It's Not The End Of The Decade

I've seen all sorts of 'Decade in Review' stuff on TV these past two days, and I've let it go. But the more I think about it, the more I hate it. It's not the end of the decade, just like the year 2000 was not the start of the new millennium.
   Our Western method of noting the years begins with the birth of Christ, or at least when people generally assume Jesus was born. The whole CE-BCE academic conceit aside - don't get me started on that one - the Gregorian calendar begins with the year 1. There is no year 0. Since a decade is ten years, the first decade would have ended on Dec 31st, 10, and the next decade would have begun on Jan 1st, 11. This means the first century would have ended on Dec 31st 100, the second century would have begun on Jan 1st, 101, etc. etc. etc. The second millennium began on Jan 1st, 2001, which means the first decade of that millennium ends next year, on Dec 31st, 2010.
   Is it so hard to get this right?
   And don't try to tell me that if everybody thinks the decade ends on the last day of 2009 that makes it so. The truth cannot be altered by ignorant consensus. If I get a bunch of morons together who all agree that the sky is yellow, that does not mean that when I step outside I'm going to look up to see a lemon heaven. The sky is blue, no matter what people say otherwise, and this is not the end of this decade, even though all the jackasses on TV say it is.
   Maybe I'll be less cranky with the new decade. You know, in 2011.

More Travel Notes

I spent 10 hours in transit yesterday - DFW and snow never mix well - and I'm trying not to be resentful of the delays and inconvenience. It's a miracle of modern technology that I can be annoyed when it takes me 10 hours to get from Texas to California when it normally takes about 5 hours. Just hours to cross 1,300 miles is a privilege I kind of take for granted, honestly. If I had been traveling 70 years ago, 5 hours would have gotten me about 100 miles West of San Antonio. Maybe. So I count myself lucky I can make the trip as quickly as it happens now.
   But still...
   Some random stuff I noticed during my sojurn yesterday. My lengthy sojurn... see? I just can't let it go.

Extra classy- I saw a fat redneck wearing knee-length camo shorts (yes, while it was snowing outside) but the best part was the 'F' and the 'U' tattooed prominently on each of his meaty calves. I bet that brings the ladies a-runnin'.

When you haven't eaten in five hours the smell of the onion rings from the TGI Fridays by gate C29 in DFW is almost enough to make you want to kill for a taste. Then you realize that it's TGI Fridays and you get over it.

More red sneakers. I mentioned before that I saw more red shoes at the airport than I ever had and the trend continued this time. One pair in San Antonio, one pair in DFW. I swear, I never see them anywhere else.

Standing side-by-side: a guy with the biggest head I've ever seen and a guy with the smallest head I've ever seen. These were not deformities or abnormalities, these were just regular guys, one with a noggin the size of a jack-o-lantern and one with a head the size of canteloupe. As far as I could tell they did not know each other, but they would have made a great comedy duo. Big-head and Tiny.

When you wash your hands with yellowish antiseptic soap they end up smelling like Band-Aids. It took me a little while to figure out why I imagined I was back in the infirmary getting stitched up after wrecking my 3-speed on the elementary school parking lot.

In a truly odd travel-related coincidence, I saw a friend of mine in DFW. Turns out she was on the same flight as I was back to Burbank. But I have unexpectedly encountered people I know in airports before, it happens. The really freaky part is she was in the seat right next to me. Really.

Maybe Next Year

A few weeks back I outlined what I wanted for Christmas this year. I didn't get a single thing from my list. Nothing. Nada. Bupkiss. Zilch. Zip. One of my nieces did give it the old college try with the leather shoelaces, but she had no better luck than I did. I did get a few questions about my list that I thought I should answer, though.
   Most questions came specifically about my desire for the still-beating heart of Bill Gates. Why would I want such a thing, and what had Bill Gates ever done to me that I thought the only way to even the score would be to subject him to an Aztec-style sacrificial death?
   Well, let me 'splain. What has Microsoft given the United States and the rest of the world time and time again, since the late 70's? One thing, above all.
   Mediocrity.
   Microsoft, and by extension Bill Gates, the man responsible for Microsoft, has given the world sub-standard software that works just well enough, but not really well at all.
   Because of Microsoft's half-assery, people have come to expect that kind of neglect and irresponsibility from everything in all aspects of their lives. It's the tragedy of just good enough. The software doesn't work like it should? Well, that's just the way those things go. The project didn't deliver what it was supposed to, on time and on budget? Eh, we'll fix it in the next go-round. The car seats don't meet Federal regulations? They rarely do. Overpaid jerkoffs blatantly steal, and abandon their fiduciary responsibility to the global financial system? Ah, well, that's the way of things. Local, state, and Federal governments are incompetent and corrupt? Of course they are, that's the nature of government.
   Don't you see? As a society we have grown used to things not living up to what they should be. We have come to expect shoddy workmanship instead of craftsmanship. We have come to expect prevarication and lies instead of straight talk and honesty. We have become so used to people trying to weasel out of obligations that we don't hold them to their word, and we're even a little embarrassed to mention it.
   And, yes, I'm blaming Bill Gates for all of that.
   He built his business not by focusing on what he was selling people NOW, he built it by focusing on what imagined he was going to sell people NEXT. That philosophy means that you couldn't give a rat's ass about making a good product today, because you're going to replace it anyway.
   The older I get, the more I realize that one bad decision today can screw up things decades later. Microsoft's history of bad products that don't work properly delivered years late only proves that point. Somebody's got to pay, someone has to be punished so that other people realize it's not okay, this is not the way things should be, and it's not what anyone should accept.
   Sorry, Bill, it's your mess and you have to clean it up. The Aztec way. Old-school.

A Christmas Gift From My Dad

I had been waiting for the thunderstorms for hours, watching their progress on local news, clicking over to the weather channel during Letterman. I went outside several times, finding the sidewalk and the street still bone dry, even though the weatherman said the rain was supposed to be here. The radar image lied to me, the rain wasn't where the green dots said it was. The line came closer slowly, as if it were teasing me, getting to my mother's house only after rain blanketed the rest of the city.
   I went to bed, opening the window a crack so that the cool, moist breeze could waft over me, bringing the sweet scent of rain. I had the blinds open so that I could see the flashes of lightning, strobes that froze raindrops in place, halfway between heaven and earth. The storm passed overhead, thunder rumbling through the clouds and bringing a smile to my face.
   Then it was quiet. So quiet. No car alarms, no neighbors talking, no police helicopters or highway noise or sirens. Just the smooth, even sound of rain falling, and a slight breeze in the naked branches of the trees. Serene. Magical.
   When I was young I used to wait for nights like this, I used to pray for nights like this. In a good year I'd get two or three times where the circumstances aligned, some years I'd wouldn't get even one. But when it happened just right, like it did last night, my father and I would stand out on the front porch together, watching for the lightning and listening to the thunder, ignoring the raindrops the wind spattered us with. We didn't say anything, we didn't need to; we just let it all unfold around us.
   I'm not a particularly spiritual man, and I'm usually more blasphemous than religious, but I'm pretty sure that my father arranged that storm last night. I'm back in Texas only a few days each year, and I get exactly the right kind of storm at exactly the right time of night on one of the days I'm in town... what else am I supposed to think?
   Merry Christmas, Dad. I miss you.

The Joy Of Manual Labor

I started working when I was 8 years old. Growing up in Texas, 'working' meant serving as slave labor for my grandfather; you name the menial task and I probably did it. Of course there was mowing grass, raking leaves, edging lawns, pruning roses, and picking vegetables. But there was also shingling roofs, pouring cement, tilling the earth, turning the compost pile, cutting down trees, and weeding beds of okra, which is such a revolting task I challenge anyone who hasn't done it to try it and tell me that's not the worst job ever.
   I moved to Pasadena in February, 2002. Since that time I have not done one lick of manual labor. Not even a tiny bit. Sure, I've cleaned my apartment, done the dishes, and killed spiders, but none of that counts. There's no lifting involved, no bending, no real cursing, not the creative kind of epithets that seem more appropriate outdoors. I missed working outside, but it's kind of like missing the taste of some familiar food you can't get in a foreign country; after so long you don't even remember what the thing was really like in the first place.
   Well, this morning I reminded myself. I just finished four hours of manual labor around my mother's house. I wasn't certain I would remember what to do, but when I got that hoe in my hand things just fell into place. It was like old times, walking the yard, raking leaves, getting my hands really dirty and letting them stay that way for hours. And I'm a little sore too, across my back and down my legs, but it's a good sore, the kind of ache that lets you know you've accomplished something.
   Maybe when I get back to Pasadena I'll become a gardener or something. At least then I'll have something to show for all my work.

Yeah, That's Pretty F-in' Big...

