business is a safe container of unconditional love where transparency is encouraged and held as a courageous act . Employees partake in a ‘clearing’ process before each shift to distinguish how the habitual mind is creating separation from our experience of oneness. This way, employees choose to be present and engaged in sacred service with our customers.
And if that isn’t bad enough, each menu item is named after a positive emotional attribute. If you want a coffee milkshake then you’re supposed to order “I am Eternally Blessed”. If you fancy a Caesar salad then you have to specify “I am Dazzling”.
“What foods may I offer you this evening?” asked our waitress. I can confirm that she indeed intoned her words with the tranquil air of an employee “engaged in sacred service with her customers”. Or, to put it another way, in the manner of a brainwashed hippy.
“I’ll have the enchiladas, please,” said Lis.
“You are elated,” the waitress corrected her gently.
“Spring rolls for me,” said Alejandro.
“You are insightful,” breathed the waitress.
“I’ll try the pizza, thanks.”
“You are passionate.”
The waitress exuded unconditional love and transparency as she departed our table. “This restaurant is making me feel curmudgeonly,” said Lis.
The food was good, although extremely heavy on nuts. For hours afterwards, I had the strange bloated sensation that you have when you’ve eaten too many free peanuts at a pub.
On the way home, in the spirit of California’s DIY social welfare system, I gave money to a beggar with an amputated hand and foot. He was in a wheelchair—towing his belongings (a sleeping bag, some clothes, and piece of plastic sheeting) in a shopping trolley. A few blocks later, I gave a dollar to a blind beggar. It seemed a little crazy to be dishing out money to inhabitants of the richest country in the world, but clearly they needed it.
As I lay in bed that night, I wondered what it was like to be homeless and disabled. How do you find a safe corner to spend the night when you’re blind? How can you sleep rough in a wheelchair with two missing limbs?
Already Berkeley was reminding me of one of those crazy science fiction movies—where everyone is armed with swords, and yet drives around in a spaceship. It’s a unreal combination: leading university, numerous high tech industries, and Dickensian poverty all in the same geographical area.
Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy the fact that different countries and places do things in different ways. I wouldn’t want everywhere to be the same; and I don’t mind a few odd foibles. Overflowing lavatories aren’t serious in the grand scheme of thing—certainly New Zealand’s collective phobia of home heating is a far more worrisome issue (and has unquestionably hastened some of our citizens into the grave).
But, I must say, running the social welfare system on—presumably—the same principle as your faulty toilets doesn’t seem like such a great idea. And having the sick, the mentally ill, and the maimed without a roof over their heads is beyond mere foible as far as I’m concerned.
Berkeley has a nice university, wonderful weather, and pleasant people—but the desperation of its poor makes it a difficult place for me to enjoy.
FOOTNOTE:
* Actually, this is complete myth—a modern autopsy has revealed that Brahe did not die of any such thing.
David Haywood is more commonly found in Christchurch. His book My First Stabbing and columns are available at www.publicaddressbooks.com and good bookshops.
My brother-in-law is a passionate expert on NZ toilets! At one stage he was receiving maufacturers visits from NZ and Australia seeking advice on the flushing qualities of new models. The test includes being able to flush 3 out of 4 ping pong balls repeatedly. What fun he had. Now he has become passionate about seeding salmon in upper reaches of Canterbury rivers. There are people who come to him for advice on salmon breeding in the wild……
Your photo above is curious because it seems that the majority are walking standing as individuals rather than groups?
Well, your brother-in-law could certainly become a multi-squillionaire in the US. In fact, I would say that there’s a moral imperative for him to donate his services; I’m estimating that the lavatory in our flat has already taken five years off my life in terms of added stress. Multiply that by the population of the US, and your brother-in-law has the potential to save more people than Alexander Fleming.
The photo wasn’t taken by me, and as you point out, the lack of groups does seem unusual. I have no explanation, I’m afraid.
Cafe Gratitude pushes the Landmark Forum on employees:
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/gyrobase/i_am_annoyed_and_disappointed/Content?oid=1168114&page=1
or
http://short.to/ls4o
Amazed to see a homeless person with what looks like a Bialetti espresso maker (top picture)…
Great myth though, the Tycho story. Well worth keeping, while mere truth sidles off to the loo.
And yet- now I’m wondering: what DID he die from? Wikipedia offers some intruing speculation
“Death
Tycho Brahe’s grave in Prague, new tomb stone from 1901Tycho died on 24 October 1601 in Prague, eleven days after suddenly becoming very ill during a banquet. Toward the end of his illness he is said to have told Kepler “Ne frustra vixisse videar!”, “Let me not seem to have lived in vain.”[13][14] For hundreds of years, the general belief was that he had strained his bladder. It had been said that to leave the banquet before it concluded would be the height of bad manners, and so he remained, and that his bladder, stretched to its limit, developed an infection which later killed him. This theory was supported by Kepler’s first-hand account.
Holding his urine longer than was his habit, Tycho remained seated. Although he drank a little overgenerously and experienced pressure on his bladder, he felt less concern for the state of his health than for etiquette. By the time he returned home he could not urinate any more.
Finally, with the most excruciating pain, he barely passed some urine. But, yet, it was blocked. Uninterrupted insomnia followed; intestinal fever; and little by little, delirium. His poor condition was made worse by his way of eating, from which he could not be deterred. On 24 October, when his delirium had subsided for a few hours, amid the prayers, tears and efforts of his family to console him, his strength failed and he passed away very peacefully.
