From: rjordan@pe.net
Date: 9/24/96


I finished some business in Long Beach, stopped in a Carl's Jr. to get an iced
tea before jumping on the 710 to head for Sam's...the first, and for me, the
only leg of ASSConvoy.

While I was at Carl's, an employee wheeled out a metal container of grease from
the kitchen to the dumpster enclosure. I casually asked the asst. manager who
was serving me where that stuff goes. She said a "guy" picks it up. What guy?
Just a guy...from Darling-Delaware. What do they do with it? She didn't know.
Where are they?

She was starting to humor me in the way Carl's employees are trained to handle
the homeless crazies that Ronnie Reagan dumped out of the nut houses. But she
went back in the office and brought me the address. Darling-Delaware in Vernon.
Cool. I go right through Vernon on my way to Sam's.

Twenty minutes later, I walk into the D-D reception area. "Can I get a tour?"
Blank, hostile stare. "A TOUR?" "Yeah, a tour." The receptionist picks up the
phone. A minute later a guy comes through the door. "What do you want?" "A
tour." "Who you with?" I look around...it's me and him. "Uh...I'm alone." "Are
you with AQMD?" No. "OSHA?" No. "What do you want?" A tour. He disappears
through a door and comes out with two yellow hard hats. His says "Bill, General
Manager". Mine says "Ned".

We walk out to the yard, and the stench of death was unmistakeable...but I was
still bothered about being "Ned." Ned was the dorky, occasional friend of Dick
and Jane. They played with him, but it was obvious, even with my rudimentary 3rd
grade social skills, that it was out of pity. 45 years later...I'm wearing Ned's
hard hat in an offal processing plant.

Bill took me to the receiving pit where all incoming "goods" are deposited. I
stared into the huge concrete pit full of Carl's french fry grease, intestines,
ribs, hooves, and lungs (good...they look like non-smokers). Two sightless sheep
heads and a pig head appeared to stare back. A screw conveyor carries this
grisly stew to another building where it is chewed into bite size chunks by a
"Grizzly", a large walk-in cast iron Cuisinart. From there, the chunks are screw
conveyored to a 3000 gallon pressure cooker. I wasn't writing down the recipe,
so I missed how long they cook it and at what temperature. 

The solids from the cooker are relatively dry and belt conveyored to some
centrifugal mills that grind the stuff into a dry meal...it is used as a protein
supplement for chickens who think they are vegens. Cruel joke.

The fat is siphoned off the cooker as a relatively clear liquid. It is nothing
more than the clear bacon grease relatively short lived people use to cook their
morning eggs. And it congeals into the same milky lard you see in the empty
juice can when you poor off the bacon grease and let it cool. So they have to
keep this stuff hot. They pump the liquid grease into large heated tanks on the
other side of the property.

The rendered grease is called tallow. Now I remember tallow from that same 3rd
grade class where I met Ned and first tried to look up a pretty teacher's dress.
The Pilgrims made tallow candles. Animal fat candles. But I haven't seen tallow
candles in the stores, so what do they do with tallow?

Among other uses, they sell it to soap and cosmetic manufacturers who refine it
into cosmetic grade tallow. It is used for a number of "health care" products,
but a good portion of it is dyed various shades (usually red), and molded into
slender sticks...lipsticks.

I thanked my host for an informative tour, returned Ned's hard hat, and headed
towards Sam's with a brief stop at the Southwestern Road Kill Museum ["Mementos
of local highways"] to see what was new. Actually, nothing. Paramount painted
the sign for a movie on the side of a diesel truck stop on 14th at Alemeda, a
couple blocks from Sam's. No one there know what movie, though.

I met Dodger in the parking lot of Sam's changing from his Supersalesman suit to
sweats. I didn't even notice a phone booth. We went in and he introduced me to
ALS, IRL, and Dave's Friend already in progress. We were later joined by
LapMeRich, and Mr. X (Z Bone's special agent).  They are not exactly what I
pictured, but they were as entertaining a bunch as I have run across in a long
time. We talked for a couple hours before they finally hit the road for TJ's at
about 9pm. I headed home...I'm not a night person.

We didn't pay much attention to the women. I think there were 4 dancers. They
were deserving of our attention...we just didn't give much.  When one of the
dancers stepped off stage after her set, I saw her put on some lipstick...I
flashed back to my tour of Darling-Delaware and those slender sticks of red
tallow which months before might have been the remains of a sightless sheep
peering out of a Vernon receiving pit...no kisses tonight, girls.

Athena (Z Bone's Sept Dancer of the Month) and Adrianna (forever tied to Z Bone
in a couple other ways) were the most friendly to our group. Adrianna even took
the time to learn everyone's name.  And Jennifer, the city's sexiest strip club
manager, visited with us often. The smoke was minimal to non-existent. I like
this place. I think it is going to be on my regular visit list when I am
anywhere near downtown L.A.

If you are looking for hot lap dances, Sam's is not the place. If you are
looking for a friendly place to relax, minutes from major attractions like the
Southwestern Road Kill Museum, and TWO rendering plants, this is it.  BTW, the
Red Chamber Co. is not far away south on Alameda. They have a bitchin' 1930's
fire truck parked on the roof of their 6 story building...I think they make
firefighting equipment. In any event, they wouldn't give me a tour...maybe
another time.

RJ