I'm still in Texas, and I took a look at the local Super Wal-Mar today. Really took a look. From the inside. No, I didn't get a job there, not that kind of 'inside,' I was grocery shopping with my mother. I noticed how much wider the aisles were than in the stores I visit in SoCal, and yet how people just as easily managed to get in one anothers' way. I kind of idly wondered just how many customers would fit inside. So I looked at one wall, then squinted across the store, past the curve of the Earth, to see the far wall. The far, far, far wall, off in distance, lost in the mists of the store's microclimate.
   Holy crap, that place is huge. Ungodly huge. Ridiculously huge. Unnecessarily huge. Obscenely huge.
   It looked to me that, wall-to-wall, the store stretched at least 100 yards across. As big as football field; and I mean real football, American football, not 'futbol.' But I thought to myself 'self, you must be losing your ability to estimate distances, it can't be THAT big.' So I looked it up on Wikipedia. The average Super Wal-Mart is 197,000 ft sq. Which, if you assume a square footprint, comes out to 443 feet on a side. I was wrong, a football field is 100 yards across, or 300 feet, 360 if you include both end zones. The Super Wal-Mart would be 147 yards across, on average, or 47% longer than the Cowboys' home field. That's 136 meters if you prefer to measure things like Europeans do.
   Hokey smoke, that's just insane. I know things are bigger in Texas, but Texas isn't the only place that has Super Wal-Marts. Chances are good the biggest one isn't even in Texas. How much electricity does that place use? How much water? How much gasoline do all those people burn getting to and from that immense building every day? How many people surreptitiously cut a fart while walking down one of those fifteen-foot-wide aisles? That's greenhouse gas right there.
   I'm not into granola and I don't wear hemp clothes. I'm not a green fanatic by any measure. But just thinking about the simple statistics for what it takes to keep this one Super Wal-Mart open is enough to turn me into a tree-hugging, polar bear-loving hippie. And then when you think about all the other Super Wal-Marts across the country... man, I'm starting to long for a Volkswagen Microbus that I can take into the forest and get away from it all. Jeez, how much do we need, and how big a store do we need to put it all in? Enough, already.
   Where's my tie-dye? I need to make some clothes.

And That's How Swine Flu Spreads

I'm back in Texas for the holidays, time for fajitas and barbeque and maybe a gun show or two. Usually airports are good places for people watching, but I was scheduled pretty tightly, no time to chit chat or dilly dally or any other slightly effeminate verbs like those two. But along the way something interesting did happen.
   I drank a Pepsi from England.
   No, I didn't buy it in a novelty British food store, a passing chimney sweep did not hand it to me, I didn't pick it off the corpse of an international spy. On the flight from Burbank to Dallas, the flight attendant served it to me right out of the drink cart. This was a Pepsi can bottled in England, with a contest paid in pounds sterling advertised along the top rim. Straight from the Empire.
   Remember, I got on the plane in Burbank, and so did the Pepsi can. And Burbank is eight time zones removed from England. So the can had to travel all that way, probably in the drink cart of an airplane taking off from Heathrow, making several stops along the way at JFK or O'Hare or Hartsfield, until finally it found its way to that one drink cart in Burbank, where it started making the trip back East. How many hands did it go through? How many flight attendants or airport catering dudes handled it? How many miles did it actually travel before I drank yet another soda I didn't need to be drinking?
   I think the risk posed by swine flu has been blown waaaaaay out of proportion, far too alarmist, but when I get a drink bottled in England on my trip from Burbank to Dallas, I can see the point of raising the issue. People travel across the globe on a whim these days - apparently so do Pepsi cans - which means their germs travel too.
   Speaking of germs, I have a bit of a cold myself, so I think it would be interesting to see who on that plane catches my cold. I'm hoping I infected the douchebag in front of me who leaned his seat all the way back, I know I tried my darndest to give it to him. Maybe, just maybe, my cold will travel all the way back to England, infecting the staff working in the bottling plant that made the Pepsi I drank. That would be cool, huh? Talk about closing the loop.

Corporate Monkey-Spank

The more things change the more they stay the same. And just when you think corporate weasels would start to get the message they prove that they just don't get it.
   I worked out this morning, and as I was walking home I decided to stop in at the convenience store along the way for a soda and a lotto ticket, my only two vices if you don't count curling up in my robe on the couch Friday nights to read the latest vampire book while my hot rollers set my hair just-so.
   The place is closing.
   They have a half-off sale on most things, including beer, as they try to liquidate inventory before they close in ten days. So I doubled up on the diet soda - half off is essentially 'two for one' - and I asked the guy behind the counter why the place was closing. I expected to hear 'raising rent' or 'losing money' or 'lost the liquor license' something like that. Not even close.
   The corporate offices decided to close the store because it wasn't making enough money. Not that it wasn't making money - the manager assured me they had been turning a profit since the day they opened - but that they weren't making the kind of profits the corporate weasels wanted them to.
   This is why I hate, hate, hate MBAs. They don't know how to run a business, they know how to do algebra on a spreadsheet. Some jerkoff who's never actually operated any kind of store, web site, or even a cart at the mall sets a sales goal, a number he creates out of thin air according to his flawed analysis of whatever bogus metrics he can think up. Then when the store doesn't meet those artificial goals, he makes the 'command decision' to shut the place down because, after all, not meeting goals needs to have consequences. Ridiculous and short-sighted.
   'But Don,' you MBAs say, 'there are all sorts of considerations beyond profitability that might call for closure.' Bull and shit. If a place is profitable it should stay open, even if the profit is only $1. If it doesn't make enough cash to contribute to the middle-manager corporate bloat of do-nothing asswipes then the ranks of those weasels needs to be thinned.
   So for want of a few extra dollars to pay the salary of someone who shouldn't be working anyway, people lose their jobs, the neighborhood loses a store, and I get an excuse to go on my anti-MBA rant again.
   Oooh... it just angries up the blood...

More Holiday Cheer

Why stop with just a Christmas list? This is the holiday season, after all, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Diwali, and whatever Wiccans celebrate... I dunno, the Winter Solstice or something? So here are some non-Jesus, non-Santa holiday things.

Let me preface this by saying I loathe Adam Sandler. A lot. An awful lot. Along with Will Ferrell and almost everyone else from the last 30 years of SNL his one-joke shtick got stale decades ago. But Adam Sandler did write The Chanukah Song, even if he didn't sing it very well. The good news is Neil Diamond has done a cover of The Chanukah Song and his version not only does not suck, it's very good. And who doesn't love Neil Diamond?

Did you know there are Kwanzaa songs? Me neither, but why shouldn't there be? I don't think Kwanzaa has been around long enough for it to become as commercialized and subverted as Christmas has, though. But if I have to sit through the barking-dog version of Jingle Bells, why shouldn't people celebrating Kwanzaa be just as annoyed?

Okay, so Diwali fell in October this year, months before Christmas, but it's the closest thing in the Hindu faith, so I'm lumping it in. It's the celebration of good over evil so it's pretty much in the Christmas spirit anyway. I'm guessing there are Diwali songs - there's lots of music in India for everything else - but I'm fairly certain there aren't any barking-dog versions of any of them. I could be wrong, though. Can anybody tell me if there's a Diwali version of 'A Christmas Carol?' The British Raj ruled India for almost 100 years, some of that Dickens stuff had to have rubbed off.

Three years ago I was in Australia for Christmas - technically Chanukah, since my friends are Jewish - but since December in Australia is the middle of summer, Santa isn't the jolly German elf we know from the Thomas Nast illustrations, rather he wears shorts and is ably assisted by koalas and kangaroos. It was very odd having a barbeque cookout on Boxing Day, with the chance of thunderstorms.

Tis The Season

I am extremely difficult to buy gifts for. I know this, and, honestly, it's partly by design. When people ask me what I want for my birthday or for Christmas I tell them 'I don't really want anything' and I truly don't. I don't need gifts, I don't need any more stuff because I already have too much. But gifts aren't really about the having, they're about the giving. What I really enjoy are gifts that show me someone took some time to think about me. My nieces are particularly good at finding absurd things they know I'll like, but other people have stepped up to the plate as well.
   I prefer to remain an enigma, but this year I've decided not only to make a Christmas list, but to put it out there for everyone to see. Now no one can say I'm hard to buy for.

Dear Santa, please bring me:
   A jet pack - one that fits me and can lift me, I want to sail over castle walls like James Bond.
A posse - anything that's good enough for Tupac is good enough for me.
   A three-finger ring that spells out 'TCB' - if it's good enough for Elvis it's good enough for me.
A Sinatra breakfast - if you don't know what I mean, you aren't meant to. If you do know what I mean, then get busy, daddy-o.
   TCR slotless slot cars - it's the one thing I really, really wanted for Christmas but never got.
Three wishes from a genie in a bottle. And I don't mean Christina Aguilera, what she's got I don't want. An alternative would be a monkey's paw that grants wishes, I'm not all that particular.
   My '72 Chevelle, best car ever. Good luck with this one, I know where the engine is, and it's not with the body. And I'm pretty sure the body's now been recycled into a Weber grill.
The still-beating heart of Bill Gates. I'm not particularly mad at him, not anymore, but he still has a lot to answer for.
   One good, solid punch in Alan Greenspan's face. I know, I know, he's old, but he's got a lot to answer for too. Bastard.
That one day in 1982 when my friends Jeff, Bob, and I were out in Jeff's front yard playing football in the rain. It's all been kind of downhill since then.
   For the guys in charge of Google to come clean and admit they really are in it for the money just like every other corporate bastard. Time for the charade to end.
Leather shoelaces for my f**kin' boots. And not the square ones, those suck, the round ones, like what I have now. But not broken.
   A chance to visit the 18-year-old me, to tell him what he did right and what he did wrong.