At this time, then, his series of heavenly observations was interrupted, and the observations of 38 years came to an end. During his last night, through the delirium through which everything was pleasant, like a composer creating a song, Tycho repeated these words over and over again: ‘Let me not seem to have lived in vain.’
Recent investigations have suggested that Tycho did not die from urinary problems but instead from mercury poisoning: extremely toxic levels of it have been found in his hair and hair-roots. Tycho may have poisoned himself by imbibing some medicine containing unintentional mercuric chloride impurities, or may have been poisoned.[15]
One theory proposed in a 2005 book by Joshua Gilder and Anne-Lee Gilder, suggests that there is circumstantial evidence that Kepler murdered Tycho; they argue that Kepler had the means, motive, and opportunity, and stole Tycho’s data on his death.[16] According to the Gilders, they find it “unlikely”[16] Tycho could have poisoned himself since he was an alchemist known to be familiar with the toxicity of different mercury compounds.
Another theory is proposed by Peter Andersen, professor of German Studies at the University of Strasbourg. Andersen discovered the 600-page diary of Count Erik Brahe, a distant Swedish cousin of Tycho. He suggests Erik murdered Tycho, by order of King Christian IV of Denmark, who suspected that Tycho had had an affair with his mother Sophie.[17] In 2009, a group of conservators, chemists and physicians plan to open the vault and perform a forensic analysis on the body.”
Body-snatching and royal adultery- almost as good! Do you know if the vault has been opened and the analysis has been done?
“California’s DIY social welfare system”
Still chuckling at this… and flashing back to your DIY health advice. First sharpen a dirty knife…
Hi Rob, thanks for the info on Tycho Brahe. I’m with Dumas on the whole ‘Cherchez la femme’ thing — so that’s where I’ll be putting my money if/when they dig up Brahe again…
Mr H
at last a fix of the good stuff!
Good to see you bogging round the blogs…
Tycho Heads – meets – Flushdance
(to go where no man has gone before)
aaah the Jet Propulsion Labs
I can’t think of them as anything but
The Jack Parsons Labs
and the skein of twisted threads
that links the OTO, Aleister Crowley,
solid rocket fuels and
the modern space programme…
Though your wannabe bogamist
does plumb new depths…
I mean would Allen Ginsberg write
a poem called “Bowl”?
and your late night
Archimedean Screw-over
aaargh! Jet lag and displacement….
…I suggest the bog-standard
brick or filled bottle –
will beat the cistern…
Great piece, an emotional rollercoaster
(or maybe a log-flume in this case)
The mean streets sound meaner than ever
Amerika the bountiful…
re that:”strange bloated sensation that
you have when you’ve eaten too many free
peanuts at a pub.”
I believe the fill an’ atrophy
of a largesse of legumes
may be termed – free and queasy
Enjoy your trip…
here – the mighty Avon
swells and tests its banks
beneath a baleful moon…
Tycho Brahe (the crater)
smiles at fraternal
Chicxulub – goodnight
dinosaurs, hello monkeys…
yrs
The Free Mouseketeers
I am opposed to the idea of lavatories that will flush a ping pong ball. I toilet-trained my eldest son with ease and much laughter by getting him to play “sink the Bismarck” with ping pong balls in the loo, per the advice of Aussie pediatrician Christopher Green. If the loo had flushed the ping pong ball every time, it would have cost me a fortune in ping pong balls, and might have caused the septic tank some consternation. Fortunately our Manawatu loo did not flush the ping pong ball. By the time his younger brother was ready for the same training, we were living in the US and the toilet DID flush the ping pong ball. Damn. We had to resort to a singing potty.
Rosalind: if you have any more children (within, say, the next couple of weeks), you are welcome to use the lavatory in our Berkeley flat for toilet training purposes. I doubt that a ping-pong ball would fit down the drain hole, so it would certainly be very cost effective. On the other hand, the after-event cleaning might make that singing potty start to look pretty good…
Amazing how the comments so far slide gracefully away from the homeless in favour of the lavatories. I’ve only made two brief visits to the US, but both times I found the legions of homeless people incredibly hard to cope with. Mind you, we’re not doing all that well either, with overcrowding linked to third-world levels of illness.
There was a Chocolate shop in Melbourne with the intriguing title of ‘Salvation’ and on the the door were listed the ‘hours of worship’.
No I didnt go in as Im an aethesist!
Heh. My experience is of the bits hanging down and reaching the water!!! And no, I don’t think I am skiting! It was very off putting. A friend on mine married a Yank and now live close to me. She (Yank) wanted a new loo. So off Ted (name changed for obvious reasons) and She to the Loo shop and ordered it. It duly arrived, was installed, but She did not like it. Out it came and the old (NZ) one put back. She and Ted then returned the said bowl to the shop (ever so fractionally soiled), spent considerable effort convincing the salesman to take it back and ordered another style. Duly fitted and tested. She kept this one. Made a great party story. And yes, it too has an exit hole the size of a thumb.
And what’s wrong with being homeless. It IS the land of the Free. Watch those dollars my boy…you almost sound charitable.
The homeless problem in the Bay Area is indeed shocking, with its many thousands of homeless. You feel guilty when you see them, and you give them a dollar (or you don’t). After more than two decades, San Francisco is still trying to find the political unity to solve this crisis. As an American and a former resident of San Francisco, I am deeply ashamed.