Cable Rage Pt 2

Just when I think I'm done choking on my own rage, something will happen to send my blood pressure through the ceiling.
   A while back I posted a transcript of a conversation I had with the cable company, where I tried to make sense of the absurd pricing structure Charter was offering. Three things cost less than two things, in violation of every principle of common sense. I canceled cable, calmed down, and thought that was the end of it.
   Until today, when I got a new offer from Charter to entice me back. Usually I just throw that junk mail away but today for some reason I decided to read it. Big mistake.
   For all three services, cable, internet, and phone, they have a one-year offer of $59 per month. This is less than half of what they wanted to charge me back in September, six months ago.
   Half off.
   Seriously. These sons of bitches wouldn't give me a break back in September, but now they cut their three-service price in half. HALF!! This lets you know exactly how much the cable companies are gouging us in the first place. Rat bastards, lining their pockets during the good times, but when people dump their overpriced garbage all of a sudden they come up with a reasonable price. If they had a reasonable price in the first place I'd still have cable, but they just didn't care. And what about the people who agreed to $120 a month six months ago? I guarantee they're still getting screwed, they won't get the half-off price. Grrr... I fell a hulk-out coming on.
   They're making my blood boil and I'm not even a customer any longer. Crap!! Just makes me so mad...

Woe Is Me

There's a thing I've been struggling with for years, decades, actually, and I've just given up. Thrown my hands into the air and resigned myself to my fate. It's not going to get any better and there's nothing I can do about it. They've won. You know, them, the people behind it all.
   I just cannot get a good haircut.
   No matter what I try, where I go, how much I pay, how much I tip, it just doesn't matter. I can't get a good haircut. The haircuts I get aren't astonishingly bad - most of them - but they're not particularly good either. Men barbers or women hairstylists, it seems none of them can give me a decent cut.
   At first, years ago, hairstyles were so terrible that you couldn't really tell if I had a good haircut or not, nobody had a good one so I fit right in. But after disco died and then after Regan stopped being President things changed. You could get a good haircut. Or so I thought.
   Turns out good haircuts for men are like cover models on women's magazines: nobody looks like that, it's all Photoshop magic.
   There was guy back in San Antonio, his name was JB and he had cut my father's hair in decades past - no lie. JB gave good hair. He'd been doing it forever, longer than my father had been alive, and he could do no wrong. But JB was old and growing older, he came into his barber shop less and less frequently, leaving me to the tender mercies of his second-in-command, who was bald, or a lady barber who meant well but just didn't have the skills. I long for the days when could wander into JB's and never worry that I would come out looking like an escaped mental patient.
   I need a haircut right now, this very second. Have for at least a week but I've been putting it off. I just don't want to be disappointed any more.

Tales From My Past - Truck Driver

A while back I worked on a military base, and not too far from that base was one of those truck driving schools. If you stay up late enough at night you see ads for them on TV, sometimes in them middle of the day when proper folks are holed up in their cubicles, slaving away for the Man.
   Anyway, I had always wanted to learn how to drive an 18-wheeler, you never know when something like that is going to come in handy. You're at a party, for instance, and the host decides to pack up and move right then, and needs someone who knows how to drive a truck. I would be the only one to raise my hand when the frantic question comes 'anybody here know how to drive a big rig?'
   I was interested enough to write the number down from the billboard as I drove in one morning, and I called them that afternoon. The guy on the other end was kind of disinterested, bored almost, when he answered the phone. I told him I wanted to learn how to drive a rig, and asked how much it cost to learn.
   He asked me if I had a valid driver's license. I said I did. His voice perked up and he got a little interested.
   He asked me how many moving violations I'd ever had. I told him none. He got more interested in the conversation.
   He asked me how many misdemeanor offenses I'd been convicted of or plead guilty to. I told him none. He got far more interested.
   He asked me how many felony convictions I'd ever had or plead guilty to. I told him none. He got downright excited.
   I could almost see him dancing around his office as he explained to me that someone with my clean record could practically write his own ticket, that once I made it through truck driver's school I could find a gig with almost any major company in the nation. And if the stars aligned and everything worked out, I might be able to get that company to remit me the cost of school, assuming, of course, that I kept a clean record as a professional driver.
   It was at this point that I became uncomfortable. I didn't want to become a professional driver, I'm happy with my Class C. All I ever wanted was to know how to drive a big rig, not to actually do it for a living. The guy on the other end of the phone was ready with career placement for a career I didn't want. Still, I was willing to play along, I said I still didn't know how much it cost, and that was the deciding factor. The wheels in my mind were turning, and I figured I could just pay for the classes and then not show up on test day or something.
   The guy let the guillotine drop. Fifty-five hundred dollars. With no financial aid to speak of. Holy crap, I was thinking it was a couple hundred bucks, tops. Like driver's ed in high school or something. I told the guy I'd have to think about it, I didn't know if I could get my hands on that kind of money. At least I wasn't lying about that part. When he hung up I could feel his disappointment radiating out through the phone line.
   To this day I still don't know how to drive an 18-wheeler. Maybe if I did I'd be employed right now.