There you are, that's all I want. Some of it's gonna be hard to wrap.

Tell My Shame

I have this thing wearing on my conscience, a personal failing that I've hidden for days now. It's always there, lurking in the darkness, my own Telltale Heart that's slowly driving me mad. I have to come clean before it becomes the end of me.
   I bought a copy of 'O' magazine.
   I'll give you a moment to pick yourself up off the floor. Yes, I did it, I have no one else to blame. I didn't even try to get someone else to buy it for me, like a teenager begging beer at the convenience store, I walked right up to the Vroman's magazine rack, put my hands on the Christmas issue of 'O' magazine, and surrendered my five bucks. And then I took it home.
   Why? Why would I have anything Oprah related in my house? For the chance to win free stuff from Ellen.
   Okay, hold on, let's back up. I'm digging myself deeper here. See, Ellen has her 12 Days of Giveaways, and, in grand Oprah fashion, is buying the loyalty of her audience with loot. And if you buy an 'O' magazine and read it to find the code to enter online, you can be one of the people who wins said loot without being in the studio audience.
   How do I know this?
   Oh boy... all right, here's what happened. See, I was in my apartment, minding my own business, flipping through the channels. The TV seemed to tune itself to Ellen and then there was a tiny micro-earthquake - centered on my living room - that knocked a bookcase over. I was stuck under hundreds of pounds of books, the remote just out of reach, and I was forced to watch an entire hour of Ellen before I could find the strength to dig myself out.
   Yeah, that's what happened... All right, I'm gonna stop now. Nothing to see here, just move along.

Where's My X-Ray Vision?

If you're a science geek you've no doubt been following the progress of the Large Hadron Collider, and you know that it's once again operational, and set to come up to full power some time next year. If you're not a science geek, you've probably heard about those crazy particle physicists who are trying to smash protons together over in Switzerland (and France, the thing is huge). It's the largest science experiment ever, it's the largest machine ever built, and is the most expensive pure research project ever. Some misinformed souls also think that when it comes up to full power, the LHC will create a black hole that will destroy the Earth; they've even tried to get court injunctions against turning it on. This is all just ignorant panic and crazy talk, and hides the truth of the real purpose of the LHC.
   It's designed to give people super-powers.
   Stay with me on this one. The LHC is a colossal undertaking, huge tunnels and giant magnets and elementary particles slamming into each other at the speed of light. It cost $9 billion - that's billion with a capital B - and involves the coordination of people and materials from Europe to North America to Asia to Africa to Antarctica (really). Who else could manage that but some sort of evil genius like Lex Luthor or Blofeld?
   I've stripped away the veil, haven't I? It all makes sense now. There's no way that scientists and governments could come together to see a project through almost 40 years of planning and construction... but an evil genius could. An evil genius is almost obligated to do that kind of thing. And all this 'Higgs boson' talk, it's just a smoke screen. It's obvious to any thinking man that the real purpose behind this whole endeavor is to make regular people into super-powered heroes. Why else go to all the trouble? For science? Yeah, sure...
   So I want my super-powers. And I want something cool, not something lame. No giant stilts or some gloppy glue gun, I want wings - angel wings, not bat wings - or the ability to turn my skin to steel or super-speed or control over the elements. Something like that.
   It's only a matter of time, once the LHC powers up all the way next year. Watch the skies...

Lost In The Sands Of Time

The other day I was cleaning out a closet - more like rearranging it, really - and I found a small can of paint. So I got to thinking, somebody must have invented paint. Somewhere, some time, some dude thought that it would be a good idea to coat a piece of wood in a layer of stuff that would keep it from getting wet or keep bugs away. But that had to have been so long ago, thousands of years. We know who invented the light bulb, but there's no way we'd ever know who invented paint.
   Thinking further, I wondered what other ubiquitous things had to have been invented by people we're never going to know.

Forks
   Soap
Mayonnaise
   Thread
Coasters - the kind you put under glasses
   Ink
Boat oars
   Fences
Hammers
   Erasers, either chalkboard erasers or the ones on the end of a pencil
Buttons and button holes
   Wire

This is the kind of thing that occupies my day.

Eating Alone In Your Car

Back before I was 'between assignments' I would occasionally go out for lunch with colleagues. If we wanted to go somewhere just out of walking distance we'd all trek into the parking garage, pile into somebody's vehicle and take off. Nine times out of ten, in the garage we'd see this guy sitting in his truck - he was a white-sunglasses-worn-on-the-back-of-his-head, spiky moussed hair guy - listening to really loud music, or sleeping, or eating. Sometimes all three. I used to wonder how lonely he was that he thought he needed to take his break in his truck, in a cement parking garage, alone. I would have felt sorry for him if he wasn't such a complete douchebag. White sunglasses. Seriously.
   Fast forward to this week. I've been out doing some Christmas shopping (scored an Elmo cap for my little nephew), and I've seen more people sitting in their cars alone than ever before. And most of these people were eating. Maybe I'm just not in touch with the whole American car zeitgeist, but the only thing I like to do in my truck is drive it. I don't eat in it, rarely drink in it, and I certainly don't sleep in it even though it would make a dandy bed. On the rare times I go to Sonic, I'm usually one of those people sitting at the benches up front, not horking down a burger behind the wheel.
   So what's with all the people eating in their cars? I'm not talking about utility workers or dump truck drivers or cops or firemen, those guys I can understand, they eat when they can where they can. I'm talking about secretaries or students or accountants or white-sunglass-wearing douchebags, people who don't have to be anywhere at a moment's notice. Why? Go inside, sit down, have your artery-clogging meal at a plastic table with the rest of society, don't lock yourself away. For God's sake, today I saw a lady sitting in a McDonald's parking lot, eating the meal she had just gotten at the drive-through. Does that make any sense at all?
   Am I completely out of touch with this one? Is this more of my impending old-man-ness showing?

I'm Back - And So's My Mojo

Okay, so it's still a little unsettled around here - it's not supposed to be this cold in SoCal - but I'm back and I can handle cold weather. You may recall a few weeks ago I was concerned that nothing strange had happened to me in a while. I think the Universe was taking pity on me, in preparation for my father's passing. Still tough to take, but things are getting back to normal. And I mean normal for me, not normal for you.
   The weirdos are back.
   Wheewww... That was me, heaving a huge sigh of relief. I was at the Post Office this morning, the big, fancy one down by City Hall, not the grody, tiny one down by RiteAid, mailing off a few query letters. I was standing in line beside that table they have, the one with all the forms you can fill out for everything, including voter registration. A puzzled-looking lady was standing there, filling out several forms. She wasn't particularly dirty, so she probably wasn't homeless, but she wasn't entirely present in the moment either, if you know what I mean. Her hair was scattered around, and she kept glancing up at every new person who entered as if they might want to steal something from her. I know the look, it's common among the crazy people who flock to me. Another clue was the very loud conversation she was having with herself; I was part of the conversation, I just didn't know it at the time.
    'Temporary... temporary... what do they mean by temporary?'
    'If I can just get these jerk-offs off my back...'
    'What day... day... what's today? What day is it today?'
(a very kind older lady answered for me, not realizing I was supposed to be taking this bullet)
    'Return? When? I don't know when I'm getting back from New York. Maybe I'll send a pizza back, take care of all this bullshit.'

   All this while the line was slowly advancing. And guess who had just stepped to the front of the line when Crazy Lady finished filling out her forms? That's right, yours truly. She came up to me, reached out to touch me, thought better of it, then waved the forms at me.
    'I'm gonna.... they told me to finish... when I finish with these just to go back to the first window. So I'm not cutting in front of you, okay?'
   Of course I let her go, I would never impede one of my people in their daily lunacy. Besides, I was just glad to have them back.

Thanks, Dad

My father passed away Tuesday, December 1st. His memorial was today, Saturday, December 5th, and I spoke in tribute to him. I've included below the text of my comments at that service.


   He was my father. That tells you almost nothing, but it says everything. He was what fathers are supposed to be, stern but compassionate. He set the rules but he knew when to let me break them. He taught me many things that fathers should teach sons, how to throw a ball, how to dig a hole, how to saw a piece of wood, how to mow a lawn, how to walk on a roof and not fall off, how to change a tire. Guy things, stuff you need to know how to do if you’re any kind of man.

   He also taught me the most important thing a son can learn from his father. He taught me to tell the truth.

   When I was a boy I was smart and sneaky. Probably a parent’s worst nightmare. I figured out early that all I needed to do to control a situation was to control the flow of information. What my parents didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. But my father knew. I couldn’t get anything past him. Turned out he controlled a bit of information I didn’t know. He used to be me. If I fought or cheated or stole or lied, he’d tried to do exactly the same thing 30 years before. I can only imagine what it must have been like for him to watch me working my mojo, letting me play things along, giving me just enough rope to hang myself before he pulled the noose tight. I know he was exasperated, but I imagine he was a little bit proud too. Just like seeing your boy take his first steps, it had to be the tiniest bit gratifying to see me try to change the grades on my report card.

