Hi Douglas.
Hi. I am Doug, unless I am in trouble. When mom says your full name, you’re in trouble.
Do you know any other person called Douglas Jones?
Actually in 2005, I was working in a restaurant and a black guy working in the kitchen was called Douglas Cornelius Jones. Working as a server, I definitely saw credit cards of other Douglas Joneses. It’s a fairly common name. But not popular.
We heard that in the Las Vegas Metro Area alone, there are over 23 Douglas Joneses.
In the US I think Jones is in fourth place. After Smith, Miller and Johnson.
Do you like your name?
Yeah… Hmm… No. I actually thought of going with my middle name, Wesley. It has a little more toughness to it. So I could go with Wes and Wes is more like „Wassup, Wes?“ Little street cred or something. But maybe I’m just burned out on Doug, as it hasn’t gotten me anywhere.
But you told us that you could write a book about your life, so it has gotten you somewhere. But to start from the beginning, where were you born and where did you grow up?
My father met my mother in Germany. He was stationed in Berlin. They got married and moved back to the US, because my father was Air Force and got re-stationed to Langley Airbase in Virginia. That’s where I was born. When I was two years old, he got re-stationed to West Germany. When Germany had the West and East thing still happening. Eastside, Westside. I did kindergarten on an airbase in Germany.
So you speak German?
I did, but then my mother divorced my father because he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. That rule about marriage, „for better or for worse, in sickness and health“… She was an old hippie and left when I was five. She didn’t keep her word in marriage. Left me watching my father have multiple sclerosis. Till he passed. That’s when I was sixteen. But my mom, her name’s Petra, she’s never been much of a mother though. Just the person I was birthed from.
So how was your childhood? How was it living with your father, having multiple sclerosis?
At six years old we moved to Florida together. We stayed at Mimi’s place. Mimi was the nickname of my American grandmother. My father was having a house built for him. With his medical issues he needed a house specially designed for him. Like wheelchair ramps and sidewalks around the house. I lived where I could see the space shuttle go off all the time. I lived 45 min south of NASA. I watched the Challenger disaster with my own eyes. In the sky, not on TV. I was in 4th grade. 6th grade I went to a brand-new school which was named after Christa McAuliffe, the teacher who died in the accident. So I lived in that part of Florida till I was sixteen.
Where did you go to high school?
Texas. When my father died I had to go where my hippie mom ended up. Somewhere in nowhere Texas. I had no choice. She acted like a sibling, not like a mother, when I got there. No leading direction.
And you needed direction?
Doesn’t every child at some point? So I just had to go with the flow. I am not successful because I was never led by an adult in my high school days. She was a drinker. She got the booze for me as well.
Are you still in contact with her?
No, we were on Facebook for a while, but I divorced her. I am just happy she raised my baby sister. I am 17 years older than her. The reason my mom got out is because she married a man with stability. She was one of these women who want to marry a guy who does things. So she could stay home and drink. She didn’t do anything successful herself. I had to teach myself. I even had to feed myself. Because there was often no food at home. I didn’t have an enlightened beginning to adulthood.
How long did you stay in Texas?
Until I graduated. I had no choice. Then I stayed a few months at my cousin’s place in Florida. But she was raising her own family, so I went my own way via AOL Messenger, meeting friends and then I became an adult with a roommate situation. This went on all these years. No stability. I was never taught how to be stable. Nobody taught me to go to college. Nobody taught me to do anything. I only knew I had to work to make money. That’s it.
Do you think about marriage yourself? Are you in a relationship?
I tried a couple of girlfriend things, but women in the US are selfish. They use you until they find something better, then they drop you. But maybe that’s only my experience. I went to nine different schools in 12 years of schooling. So no sticking around long enough to be cool with anybody. That part of Florida was growing so fast. I went to multiple brand new schools over the years. And school areas changed the whole time. Sometimes I didn’t move and it was just the complexity of the system. The different school zones changed, because the population was growing.
Where do you live now?
Asheville, North Carolina.
Can you describe your place?
Now I am staying with my old roommate in his one-bedroom. I am crashing on the couch right now, until I get a job and get my shit together. This building is probably from the 1920s or 30s, wooden frame. Nothing special, at all. Probably 600 sq feet, maybe 700. But very close to downtown. I think he pays $650 a month, and this is very cheap compared to most places in Asheville. Asheville is the highest cost of living in North Carolina, and top 10 in the country. My roommate is not a rich guy either. He’s got a big screen TV, but from like probably the early 2000s. So it’s a brick. Something it would probably take three people to carry. He has a clawfoot tub. The kitchen doesn’t have a granite countertop, nor a steel-covered refrigerator. It’s all typical old school stuff. The windows leak air when it’s cold.