Don't Answer That

I was in the convenience store the other day buying lotto tickets, when the lady behind me asked the clerk for a Swisher Sweet, 'grape flavor.'
   Just when I think I'm all smart and know lots of stuff, random crap will happen to make me realize I know absolutely nothing.
   I had no idea that Swisher Sweets - the cigar of choice for potheads the world over - came in flavored varieties. If you go to their web site (make sure you say you're over 18) and take a look you can see that not only do they have grape, they have peach, strawberry, menthol, tequila, and chocolate-flavored cigars too. I got to wondering just how bad grape-flavored nicotine would taste, and then I realized that I didn't really want an answer to that question. Some things are better left alone.

Here are some other questions I don't really need an answer to:

What are McNuggets, really?
   How many people have handled the twenties in my pocket?
When transvestites get all dolled up what do they with... you know... Mr. Johnson?
   What does a bruise look like under the skin?
Where does Kool-Aid powder come from?
   How many babies does it take to get a pint of baby oil?
What does it feel like when a hyena breaks your leg in its jaws?
   What does bubonic plague smell like?

I'm sure there are tons more things I'd rather stay ignorant of. I'll share more when I figure them out.

Governor Carl

I saw Jesse 'the Mind' Ventura on TV doing an interview the other day, talking about his new book about conspiracy theories - surprise, he believes in them. But he also talked about his wrestling career, his movie career, and his career as Governor of Minnestoa. The tobacco-chewing sexual Tyrannosaurus from 'Predator' actually held political office.
   Then I realized that the movie 'Predator' gave the United States not one but two Governors: Jesse Ventura and our own California Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger. I'm not positive, but that could be the only movie in the history of cinema that has featured two future major office holders. Unless Regan was in a movie with Jimmy Carter or something, and I don't think that happened.
   But as I thought about Predator, I realized that Jesse wasn't even really a main character - not that he wasn't memorable - the other main character was Carl Weathers, the only other cast member with his name on the movie poster besides the Governator. Why should a mere co-star like Jesse Ventura get to hold high office and Mr. Weathers does not? It seems to me that Carl should get his shot at the political big-time too, it's only fair.
   So, since the initiative and referendum process in California is so completely broken and subverted, I say we get Carl Weathers on the ballot for this November. I looked it up and we only need about 700,00 signatures, which is completely do-able. We'll just tie it to some sort of medical marijuana thing and we'll totally nail the stoner vote.
   Maybe my next career is as a political activist. Yeah... that's the ticket...

UPDATE:
Good News!! Someone is already on the ball with this. I wrote this post two days ago, and as I was hunting for good links to pictures of Carl Weathers, I came across this site, which is plugging Carl for Mayor of New Orleans. He's not actually running - yet - but at least there seems to be a growing consensus. The fact that the election was held a few weeks ago is only a minor detail.

A Beard And A Cigar

Okay, I'm going to admit it: I'm getting tired of being 'between assignments.' There, I've said it. The bloom is off the rose, the shine is off the new penny. I want to work, even if it means going back to a corporate amoeba and putting in my 40 from a cubicle.
   But I still have dreams of something better.
   I'm thinking that, if I play my cards right and have the proper backing, I could become dictator of my own banana republic. And I don't mean the clothing store (those still exist, right? I haven't been to a mall in a very long time).
   I want to rule a blighted land with an iron fist, I want to take over from a corrupt regime and become even more corrupt, I want to grow a bushy beard and smoke a big cigar. I want my image plastered on every wall and have my statues in every public square. I want my citizens to publicly praise me yet privately condemn me. I want Google to cater to me, and then develop a conscience only when my state hackers try to crack their system. I want Wall Street vampires to admire me and wonder how they can duplicate my political success in their financial world.
   Couldn't be worse than fighting LA traffic to work at a soulless corporation for defeated, sallow middle-managers who aren't good at their jobs and don't care to be. At least if I was Great Leader of my own banana republic I'd be the one abusing my power at the expense of others, instead of being the victim.
   Of course, my regime is destined to fail. Eventually. They always do - Hugo Chavez, I'm looking at you here. But if I'm properly paranoid and ruthless I could make it last a good twenty, maybe thirty years. I'm gonna need a cadre of faithful believers in my 'cause,' who I will eventually and gradually betray until I become the very thing I was fighting against. Who's up for it?