   I did get caught. Repeatedly. And the lesson that I finally took from that is the truth is always better than any lie. My dad taught me that.

   So here’s the truth. He wasn’t an easy man to love. Those who knew him understand what I mean. He had his faults as we all do. I have a card on my desk that says ‘maybe the hardest people to love are those that need love most of all.’ I think that’s true. My father was a big man, physically and metaphorically, and his passing leaves a very large hole in my life that will never fully be filled in.

   I am the man I am today because of my father. I love him and I miss him.

Out For A While

I won't be keeping a regular posting schedule for a while, I have to go home for some family stuff. Sorry, and I'll come back to you as soon as I can.

From Me To You

I used to spend a lot of time at my grandfather's house. Not as a celebrated guest, as manual labor. I spent my formative years mowing, weeding, chopping, edging, sweeping, raking, tilling, picking, and once nearly cutting off my toe with a chain saw. Good times, good times. As I sweated and cursed under my breath, from time to time my grandfather would dispense bits of grandfatherly advice. Some of his advice was of the 'don't take any wooden nickels' variety, but other bits I discovered, years later, were actually useful. For instance, his admonition to 'pay a little extra, get good shoes,' has proved true time and time again.
   So I thought it was time that I dispense my advice. These pearls of wisdom come from hard-won experience, and all of them will prove useful to you someday, though it may not seem so at first.

Oreos and orange juice. Don't do it. You might think 'hey, I like Oreos, and I like orange juice too, let's have them at the same time.' That would be a mistake. Trust me on this one.
    If that homeless guy looks like he might want to hug you, he probably will.
Corporations don't think it's funny when you point out inconsistencies in their policies, even if you think it's hilarious.
    If you're driving down a very narrow lane and both sides are lined with twenty-foot fences with razor wire across the top, you're in the wrong place.
Robot monkeys will never replace you in the work force. No matter how much you want it to happen.
    When the officer tells you to keep your hands where he can see them, he really means it.
An extra slice of pie is never a bad idea.
    You're almost never the smartest person in the room. But chances are good you are the most ethical.
Little kids are far, far more observant than you think they are. They're also sneakier and faster. But they're just as sticky as they look.
    The dialectic always wins out, your success shall become your failure. Plan for it.
If it looks too good to be true it's a multi-level marketing scheme.
    Half-assed but done really is better than well-planned but never started. Well-planned and well-executed is always best.
Drunk rednecks and boats always leads to tragedy. Same with drunk rednecks and guns. Or drunk rednecks and deep-frying a turkey.
    Transvestite prostitutes do not appreciate being called 'buddy.'

There you go, from me to you. I hope my wisdom gets you out of more trouble than it causes.

Sinatra and Shatner

During my time 'between assignments' I have a lot of time to think. I try to use this time wisely, pondering the larger questions of our existence, making the effort to tease the secrets of the universe out of our daily struggles. I made just such a breakthrough last night, when I realized that, for years now, William Shatner has been doing a Frank Sinatra impression.
   As I've written about previously, I recently rediscovered classic Star Trek, the one with the red, yellow, and blue velour shirts, the one with the hippy 60's vibe. The one that became a star vehicle for William Shatner. I noticed that on the show he wasn't quite Shatner, though. That is, he wasn't nearly the hammy parody of himself that he generally plays now. Which I thought was interesting but then didn't think any more of.
   Fast forward to last night, when I happened upon a PBS special featuring Frank Sinatra. The special was filmed in Carnegie Hall in 1980 (jeez, that's 30 years ago) and had never been seen before. As I watched Sinatra go through his Reprise hits, entertaining a concert hall full of jaded New Yorkers I finally saw it. Shatner's gestures are Sinatra's. His phrasing is Sinatra's. His knowing smirk is Sinatra's. Shatner has spent the last half of his acting career imitating Frank Sinatra. And getting away with it.
   During one of the PBS breaks to beg for money - which they do constantly now - a biographer noted that with his singing Sinatra intended to imitate Tommy Dorsey's trombone playing - lots of sustain, fluid, semi-classical legato of phrasing, no break between two lines of the lyric. So that means Shatner is also imitating a trombone. Which explains a lot.
   I'm calling you out, Shatner. I know your secret and I've just spilled the beans. Now, in the twilight of your years, you can go back to being a real actor. The ball is in your court.

One last thing: 'Send in the Clowns' sung by Sinatra isn't schmaltzy and horrible, it's sad and poignant. It makes sense.

LA Thanksgiving

One of my friends invited me to Thanksgiving at her place this year, and her place is in West Hollywood, a city more known for its lavish Halloween celebrations than for family gatherings. When most people think of LA they're really thinking of WeHo. Or Beverly Hills. And when my friend told me that out of nine people coming only three ate meat, I knew I was in for an interesting time. See, I'm from Texas, and while I'm sure somebody there doesn't eat meat, unless they live in Austin they keep it to themselves. As God intended.
   Since she knows I can cook I was directed to do so, given responsibility for sweet 'taters. And they were good, thanks for asking. The freeways were empty so I got to her place waaaaay too early, first one there. Come to find out, I was going to be the ONLY person eating meat, the other two bowed out. Everybody else was a vegetarian or vegan.
   To those of you wondering what the difference is, vegetarians don't eat meat but they eat eggs, cheese, milk, that kind of thing. Vegans subsist on air and the good wishes of their fellow man, at least as far as I can tell. Maybe they're photosynthetic, I don't know.
   I wasn't really sure I belonged at a gathering like this, but as more people arrived my apprehensions subsided. These were good people, nice people, and they were good company.
   But aside from me they were still sickly vegetable-eaters, and we were in West Hollywood. The conversation veered in an LA direction several times, mainly the vegans discussing where they could get good vegan cheese (evidently a real problem), how much better some of them felt by eliminating gluten from their diet, and how to use tofu instead of scrambled eggs in a meal. Oh, and we talked about auras too. And yoga. And chakras. Really.
   I was definitely a fish out of water, but it was still a good Thanksgiving. The dog and I shared the turkey.

Thanks, Hollywood

As I've related, I've seen a steep drop-off in weirdness around me, and many of my topics for this blog have to do with something odd that happened to me. I was running dry, grasping for ideas, vapor-locked and hoping for inspiration that just wasn't coming.
   Then, today, I had to go to Hollywood for an audition.
   I hate the drive, I hate that part of town, I resent every minute I'm forced to be anywhere in sight of the Hollywood sign. But, oh, the weirdness. Sweet, sweet, weirdness, falling into my lap like a gift from on-high.

Quick takes
   A lady at a stop light frantically stuffing a creampuff down her throat as she makes a left on red to beat the oncoming traffic. I can still see the powdered sugar explode around her face as she wrenched the steering wheel. If only she'd been on the phone too...
   The rapping bus-rider. The guy standing at the bus stop rapping up a storm, no iPod, no musical accompaniment, just him, his rhymes, and anybody with an open car window. Not half bad.
   The Sparkletts water man running across the street in front of oncoming traffic from both directions. Westbound had to brake to avoid splattering him across Sunset Blvd., and then Eastbound traffic had to do the same. Almost committing suicide to deliver water - dedication or death wish? You decide.
   People in the crosswalk who, for some reason, didn't see or hear the huge red fire truck barreling down on them. Everybody in cars with rolled-up windows heard the sirens and saw the lights, but the people crossing Sunset at Stanley had been struck blind and deaf. But they were surprisingly nimble when they realized it wasn't a movie shoot.
   Did you know there are 24-hour Subways? The sandwich shops, not the mass transit trains. Well there are, and I counted three as I drove down Sunset. How many transvestite prostitutes need a BMT at 3 AM? More than I suspected, evidently.
   Alligator Dave. There was a guy at the audition who signed in with the name 'Alligator Dave.' Seriously. Like Crocodile Dundee but not cool and without the Australian accent. He seems to believe that naming himself after an animal will help his chances at an acting career. He's about 23 years too late.
   The tour bus taking pictures of me as I left the audition where I saw Alligator Dave. The bus was stopped in front of the nondescript office building housing the casting studio, hoping to see a big star (I guess). They got me instead. I happened to glance up at the people on the top of the open double-decker and I saw a few cell phones, a few digital cameras, and one video camera pointed my way. I can only imagine the excuses the bus driver was making.

Going Back On My Promise

Sometimes you say things you regret, or you do things you regret and you regret talking about them later. And sometimes you make a sweeping pronouncement so bold and all-encompassing that you never want to go against it. But then you do and you have to come clean. This is come-clean day for me. Ready? Okay... deep breath... here goes...
   I'm running.
   Yup, for the past two weeks I've been on the treadmill at the gym, slowly increasing my speed and my distance. My goal is a non-stop mile - which, honestly, I could do right now but for my laziness issues - and after achieving that I will find some other running-related goal.
   This will be disappointing to many of you, I know, especially my long-time friends. You may recall such pronouncements as 'I only run when someone is chasing me. With a gun.' Or classics like 'If you see me running, swerve and put me out of my misery.'
   If I learned nothing else from the Bush administration, I learned that it's a very bad idea to stick slavishly to a clearly-discredited policy, and my running ban was one of those. I've been steadily losing weight for years now, slimming down and toning up, but I will never be really fit until I get more cardiovascular endurance. And, regrettably, running is about the only way to do that. So I'm running. God help us all.
   I think this may be one of the signs of the Apocalypse. Anybody want to check the Book of Revelations?

