Dishwasher Pete has a mission: Wash dishes in all 50 states. Issue No. 7 finds Pete at a cafe in Boulder, No. 8 at an Alaskan fish cannery, No. 9 at a seafood restaurant in New Hampshire, and No. 11 at restaurants in Montana, California and Ohio (No. 10 was a comics issue). The reason you'll like Pete is that he has a good attitude, and a sense of humor. "Why is there this assumption that dishwashers are at the bottom rung of some sort of career-climbing ladder?" he asks. Writing in a tight, neat scrawl (with no water marks), he lists dishwashing references he finds in novels, describes the wacky people he meets (including a group of priests he stumbled upon as they watched a porn video) and details the mundane ways he kills time. After reading Pete's adventures, I'm as convinced as ever that a clean plate is like a clean soul — you can see yourself in it. ($1 from P.O. Box 8213, Portland, OR 97207). I used to read Pete's zine back in the 90's, when I was entering the food service universe myself. It really is/was a great way to understand the working-class mentality....This is a guy who just wanted to wash dishes for a living and write about his experiences. He didn't want to be an entrepeneur or a millionaire, he just wanted to operate in his own corner of the world and be left alone to write. Brilliant stuff, and often very poignant. I remember one article Pete wrote about seeing a Mexican guy he liked get fired for eating out of the bus tubs.
Here's a Wikipedia article on him:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishwasher_PeteI wonder if he's still putting out the zine? Haven't heard about Pete in several years.