What is your neighborhood like?
Asheville is famous for a few things: The Biltmore House. Did you ever watch the movie Richie Rich? That’s the house. ‹Hannibal›, the second part of ‹The Silence of the Lambs›, it’s in this house. It’s the largest residential house in the nation. But nobody lives there. It’s a tourist spot. There’s a giant Christmas tree in it. There’s sixty fireplaces. Two hundred rooms. It’s famous. Biltmore House. Google that. I’ve been to it once. The Vanderbilts built that in the early 1800s. It’s like 50 or 60 bucks to see it.
Like Graceland.
I’ve done it once. I dated a girl who had free tickets. It has a bowling alley, a swimming pool. No water in it though.
Do you plan to stay in Asheville?
I was working at the Pisgah Inn at Blue Ridge Parkway. But it’s a seasonal job because of ice and snow. They close it in winter. I’ve been working in restaurants for over twenty years. Eighteen of them here in Asheville. Serve. Bartend. I do anything you want. I run your store if you want. But it’s hard. Asheville’s cost of living, since 2008, rose by a lot. Do you know the term gentrification?
Sure.
Asheville’s got that. In the 2000’s, when I moved here, it was all cool young punk kids. People were living on the streets on purpose. For adventure. Today they are there because of the shitty economy. We don’t take care of our poor very well in the US. If you end up on the street, you are fucked. See, we’re not a democracy here. If you’re not born to the loins of the money, or your school isn’t being paid for, or you just can’t handle the stress of life, or fight for yourself to get a proper education, it is extremely difficult in this country. You have to be top of the line or otherwise it’s a for-profit system. Our educational system, our prison system, our healthcare system. Everything is there for profit. We’re not a democracy. We are an oligarchy.
If you could have gone to college, what would you have studied?
Marine biology. And I liked meteorology. I lived in Florida where Mother Nature is in your face. I’d be like that dude on the Weather Channel. Santoro or whatever. Or I’d be that lieutenant Dan in ‹Forrest Gump›. „Is that all you got?“. That would be me. Hurricane Irma came along when I was up on a mountain. We lost electricity there. That was pretty cool. Today that I know more about economy and sociology and stuff I could do that. I wish I had the power to go into politics.
How did you learn these things? You read a lot?
Street knowledge. Facebook. Reading articles. Paying attention to how things function. I didn’t pay attention until I was the victim of the recession of 2008. I lost my job but I had no clue why. And people didn’t own laptops yet. When I got a laptop in 2009 I started to do my homework. Like, how do the people who have degrees and make money skew the system so hard? They fuck everybody over, and that makes the money for them. Labor is the producer of jobs. Disposable income in your pocket is how you create an economy. I work in restaurants. The first thing what people cut out of their lives is going out to eat. It snowballs. I lost my job together with 8 or 9 people in one month.
What did you do after that?
I went on unemployment for nine weeks. And then I loaned up. Every job I had since was shit. I used to do fine dining, but with my actual resumé, you can put only the last three jobs on there. I haven’t been able to recover. For example, you can’t make money in sushi joints here. They are all on the same block. The competition is really close. I tried to work at Nepalese Curry House. But they are really lazy. Working for Nepalese is like working for stoners. They don’t want to try. They don’t want to spend money on marketing. Basically, I am financially insecure, and my rent has gone up ever since too. In the last place I rented I had to pay $500 for a room. Asheville is the number 4 hardest city to make your dreams come true in now. It’s like Aspen, Colorado. Movies get filmed here. ‹The Hunger Games› was filmed here. The first ‹Dirty Dancing› was filmed forty minutes from here. ‹The Last of the Mohicans› was filmed here. I served celebrities a couple of times.
Like who?
Ray Liotta. From… ah… What was that…
‹Goodfellas.›
Correct. And he actually tipped like a fucking mafia motherfucker. He tipped 20 bucks on a 120-dollar bill. What a dick. I also served Andie MacDowell a couple of times. She was in ‹Groundhog Day›. She’s in that TV commercial. Though she doesn’t look that good, she’s in her fifties. A lot of other celebrities came here who I did not serve. Like Dave Chappelle. I actually met Peter Dinklage from ‹Game of Thrones›. The short guy. Woody Harrelson from ‹The Hunger Games›. I heard he’s really chill. But I never met him.