The Other Shoe

You ever get the feeling that the Universe is just biding its time before it puts the screws to you? I don't usually, but for the past few days...
   See, nothing odd has happened to me since last Monday.
   Others might count that as a blessing, but weird crap happens to me all the time. ALL THE TIME. Every day. People try to sell me stuff, crazy people think I'm related to them, birds follow me, machines stop working when I go by or ones that have stopped start working again, I overhear terrible conversations, and on and on and on. It's just something I've gotten used to, something I expect, almost something that defines me.
   And now it's stopped.
   You remember when Popeye would finally have his fill of Bluto, he'd eat his spinach, and then he'd wind up his forearm to make sure he got a really solid hit? I got a feeling that I'm Bluto, and the Universe is Popeye winding up for the twisker sock. If I suddenly dissolve in shower of light, or get kidnapped by Mole People, or suddenly become King of Prussia, don't say I didn't warn you.

What Do You Say?

Here's a moral question I don't think Socrates ever addressed.
   What do you say when someone you haven't seen in a month shows up and they're easily 20 pounds heavier?
   This happened to me this week, and I didn't say a thing, just ignored it as if the guy looked exactly like he had back in October. But he really didn't, his face was puffier, his stomach was wider, he looked pale. And the man boobs... It's obvious he had more than an extra few helpings of mashed potatoes, we're talking some serious overeating and serious non-activity to get that much bigger in such a short amount of time.
   But is it better not to say anything and spare their feelings, or to say something - however tactful yet painful - and let them know they're making a mistake?
   And for that matter, what's a tactful way to say 'hey, Tubby, lay off the Snickers bars?'

Tales From My Past - Dot-Com Madness

Do you remember the good old days? 1999? Back when Y2K was making people dig holes in their back yards? When the Euro was new and worth less than a dollar? When Brandi Chastain stripped for America at the World Cup? When the dot-com bubble hadn't yet burst, when companies who made nothing and provided no service were trading for $50 a share? When people who had no business playing in the stock market got their own personal accounts and traded their salary like it was Monopoly money?
   Ahh.... good times.
   Back then I worked for a soul-less, privately-held corporation - which is different from a soul-less public corporation in that it's easier for the private corp to lie - that was spending money as if they printed their own. Which they may have been doing. They were just figuring out the power of the Internet to drive their business, and one of the projects I was working on was creating a centralized customer database. I used specific software to get this done, and that software company held a 'user's conference' every year, which was, as we all now know, just another sales call and an excuse to spend far too much money. But since I was overworked and underpaid I got to go. Score one for Don.
   The software company rented out Universal Studios in Orlando, FL. The entire place, just for four hundred or so conference attendees. They had plenty of food and performers in costume and all the rides were open. It was crazy and fun, and had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the software product. Even though I felt a little guilty about it, I did eat their food and ride their rides and talk to the guy dressed as Captain America.
   Our regional sales manager took us to a very expensive Italian restaurant and picked up the entire tab, liquor included, for seventy people. When they found out I used to work at an Italian restaurant they made me pick the wines, and when I balked at the $90 bottle - we'd have needed at least six bottles to cover everyone drinking, minimum $540 - they just laughed and told me to get what I thought was best. So I did. I'm sure the liquor tab alone was over $1000.
   We got tons of branded crap. Empty notebooks, scratch pads, pens, watches, spiral-bound ledgers, and acres of slick product marketing junk. All of it free to us, none of it free to produce.
   When I think of the money that one company wasted in just four days, and how much better their financial position would be right now if they hadn't spent it...
   Aww, who am I trying to kid? I want those old days back. The spendthrift, crazy dot-com days, when a simple analyst got treated like a king, on the off chance that he might tell the decision-makers at a company to keep using a product they'd already bought. Come on, people, whatever happened to irrational exuberance?

Missing 'The Dungeon'

This one is a shout-out to all my San Antonio peeps (Mom, that means 'a special message to friends in San Antonio').

I was looking at my refrigerator the other day, it's covered in magnets, and I noticed a very special magnet from years back. It's special enough that the phone number listed doesn't even have an area code, which means it was made before the explosion of cell phones that has made our culture a vast wasteland just like what used to be the Japanese and Finnish cultures. The magnet was a special present from a special store, meant to keep the place forefront in its customers hearts and minds. The store is long gone, but the magnet's still working.
   The place was 'The Dungeon,' quite possibly the best comic book store ever in the history of mankind. Please note that 'best' does not mean 'cleanest.' Oh, far from it. The Dungeon was poorly-lit, dusty, and in a constant state of disarray. And on humid days it smelled funny, and I don't mean ha-ha funny. When mothers would come in looking for something for their children they would pause just inside the door and take stock of the place like a wildebeest looking for crocodiles. It was the archetype of a comic book store, a place where you were welcome if you knew what you were doing and how to behave yourself, and if you didn't belong you knew it the instant you crossed the threshold.
   Pete owned The Dungeon. As far as I know Pete had no last name. He was thin, with a straggly wizard's beard and long fingernails. He looked scary, but he was the nicest guy you'd ever want to meet. And he had connections with the distributors. If there was an item that no one else in the city had you could bet Pete had two of them, or he could get two with a single phone call.
   And the back stock - ah, pure heaven. This is what made The Dungeon the best. New comics on the wall, recent back issues in boxes, expensive back issues behind the counter, and then several hundred square feet of... whatever. Pete had a huge warehouse full of boxes and boxes and boxes of comic books that he'd acquired over the years, and every so often some of those boxes made it to the store. You could find ANYTHING in those boxes, old, new, expensive, cheap... a visit to those boxes was sure to turn up something good that you'd never expect, at a reasonable price.
   And the games - The Dungeon had game treasures hidden on shelves, in boxes, and under layers of dust. Like always, if you couldn't find it anywhere else, you could find it at The Dungeon, you'd just have to spend time looking for it.
   Pete got in tax trouble and The Dungeon closed years ago. Turns out it's a bad idea to pay your employees in cash and forget to take out payroll taxes, let that be a lesson to you small business owners. But the magnet is still on my refrigerator, and the memories are still in my head. So long Dungeon, disheveled, dusty, dark, scary Dungeon, these new comic book stores don't know what how to do it right at all.

You Ever Wonder...?

I've been pondering imponderables again, I have the free time for it. Here are a few.

What did ancient Egyptians use for a nasal decongestant? Did the subject even come up for them? I assume they got colds - they for sure got various plagues - but since they lived in the desert along the Nile I'm not sure they got stuffed up. Maybe King Tut just lived with sinus headache.
   For that matter, what did they do for toilet paper? They had papyrus, but that was for important stuff like government documents, not for wiping. I'm assuming.

If you could read someone's mind, would you really want to? I have trouble going into someone else's bathroom, can you imagine treading through the cesspool of someone else's thoughts? There's some dark, disturbing stuff rolling through my head, but I'm pretty sure it's tame compared to what you're thinking about. Mind reading would be a punishment, not a gift.

Why is being brutally honest when you're a little kid cute and precocious, and doing the same thing when you're really old is curmudgeonly and endearing, but being brutally honest at the ages in between is frowned upon? Why do kids and old people get a pass but I get a whispered admonition to 'be nice?' If I want to tell someone he's dressed like a colorblind clown I can't do it, but if some kid tells me I need to shave it's charming. If I open my mouth in a boring meeting and ask why we're there I get a talking-to from my boss, but if an old lady in line tells me to speed it up everybody chuckles. It ain't fair.

How can people not like dogs? I can certainly understand if someone doesn't like cats, if you die alone in the house with them they'll eat your eyeballs, no loyalty at all. I can also understand not liking birds, lizards, hamsters, what have you. But dogs are special. We grew up with dogs, literally, our evolution and theirs are tied together, they need us and we need them. So what kind of degenerate could not like dogs? Communists, that's who. Lousy fifth-columnists as Red as a baboon's ass. That's right, I said it: if you don't like dogs you're a devotee of a discredited socio-political economic philosophy. What are you gonna do about it?

I understand intellectually how airplanes fly, it's a very simple equation. But it still seems like magic to me. How can a 600,000 pound machine stay in the air? It seems like a violation of natural laws for anything that big to be off the ground, let alone carrying people across the globe. Like seeing an elephant swim, your eyes are telling you it's happening but your brain is screaming at you that it can't possibly be. So cut it out already, it makes me uncomfortable.