Which actor would play you?
Probably Nicolas Cage.
Why him?
We have a similar stature. His eyes are a little bigger than mine. Anything between him and maybe Brad Pitt. Or… Hmm. Maybe not Brad Pitt. Maybe Johnny Depp. Because he can play anybody he wants to.
You worked in many restaurants. What’s your favorite food?
Seafood. I worked in the number one restaurant. I wish I could still get in there. It’s the healthiest. I try… I want to… Like, if I had money in my pocket, I would be more conscious about animal rights. But hell, I ate at Burger King today. But I know what’s going on in our animal system here. We do have a lot of farm-raised restaurant places down here, but I can’t afford to eat there. So being in Burger King I promote the bad way a cow is treated vs. the farm-raised. I am too poor to make a conscious decision when I am just hungry.
So no Whole Foods for you.
Whole Foods costs so much more than, let’s say Aldi. And I understand the economics. The healthy or farm-raised food costs more because it uses much more land. Organic fruit or vegetables use more land because you are not spraying insecticides. If I had the control and ability to do that, I would. And then I think seafood is better. Some fishes are smart, but a lot of them are… you know, just fish. Plus, you have your Omega 3s. You can’t get Omega 3s from hamburgers. I love salmon, I love sushi.
Do you cook yourself or eat out?
I usually just get whatever I can get. If I am working at a restaurant I eat there because I get it half price. Usually you come half an hour in advance of your shift and eat half price. Which they still profit on. That’s how much profit margin they have.
How much did you get paid in the restaurants?
It used to be 50% of a regular minimum income plus 10% from tips. Over the years minimum wage went up, but service wage stayed stagnant at two dollars and thirteen cents. Which it is here now. Probably it is higher in Boston because there are more unions. But I am in the South. $7.25 is minimum wage here for anything.
So you get only two dollars…
…and thirteen cents. Which covers taxes. That’s it. My credit card and my cash is tip. Normally it’s 18% of your bill. So basically for every beer you buy, that’s one dollar for me.
What’s the biggest tip you’ve ever gotten?
In one restaurant in 2006 I made like $355 in one shift. The tip was already included in the bill and they double tipped me. So I walked away with $350-something in one night. But this is sporadic. You can’t plan your bills on it.
No security.
It’s a risk-factor job. Could depend on the weather. Could depend on Election Day.
What did you do today?
Today is not my normal day, because I am not on top of my game. But on a crappy day like today, which I’ve had a few of because I’m unemployed, I have some Quaker Oatmeal, I have a strawberry-peaches-and-cream mix. I go to the plasma center. It’s not the blood part, it’s the clear shit. Like if you have a blister, the clear shit is the plasma. So you can give your plasma and make money. You can do it only twice a week, because your body has to rebuild it. It’s open from 8am to 6pm. I went at 2pm and I left at 3:30pm. The very first time you go, it will take you 3 hours because they will get to check all your vitals. They have to make sure you’re not doing fucking drugs. Sticking needles in yourself, anything that can sabotage you. But after that it’s only about an hour and a half to go in and out. And the first 5 times, it’s 50 bucks apiece. They put it on your credit card. After that I went to Burger King.
And you do that every week?
I have recently. The first five times they give you $50, and today was my fifth time. So Friday, I am gonna get… it’s based on how much you weigh, I’m a thinner guy, so I’m gonna get $30 and then if I went the second time it will be $35. If you were fully employed, and everything else is normal, you can actually do this to pay off your phone bill. And probably your Internet. I read some of the pamphlets on the wall, they say that for someone who needs plasma it takes a thousand trials of plasma a year. So that’s why they pay for it. It’s a little uncomfortable, because you get poked. But you can sit there and use their Internet. And an hour and a half later you’re done. It’s not a bad deal. That’s a party supply for the night if you have a weekend coming. It’s an actual paycheck. It helps people who went through the hurricane, through fucking Puerto Rico, and all the islands all summer long, because of global warming.
What did you do while you had to wait?
Just sitting there with my left arm hooked up, my tablet between my legs, reading artic≠les, about the economy, or the environment, and my friend’s jokes. This particular time, there were so many people online, that I had to give up the reading. You know how you can be on Facebook without being online, you can read the posts, just can’t hit like. So I did that for a little bit. And there was a movie on the TV. There were a couple of TVs in the room.
And after that you went to Burger King?
It doesn’t affect your appetite though. They do want you to hydrate decently, drink some water before you go, but that’s not a big deal. You don’t have to do yoga or nothing to do this. And you can help your fellow humans. It goes global, they pay you for it, and you don’t expect a bunch of hobos and shit, just regular people like me in there. It’s Christmas spending money right now.
What are you planning to buy for Christmas with this money?
I’m not… I will just try to live, because I am unemployed. It gets me between jobs. But I have done it when I am employed just because it needs to be done. You have no idea how much plasma is needed in the world. It helps people who get seriously burned, like you’ll have to look up plasma and see all the uses that’s needed from healthy people being donated.
And what did you do after that?
I took the city bus back downtown. I went to the coffee shop. I went on Craigslist to see if there are any more job advertisements. I did an application online for Tupelo Honey. They are nationally known and their first restaurant is in Asheville.
Are you only looking for jobs in restaurants, or are you open to other types of jobs?
I’m mostly in restaurants. I have been a server, a front of the house bartender server type of person for 20 years. On rare occasions, if I am between jobs, I might run into somebody and work under the table. No paperwork. Help somebody fix a roof, or paint. But that’s very hard to find. But I have done it. I am a very small guy, so there is no way I can carry 80 pound of shingles on my shoulders up a ladder. That is not going to work for me very well.
So no construction work, or things like that.
I can do it, but not the physical lifting. I can hammer a motherfucking nail like a mother≠fucker. I damage nails. When I first graduated from high school, before I even got a real job, I helped somebody in my town in Texas to strip an entire roof down and rebuild it. It was 5 layers of shingle. And it was the old-school, shingle-style, wooden roof instead of flat board. We rebuilt the whole thing, me and him, in a matter of 5 days. And I am just a gofer, I just do what I am told. The main guy, he does the math. That was my very first job. I was 17.
If you had enough money now, would you go to college?
I tried to do the school thing. But I was in a house with aggressive roommates. It was a roommate situation where nobody knew each other. There was so much drama happening. The guy who ran the house for the homeowner was aggressive. Drunk or whatever. I was in school, and I abused using FASFA. It’s a government loan to go to college. But I failed it, because I could never concentrate. And I decided to drink beer, because I would ignore the shit around me. So I failed my entire credit, so I failed my life with that, but I was kind of forced to have to do that, because I needed money to live. It was during the recession. My unemployment check was only $160 a month, and my rent was $160 a week. This didn’t include food or nothing. I wanted to do entrepreneurship. I have business ideas, environmental business plans.
Can you tell us more about this?
I have a new fast food idea, that has never been done, that I would like to try. But I have to find capital from investors.
Can you tell us more about your fast food ideas?
No, because then you will steal it. I don’t have it blueprinted or copywritten. So I have the ideas, but I don’t know how to blueprint them and I don’t know how to speak with investors. But my biggest idea is a warehouse, like Home Depot, but with all environmental friendly products. It would also have a recycling center and it would be off the grid.
Would that be one of your dreams?
To create a business that helps the environment would be a dream, yes. And on top of that, as the owner I want to have an employment model different than Walmart. I want my people to make a living wage, so that they don’t need subsidies. I will have a lower lifestyle than the Walmart CEO, so my people who actually do the work, who make my money, have a better lifestyle. Like in Europe. I would never want to be a greedy owner of a business.
You want your employees to earn with you. If you make profit, they make profit.
Correct. Because they are the ones doing a physical labor.
This sounds like a Marxist concept.
Marxism, or maybe communism. I believe in a mixed economy. I believe everybody should have healthcare. If we all had healthcare, we could handle pre-emptive health issues, which is cheaper. Instead of waiting for the last minute, that costs more. And also a healthy populace is a more productive populace. In Europe, you have two weeks of paid vacation?
Four or five.
Fuck yeah! We don’t get zero. If a woman has a child, if she’s pregnant, even your male ass gets time off. We don’t have that for even the mother. I’ve actually had a pregnant woman as a manager working until she was releasing her baby.
Would you say that the US is somehow behind Europe?
Yeah. I am not so arrogant that I think that the US is number one. We are the third-highest populated country in the world. We are number one in military spending, number one in incarceration of our own citizens, number two in child poverty and starvation. Number one in inequality of wages. We have assholes here that have more money than they can ever spend in 100 lives. What’s the point? If a lady in this country has a hundred cats in her house, we say she is crazy. If a guy piles up more money than he can ever spend, we put him on „Time“ magazine. It’s a mental issue here.
You should go into politics.
Yeah, well you have to have capital to do politics. The biggest problem is money in politics.
But did you ever consider being in a political party?
There is no way to do it if you don’t have a rich family backing you.