I Thought Halloween Was Over

I went to deposit my unemployment check yesterday, which you have to do the old-fashioned way by going into the bank. No direct deposit with the EDD.
   This is a trip I make on foot, another excuse to get out and see my neighborhood, enjoy the semi-clean SoCal air and refamiliarize myself with what sunlight is. Usually it's a pleasant half hour. Usually.
   So as I was walking back yesterday, down Green St., I heard crows squawking overhead. Now, for my Texas friends familiar with grackles, crows are not them. Grackles are small, kind of brown-black birds that generally speaking behave themselves and know their place in the man-bird hierarchy. Crows are big, jet black, and think they're better than you. They lumber along the sidewalk, only grudgingly getting out of the way at the last minute.
   They're also loud. They were overhead in these berry-dropping trees that line Green St., about three or four of them, having a regular conversation amongst themselves. So far nothing out of the ordinary.
   I made it to the next block, and the crows were still loud as ever. I couldn't see them up in the trees but I could absolutely hear them. Were they following me?
   I reached the next block, no more berry-dropping trees, and I saw the crows at last. Four of them, two Heckles and two Jeckles, squawking at each other, and probably at me. But I thought they couldn't possibly be following me. What do I have that crows could want?
   But they were following me. I turned down Oak Knoll, and two of them plopped on the ground in front of me. They ambled along, talking to their buddies in the trees as I got more and more creeped out.
   When I got to the Lutheran Church they disappeared. And I thought I was home free. But when I rounded the corner, they were back, moving from tree to tree and making enough noise to raise the dead. I imagine. I walked quicker, trying to make it home before whatever the crows were planning came about.

Was I reading too much into it? Possibly. Was I being a bit of a sissy? Perhaps. Was I giving crows too much credit? Not at all. Let a bunch of cawing crows follow you for four blocks, disappearing only when you pass a church, and see how crazy you get. Creepy.

Worthless And Weak

I've been 'between assignments' for a while now, five months, and while I am getting some good work done - fourth draft of one novel, outline for another - I am developing some bad habits.
   I make time for 'The Price Is Right.' Daytime TV is indeed a vast wasteland, vaster than prime time for sure, yet if I'm in my apartment at 10 AM on a weekday I'm watching Drew Carey give away cars and vacations. Call it a habit decades in the making, I used to watch Bob Barker during summer vacation. It's my grandmother's fault.
   I drink waaaay more soda than I should. It's a habit I won't break for some reason. It really is just as simple as not buying it any more, but just as some people smoke when they drink, when I buy Lotto tickets in the convenience store I also get a soda. I'm a prisoner of my addiction, I need a government grant to get the aspartame monkey off my back.
   I go to the same online job boards day after day. This far into unemployment, if these job boards haven't landed me a paying gig by now they're probably not going to. And yet I go back again and again, thinking things will be different this time.
   YouTube. Farting dinosaurs. 'Nuff said.
   I don't shave every day, or even regularly. I'm one of those guys with perpetual five o'clock shadow. You know the kind, you see them in a store and you wonder what kind of job they have that they don't need to shave. Inside tip: they probably don't have a job.
   Mid-day grocery store visits. This far into my vagrancy, I know that most grocery stores are finished stocking by about 9:30 AM, and most old people don't get there until about 11 AM. So I swoop in during the sweet spot between stockers and seniors, when the aisles are blissfully free of obstructions.
   I play Mafia Wars on Facebook far, far, far too much. It's not even a particularly good game, but it's just good enough to keep me coming back.
   Glee. I can't help it, I like the show, and I have this odd fascination with Sue Sylvester. It's nothing I want to explore further, not in a public forum.

I really need a job.

Cutting Off The Tail

Disclaimer: I have a bit of a cold today, and a fever, so if I'm less coherent I usually am please excuse me. And for those of you who say 'how can I tell the difference?' I say 'shut up, that's how.'

I've noticed a trend among the big retailers - Target, Wal-Mart, most grocery stores, department stores - of focusing on the bland middle. Shelf space is reserved for those products that sell the most, or that they can get the best profit margin on, or from manufacturers with whom they have a special deal. They're catering to the middle of the bell curve and ignoring the outliers, cutting off the tail.
   For instance, my nasal spray decongestant is well past its expiration date (two years!) so I went to the store to get some fresher spray. I couldn't find the brand I had in my drawer. Not there, they didn't carry it, even though it's still a national brand. They carried exactly 1 national brand name product - four different styles - and 1 store brand. I guess the kind I wanted didn't sell enough or generate enough of a profit on a per-SKU basis to make the analyst's cut.
   Same deal with deodorant. The kind I used for years back in Texas they don't carry here in SoCal, not any more. Retailers did stock it when I first moved out here, and then it became harder and harder to find, until now I can't find it at all, it's just not available. I stock up when I go home, like I do with fajitas and good bar-b-que.
   It's the same with most products, where before shoppers might find a good selection of different brands, now they find acres of shelf space given over to just one or two brands. The retail analysts have done a remarkably poor job of understanding their own business, and they assume that concentrating on the bland middle - where they get the most sales with the least amount of effort - is the best thing for their business. Retailers are focusing on just a few at the expense of others, the idea being that people will just buy what's there, rather than move on.
   Problem is, with people watching their pennies nowadays that assumption is just not true. People are more discerning than they were even six months ago, and tighter with the buck. If people don't find what they want in a store they're not going to settle for the crap lying around, they're going to go somewhere else.
   Like me and shoe laces. At the same store this morning, where I did not buy nasal decongestant, I was looking for laces for my boots. I found the little stand with laces, and after ten minutes of searching found laces that would work, but not exactly the laces that I wanted. So rather than settle for what they had, I decided to wait 24 hours and go to the little shoe store a few blocks from my house, where I will probably find exactly what I want. And if I don't find them there, I have at least three more little shops I can go to. I'll not only get exactly what I want, but I'll be giving my money to a local business.
   I think this is going to happen more and more, as people become dissatisfied with the big retailers they're going to go back to the smaller vendors, back to businesses more interested in listening to what people want instead of telling them what they're going to get.

Loud-Talking Stan

I was at a coffee shop the other day, Wednesday, meeting a few of my friends who are also 'between assignments' and have time during the day to go to places like coffee shops in Pasadena. The place is cozy - what indie coffee joint isn't - and they don't mind if a few deadbeats buy coffee, iced tea, or a root beer and sit down to shoot the breeze for a few hours in the middle of the day.
   The place was practically empty, and we were sitting in a corner all alone, when he walked in... Loud-Talking Stan.
   I didn't know anything was wrong, but my friend facing the door instantly tensed up.
   "What's wrong?" I asked, turning around to see a heavy, scraggly-bearded guy eyeing the pastries in the display case as he hefted his laptop in one hand. Not really unusual for a coffee shop, but my friend, who was a regular here, shook his head.
   "Maybe he'll sit outside..." my friend mumbled.
   But Loud-Talking Stan did not sit outside. He also did not sit in any of the other chairs scattered across the room. No, he sat directly behind us.
   Loud-Talking Stan liked to IM his friends. He also liked to say what he was typing out loud. Really loud. He mashed his fingers onto the keyboard as if he were trying to drive the keys into the table beneath, sometimes talking about himself in the third person. That's how I know his name was Stan. My friend whispered it to me as well.
   Loud-Talking Stan was having a lively, if one-sided, discussion with his friends on the opposite side of the free wi-fi connection about the comic books coming out that day. I know Wednesday is new comic day, has been for decades now, but for Stan the day seemed filled with promise, as if the sun were just coming up at 3 PM. I'm sure he thought he was mumbling, or even whispering, but his talk of Batman, Wolverine, and the Avengers drowned out our conversation. The noise was bothering my friends, so we moved outside.
   This kind of thing happens to me all the time, but I forget that it doesn't happen to other people. I seem to attract the homeless, crazy, inconsiderate, or desperate, they all want to be around me for some reason. And when I say 'around me' I don't mean 'in my vicinity,' no, I mean right next to me, as if we were riding a crowded subway together. So I take all the blame for Loud-Talking Stan and his comic book eagerness interrupting our do-nothing afternoon.
   When I went to get my own stash of comics later that evening, I have to admit, I paused by the newest issue of Wolverine. I thought about Stan's loud, earnest recommendation and then I moved on.

Industry For The New Milennium

After the financial fiascos of the past year or two, it should be clear to everyone that 'finance' should be a means to an end, and not an entire industry to itself. And any economy based solely on financial institutions is doomed to failure when those institutions fail - just ask Iceland or Charlotte, NC. Our economy shouldn't be based on imaginary dollars moved from one place to another, we need to get back to making stuff, our economy needs to be the sum total of goods moved and services provided.
   "But Don," you say, "the auto industry has failed just like the steel industry did. And the time for railroads was two centuries ago. What could the United States possibly make that the rest of the world wants to buy?" Well, thanks for asking, I have a few suggestions.

Garbage-based Deodorant. Americans generate a lot of garbage, and much of the rest of the world smells bad (pretentious Eurotrash, I'm looking your way). All we have to do is figure out a way to make our garbage smell better than stinky foreigners and it's an instant growth industry. And, let's be honest, we don't have all that far to go.