What about community work?
I can’t think on a small scale. Asheville, even being progressive, is still manipulated by corporations. We have a problem that makes our rents high: short-term rentals. A house that people can rent instead of a hotel, but they are in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Somebody can own a house and make a $1000 in a weekend. For long-term rentals, it’s a disease. No, you can’t get into politics like that. And I wouldn’t want to start small.
Do you have a pessimistic vision of the future?
Oh, I don’t want children! I would adopt if I had a nice woman. But I would not if I am on my own. There are plenty here that suffer already.
And do you see a change coming up in the next couple of years?
We have Trump in office, have you not noticed?
After Trump.
We might not get past this. Hello! We are fucking with Korea. We got Iran… Do you understand that the US is the Evil Empire of the entire planet. We instigated the Middle East, we caused all of it. We are the bad guys and WW3 is not going to be pretty. So why would I get a wife, impregnate her and bring a baby into the world, and all of a sudden there is a mushroom cloud on the horizon.
Or climate change is going to…
Climate change is… Hey! Ok, last fall… We had fires last year. Gatlinburg, Tennessee lost 30 people and a thousand buildings burned. Lake Lure, where ‹Dirty Dancing› was filmed with Patrick Swayze, had a fire. On Election Day, we had so much smoke in downtown Asheville, it looked like Mars. It was orange. This is a temporary climate. And this last hurricane season, we had what, three or four Category 4 hits, all the fires in California, double the normal amount. Shit’s happening, bro. Wake up! I’ve lived in Florida, I’ve lived in Texas, I’m up here 18 years. I moved here November 15, November 99, I feel like the leaves that fall are a week late.
How would you describe yourself?
Unfortunately, I’m a Cancer. I am a pacifist and empath to the point that it doesn’t matter, because I feel the weight of the world at times. I can’t tune it out. It actually affects me, to the point that I can’t take care of myself.
Like a depression?
Empath. Google that word. Empathy, that’s when you feel the weight of everybody else’s pain, even when you’re on your own.
And do you think this is because you are a Cancer?
I think so, yeah. Sometimes they correlate, sometimes they don’t. I am an empath, I am a lover, I would rather do that than be a fighter.
What’s the biggest thing that you ever won in your life?
Oh boy. I don’t think I have won anything, except waking up in the morning. Lost, hmm… Falling for an Aquarius and then after a month I realized I was played and then my brain was fried. I am recovering from a lost love that I had. Because communication wasn’t clear. Because she is an Aquarius, and we know them, they can just change their mind and disappear.
Is this something that happens often to you?
Most of the time, I would not give a fuck. It might be a one-night stand half of the time, or whatever. I only had one that was more important, but she actually got murdered in 2010. She was having a scholarship at Florida State University. My girlfriend Liz, we were friends for years before, and her boyfriend went off, he got arrested or whatever, but we were friends, so we connected. She almost didn’t want to go to Florida State University, because she liked me. I was like, „Look, we’ll have an open relationship. Go to Florida State University, hello! You got a scholarship? Fuck out of here.“ For a couple of years during Thanksgiving breaks, Christmas breaks, spring breaks, summer breaks, we could kick it. But she had some boy issues on her end, in Tallahassee, and one of the boys murdered her. She was 25.
That’s horrible.
I can give you the link on that. And wait, you should Google this, too: A Doug Jones is running for senator in Alabama. Somebody hit me on my Facebook like: „I didn’t know that you were running?!“ A Douglas Jones like me would never want to be in Alabama. The Republican candidate is being in trouble of either being rude to women or children. I can’t remember. It’s a big deal right now. But people in Alabama are mostly GOP. Southern state, you know how it is there. Apparently there are stats, that in Alabama people would rather vote for a pedophile than for a Democrat. Look it up, I swear I read something about that. That’s how divided this country is. This country is naive. We aren’t #1 in anything. You guys are higher ranked in standard of living, cost of living, healthcare, education, we’re only #1 in things that don’t matter to someone like me. Maybe the army. Our forefathers actually wanted us to protect the borders, not going out there… Our forefathers, look it up, our forefathers. Our country now has over 900 bases around the globe. We probably have a base in your country. We’re the Roman empire, buddy. I am not proud of it. We’re probably at the peak, which means we will collapse soon. I can’t wait.
A pessimistic view.
Do you know who the Silver Surfer is? It’s a Doug Jones. I just saw it on the credits of ‹Fantastic 4 – The Rise of the Silver Surfer›. You’ll have to Google that one too.