Discarded CD Solar Reflectors. Steve Jobs was right, the iPod changed everything; it killed an entire industry, as a matter of fact, which makes you wonder why pretentious record store douchebags were the first to go digital. Who buys CDs any more? And once you load your music onto your computer what do you do with the old ones? Solar is a growth industry, and they need shiny stuff. CDs are shiny and otherwise useless. Picture acres upon acres of worthless copies of 'Pocket Full of Kryptonite' shining valuable sunlight back into solar cells. Brings a tear to your eye.

McMansion Holidays. We have a glut of hastily-built, overpriced, immense homes all across the country, standing vacant and waiting for banks to realize they're never going to make back the money on those overextended mortgage notes. People in developing countries will have money for vacations, and rather than stay in an impersonal hotel that looks like every other hotel on the block, they can stay in an impersonal home that looks like every other home on the block. Oooh, look, granite countertops! And a jacuzzi in the master bath!

Soylent Green. Just hear me out on this one... the developing world is hungry, and the best innovations in the next century are going to come from third world nations, as long as they get enough to eat. Here in the US we have an overabundance of 'reality' performers whose only claim to fame is that they once showed up on TV. We take our surplus, make Soylent Green out of them, a high-protein easily-digestible food, and 'voila!' problem solved. I think the first to go should be Jon and Kate, then the big-booty Kardashians.

   I'm available for consulting, once the 'captains of industry' catch up to me.

Armistice Day

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. That's when World War I officially ended with the signing of the treaty between the Allies and Germany. In Europe it's Armistice Day - an armistice being the compact ending conflict - and here in the US it's become Veteran's Day. Flags go on graves in the national cemeteries, here in Pasadena we get a flyover from a World War II vintage fighter squadron and students don't have classes at PCC. And that's about it. Veterans get a handshake and a 'job well done' and they move on.
   But in countries where soldiers spilled blood and bombs gouged the countryside they do things a little differently. One of my great uncles died in World War II, in Nordhausen three weeks before V-E Day. He's buried in the Netherlands, alongside his comrades-in-arms in a cemetery that looks much like those in the US, row after row of white crosses, too many of them.
   The difference is that in the Netherlands a family has adopted my uncle, they've assumed responsibility for maintaining his grave which they visit regularly. They've been doing this for decades, the role passing from father to son several times over. I'm grateful beyond words that people generations removed from the conflict still think enough of my uncle's sacrifice that they would do this in memory of him today.
   It makes me realize that I take our soldiers for granted. Politics aside, international relations aside, personal ideology aside, the men and women of our armed forces put their lives on the line every day for you and me. A family in the Netherlands remembers this, maybe we should too.

iPod Hijinks

A few weeks back the owner of my apartment building decided that the time had come to replace some of the worn exterior wood bits. This meant that for about two weeks straight there were carpenters all over the place, with saws going, wrenches turning, hammers banging, the whole works. I got used to seeing the guys, and since I was one of the few people around during the day they got used to seeing me. We even had a few conversations about my car, and I got used to being around people once again.
   Then they were gone, and I was alone. Bereft, as it were. No more racket interrupting my concentration, no more trucks blocking the entrance, no more Big Gulp cups on the stairs.
   So this morning I was headed out to the gym, wearing my iPod. While I do wear it at the gym, I rarely wear it any other time, so this was unusual. I was walking down the stairs, iPod kicking it old school with a little Public Enemy, Flavor Flav with 'Can't Do Nuttin' for You Man', a jaunty little ditty if ever there was one. Like many people do when they think they're alone, I was singing along, which I thought was humming, or maybe whispering.
   But I wasn't alone. I rounded the corner and came face-to-face with the plumber. He was coming up the stairs as I was going down and we met in the middle. Since he was the one with the toolbox I stepped out of the way and he kind of raised an eyebrow at me.
   'Gotta love the Flavor,' he said as he climbed to the second floor.
   Perfect. There's nothing like an extremely white guy like me getting caught rapping. Kind of pathetic and presumptuous at the same time. Guilty, as charged.
   I turned the iPod off until I got to the gym.

From My Bookshelf

Did you know that 'The Wizard of Oz' is over one-hundred years old? I don't mean the movie, I mean the book by L. Frank Baum. It was published in 1900, and at 40,000 words is about half the length of 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' and about one-fifth the length of 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.' The entire Oz series was the Harry Potter of its day, with another 13 books published after the first one. And you thought J.K. Rowling invented that kind of stuff...

The Annotated Wizard of Oz edited by Michael Patrick Hearn
   This is the Centennial Edition, published in 2000, which includes an extensive preface and biography of Mr. Baum and W.W. Denslow (the amazing illustrator), a timeline of their efforts to publish the book, and the amazing success that followed, which included stage plays and silent films, all decades before the 1939 film with Judy Garland.
   The annotations are the extensive notes accompanying each page from the original printing, providing cultural details, thoughts from Mr. Baum or Mr. Denslow, and references to the entire Oz ouvre, all 14 books.
   If you wanted to create a blockbuster kids-book franchise that also appeals to adults, this is the place to start.

Quote: (from the annotations) 'That a man of cold, hollow metal should desire a soft and tender heart is another case of whimsical irony in the story. The Tin Woodsman embodies the Romantic rebellion in the Industrial Age. He cannot love because he has been turned into a machine himself; only by getting back in touch with that human part of him he has lost, his heart, can he be whole again.'

Old Folks Say The Darndest Things

I read somewhere - probably Scientific American - that as people age, the circuits in their brains that keep them from saying the first thing that pops into their heads stop working. This is what gives rise to the phenomenon of Grandma cussing up a blue streak when you never thought she knew those words in the first place. Add to that the tendency of old people to stop caring what other people think, and you have a perfect storm of indiscretion. And I can tell you first-hand that this is true.
   Yesterday I was at an audition down in Santa Monica - for Fed Ex, cross your fingers - and they were seeing all kinds of people. My age, younger, older, freaky looking (not me), not freaky looking (hopefully me), short, tall, fat, thin, you name it. The fact that the audition was on a Saturday and that there were so many different kinds people meant the client had no idea what they were going for, or they changed their mind, or both. Opportunity for me in any event.
   I happened to be there with a lot of old guys. And I don't mean older than me old guys, I mean OLD guys, well over 70. While they were gregarious and friendly, they were also the most vicious bunch of SOBs I'd been around in a long time. Maybe I'm just used to the 'everybody wins' attitude in modern society, but these old guys were in it to win it, if you know what I mean. Talking about another old guy when he's ten feet away and can certainly hear, doing the classic undermining confidence tricks - 'you're wearing that?' 'nailed it...' 'you all might was well go home now' - and even trying to nudge their way up the list with lame excuses. Man, if that's what Hollywood was like thirty years ago no wonder actors are a sad, bitter, angry group.
   They didn't screw with me or anybody without gray hair, though, only with the other old guys. If I were a sociologist I might be interested in discovering exactly why that was the case. But I'm not a sociologist so I don't give a sh*t, as long as they leave me alone.
   Oh, and I got a parking ticket too. Bastard meter reader got me at five minutes over time. It's what I get for street parking in Santa Monica on a Saturday afternoon.

Things That Worry Me Which Probably Shouldn't

I never run any red lights at intersections where they have those traffic cameras. It's not because I'm afraid of getting a ticket, though, I'm just worried about getting a bad picture.
   I've seen photos taken from those cameras, they're really sharp and in focus and capture the essence of the driver. Usually people I've seen look angry, a few of them look distracted. Some look gassy.
   I would be picking my nose. Which, while everybody does it, in a photograph is just gross. It would be just my luck to blow through one of those intersections and have the camera snap a frame while my index finger is two knuckles deep, tickling the base of my brain. I don't need to see that, and I don't need the DMV to see it either.
   Most people take great care not to be seen picking their nose, they usually do it in the bathroom where they do other icky but necessary stuff like flossing their teeth (you do floss,right? Every day?), popping zits, and other potty things. But you don't really need a mirror or any special tools to pick your nose; your finger just sort of creeps up there and gets to work. Which means that you can take care of business while doing something else entirely, like mowing the lawn or sculpting or composing a sonnet.
   Or while driving, as long as you have a window cracked to 'dispose of the evidence.' And don't get all uppity and protest that you would never do such base a thing as pick your nose at all, let alone behind the wheel. I do a lot of walking around my neighborhood, and I can see drivers just as easily as they can see me. And trust me, waaaaay more people pick their noses behind the wheel than you might think. Including you.

Jeez... Already?

I was walking back from the gym this morning, minding my own business, when I saw it. Then I saw another one, and another, and another, multiplying like bored bunnies. They were lining Colorado Boulevard, as far as the eye could see.
   Christmas wreaths. Green and gold and red, hanging from the recently-repainted and then repainted-again and then repainted-one-last-time street lights.
   It happens every year now but it still takes me by surprise. It's not even Thanksgiving and already the Christmas stuff is out. Time was, back in the good old days - when the US proudly interfered with other countries instead of shamefully like we do now - the first weeks of November were for Thanksgiving stuff. Kids made cardboard turkeys from the outline of their hands, they dressed like pilgrims for the school play, they made papier-mache cornucopias (and people knew what a cornucopia was), and they for sure didn't have access to Christmas stuff. You didn't even see red, green, and gold until the day after Thanksgiving. Not no more. Christmas is already everywhere, it's even hanging behind the palm trees on Colorado Boulevard.
   Actually, I saw Christmas crap in Target weeks before Halloween, so I don't know why the wreaths on Colorado bothered me so much. Probably because I can choose to ignore it in Target, or even not go into Target, but out on the street I can't help but see it. Every day.
   How much time do I have before the Santas with their red kettles and really loud bells are everywhere?

Does Anybody Know?

You ever have one of those days where it seems like you're the only one thinking things through? Been that way for a week or so with me.

In the office supply store.
Me: Excuse me, I'm looking at these 9 x 12 envelopes, and this box is eight dollars, but this box here is twenty-four dollars.
   Worker: Yeah, look at that.
And this third one is sixteen dollars. But it's the exact same thing as the eight dollar box and the twenty-four dollar box.
   You're right.
Can you tell me why this box is three times more expensive than that one? If you look inside the envelopes are identical. I can't see any difference.
   Huh. Me neither. Never seen that before.

In the grocery store.
Me: Excuse me, can you answer a question for me?
    Worker: Sure.
This juice... this flavor has a tag that says it's on sale.
   Yeah.
But the tags are missing for these two flavors. Does that mean they're not on sale, or the tags just fell off?
   Hmmm... I don't know. Usually there's a tag for every product.
I know, that's why I'm wondering.
   That's weird, usually there's a tag...

On the phone with a recruiter.
Me: Hi, I'm following up on an application I submitted yesterday, for the Director position.
   Recruiter: Let me see... oh yes, the client put that position on hold last week.
Oh, okay, too bad. I submitted my resume yesterday, though.
   Yes, I see, Tuesday.
That means the position is still posted on-line this week.
   Oh.... yeah.
Don't you think somebody should take the job posting down if the position is on-hold?
   Yeah, usually that's what happens.

At the gas station.
Me: Hi, I noticed that the price for regular out on your sign says $1.15.
   Worker: Really?
Yeah, see? Out by the corner?
   Huh... $1.15.
But it's not really $1.15, it's $3.15.
   Right, we'd lose money at $1.15.
Don't you think the sign should reflect the price at the pump?
   Usually it does. I guess somebody didn't change it.

Tales From My Past - Sock-Eye Jeep

Do you ever think that someone is picking on you? And I don't mean the kid down the street or the bully who hangs out behind the school, I mean someone in charge of stuff, who can make things happen. A powerful guy who can do things. Bad things. And he's got it in for you. I love conspiracy theories like that, but I'm only half-amused by them, the other half is worried they might be real, because sometimes freaky stuff happens you can't explain any other way. Like back when I used to drive a Jeep.
   Years ago, when I first bought my Jeep, I had been driving it for about a week when I caught a rock that cracked a headlight and made it go dim, so it looked kind of brown. Being a proud owner of a 'new' used car, I replaced it. About a week later I caught a rock in the other headlight, which knocked it out completely. So I replaced it, glad to have two brand new eyes for my ride.
   About a week later I caught a rock back in the first headlight, which did exactly the same thing, cracked it and made it go dim. A little freaked out, I started watching my rear-view, wondering if someone was following me. I decided that maybe I wasn't supposed to have two working headlights for some reason, and I didn't replace it. It passed the safety inspection somehow, and I had that dim light for two more years.
   Let me repeat that. After breaking three headlights in the space of three weeks right after I bought the Jeep, for two whole years after that, as I drove that Jeep every day, I didn't get hit by one single rock. Not one. I had the dim headlight and all was right with the world.
   Two years after breaking a headlight for the third time I got industrious and decided to finally, finally, finally replace that damn headlight. So I did, a brand new headlight to replace the cracked one that had condensation inside. You can see this coming a mile away...
   A week later - to the day - I caught another rock that cracked the other headlight. I couldn't believe it, two years with no rock, I fix the damn headlight and CRACK! the other one is gone.
   This is why I only halfway discount conspiracy theories. Someone was obviously out to get me that time. Or at least out to get my Jeep.

Lenny Kravitz On The 110

Yesterday while I was on the 110 down by USC, on my way to Torrance, I saw Lenny Kravitz in traffic behind me. I thought it odd that a Grammy-winning entertainer would be driving a Honda Accord let alone driving at all instead of being driven. I didn't want to rush to judgment, he could have had a bad couple of years and maybe a ten-year-old Accord was what he could afford now. So I slowed down to let him pass me, which is when I saw that it wasn't Lenny Kravitz at all, just a guy with big glasses and an afro. But for a few precious moments I thought I was sharing a lane with a for-real rock star.
   And then it hit me, I could pass the terrible commute by trying to find people who look like celebrities in other cars. When you're sitting in Downtown LA traffic going 10 miles an hour, there's no real driving risk, trust me. So I tried the experiment all the way to Torrance, but the only person I saw was someone who looked a little like Roger C. Carmel - the guy who played Harry Mudd on Classic Trek. I think it was the mustache.
   Today I had to travel down the exact same highway, this time going to LAX instead of Torrance, and I hit the look-alike jackpot; traffic was much worse today, which is probably why it was such a success. I saw a guy who looked like Bronson Pinchot behind the wheel of a pickup, I saw Kevin Smith in a Taurus, I saw Reese Witherspoon behind the wheel of an old Honda Del Sol, I saw Stone Cold Steve Austin in the cab of a Pepsi delivery van, and I even saw Bea Arthur driving a big ol' Mercedes. The only one I know for sure wasn't really the person is Bea Arthur, unless her ghost can drive a car. There's an outside possibility the others could actually have been those celebrities. Bronson Pinchot could be supplementing his income by working as a gardener, you never know.
    Go on, try it for yourself, it's tons of fun and is a game you can play alone, unlike 'I Spy' or 'Punchbug.' If you resemble a celebrity, though, be prepared; when this game catches on, people are gonna be looking for you.

Tales Of The Unexpected

On this Halloween night, I thought I'd regale you with tales of the macabre and loathsome, things so horrible that the mere mention of them is enough to turn your hair white and make you run from the room. But not before the two drink minimum. Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, I give you...
   PUNCHLINES TO TERRIBLE JOKES!!!!!! BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!

   Those brave few of you who have dared to read further are made of stern stuff indeed. Imagine if you will a baggy-pants Catskills comedian, a man barely alive, telling jokes in the main dining room in exchange for room and board for the summer and the slightest chance to get lucky with one of the lady lifeguards. Horrible, stomach-churning terror indeed, my friends. These are zombie punchlines, the walking dead of jokes, bits of funny that should have been buried in hallowed ground decades ago. Read them at your own risk.

I was talking to the duck.
    She really sits around the house.
Rectum? Damn near killed 'em.
   That's no lady, that's my wife.
Help me find my keys and we can drive out.
   You think I asked for a 12-inch pianist?
Every morning Dad knocks on the bathroom door and says 'God, are you still in there?'
   Those aren't pillows!/ That's okay, that's not my hand.
Sanka
   The taste.
When your hand falls asleep.
    Okay, you're ugly too.
Why, Father O'Malley, it's not Tuesday.
   Look, I'm 98 years old, I'll take the soup...
He wonders if there really is a dog.
   A zebra who owes money.
If it had four doors, it'd be a sedan.
   And the bartender says 'why the long face?'

Thank you, thank you! I'll be here all week! Enjoy the veal!

Makeup Sponges and Cigarette Butts

When you do a job, any job, you generate a certain kind of debris. Working in an office you generate sheets of paper (especially in a 'paperless' office) and pens with no ink. If you're a chef you generate compostable wet garbage like the ends of carrots or chicken bones, if you're construction worker it's sawdust and stray nails. Every profession generates its junk, even the performing arts, it just took me a little thinking to find out what that was.
   Given my status 'between assignments' I've had to drop acting classes; yes, oddly enough for someone in LA, I'm an actor, you can see my tour de force here. Anyway, it's been a month or more, and it took me a while to notice what I wasn't noticing, if you catch my drift. Since an actor doesn't produce anything - besides pure genius, I mean - I didn't think there were any by-products to the process. Then I realized the weeks since I'd been backstage at a theater was the exact same time since I'd seen any discarded makeup sponges or cigarette butts. The place used to be a wasteland of beige filter tips with matching foundation-stained sponges, like crab apples dropped from a gnarled, twisted stump of a tree. And if the theater played host to young Hollywood, with its one-note emoting and abominable line readings, you'd likely end up hip-deep in debris. But that hasn't been a problem since I dropped my classes.
   It's been a while since I've seen anybody smoking at all, as a matter of fact (except the H-1B workers behind an office building), when I used to see actors smoking all the time, especially the young, greasy, desperate wanna-bes. And I haven't seen a used, carelessly discarded makeup sponge at all since I last left the theater.
   Does this mean that actors in general and young actors in particular are dirty, thoughtless people, more concerned with how other people see them than with picking up after themselves? Of course it does. Does that make them bad people? Only the sloppy ones, the rest of us are pretty decent folks. Unless they're more successful than we are, then they're evil bastards.