A Sleeper's Entanglement

Everybody's familiar with the idea of quantum entanglement, right? It's one of the basic principles of quantum physics that states that no matter how far apart two linked objects become, a change in one will automatically produce a change in the other. Einstein called this 'spooky action at a distance.'
   So why am I boring you with this? Because I had my own instance of quantum entanglement last night. And it was spooky and it was at a distance, not only in space but in time.
   I was dropping off to sleep, and I heard a car the next building over that sounded like one of the cars our next door neighbors had back when I was a kid. The exhaust sounded the same, the manual transmission whined the same, the crunch of the tires on the pavement was the same. In an instant I was back in my bedroom in my parents' house, listening to the neighbors come home as I fell asleep.
   Now I don't mean I imagined I was there, or recalled it, I was there. In my old bed, arranged underneath the window, with my old headboard above me and the shelves on the wall at the foot of the bed and the hum of the electric clock on the wall. Even with my eyes closed I felt the furniture, my desk, my dresser, the hutch where I kept books and trophies. I can recall it now as I write this, but the placement is a memory, like looking at an old photo and remembering it like you remember a movie you saw long ago. Last night it was a certainty, if I reached out I would have touched a wall where there isn't one in my own apartment. I knew if I opened my eyes I would see everything where it should be like it was when I was fourteen. It was a sense of place that I have very rarely had.
   When I realized what was happening I knew I had to write it down, so I opened my eyes. My bedroom seemed hazy and indistinct, as if I were fighting to bring myself back to the here and now. I felt a little dizzy and disoriented as I went to my desk and took notes.
   I went back to bed and tried to find that place again, but even though I could see my old bedroom, I wasn't there - really there - not like I had been minutes before.
   I don't know what happened, if it was just a dream I took myself out of or if it was a deep memory that involved all my senses or something else entirely, but it was a ride. Like two electrons separated by billions of miles, myself now and my old self years ago connected. I sure hope it happens again, I want to explore this.

Giving Hope

Since I'm still 'between assignments' I've been trying to think outside the box, career-wise. Trying to get out of the rut I've been in that clearly hasn't worked thus far and probably won't any time in the near future. After some consideration I think I've hit on a solution.
   I'm going to become a singer.
   Just to be clear, I cannot carry a tune, not even if you gave me a bucket and showed me how. I bring a bad name to 'tin ear' and 'tone deaf.' Dogs howl when I start humming and babies halfway around the world weep when I sing along to Skynyrd. Every man should know his limitations and one of mine is singing. Just can't do it. Which isn't going to stop me from making it my next career.
   See, I figure if I can make a go of it, if I can become the next Susan Boyle, then other people around the world will look at my accomplishment and say 'well, jeez, if that guy can be a singer, then I can < insert impossible task here >.' I'll be the low-bar that other people can aspire to leap. I'll be the black-sheep cousin who inexplicably made good and now shames all the other seemingly more-apt cousins. I'll be the guy that makes real singers, people with actual talent for that, tear their hair out and curse the heavens for the injustice of it all.
   Yeah... I'm all about the humanitarian stuff.

Some Days You Just Can't Win

I'm not normally one to revel in another's misery... well, maybe I am. A little. I do love it when liars get what's coming to them, and cheats lose all their ill-gotten gains, stuff like that makes my day. I should say I'm not one to revel in an undeserving stranger's misery.
   Until today.
   I was at the gas station, putting a few gallons into the truck* when a lady drove up to the pump next to me. The credit card reader on that one was broken and I tried to tell her, but she realized she'd pulled up on the wrong side of pump, the cap was on the passenger side.
   So she got back in the car and turned it around. Only to get back out of the car - this time with her back to me - whereupon she found the sign that said the card reader wasn't working.
   She got back in the car and drove around to the other row of pumps. She got out of the car only to realize that once again she had lined up the driver's side, but the cap was still on the passenger side.
   I tried not to be obvious as I watched her turn her car around AGAIN, this time facing the right way. But the story doesn't end there, I took my time cleaning the rear windows on my truck to watch. She tried a credit card, which didn't work. She tried another one, which also didn't work. She pressed the button to get the attendant's attention, and asked, a little irked, if any of the card readers on any of the pumps worked.
   He told her both her cards had been declined.
   The poor lady screwed the cap back on, got in her car and drove away.
   Man, some days the best stuff just falls into your lap.



* by the way, has anybody noticed gas is still over $3 a gallon? During a recession when people are out of work and no one's driving? I smell a conspiracy.

The Ghost Of Things Undone

   It was dark when I woke, and a look at the clock let me know it was midnight. Moonbeams shone through the window, painting silver stripes on the dark comforter. And there was something else, a person - or an echo of a person - just beyond the foot of the bed.
   "You cannot rest, you must not rest," the phantom muttered in sepulchral tones, a whisper from beyond.
   "You again?" I said, falling back onto my pillows. "Jeez, what do you want from me?"
   The apparition stirred, floating back and forth slowly, carried on invisible currents. "Things remain. Things you cannot avoid. You must not avoid."
   "Yeah, you told me last night, and the night before, and the night before that," I said, rubbing my eyes and hoping the ghost would fade away soon. "If this is so important that you have to wake me up four nights in a row, why can't you tell me what these things are?"
   The wisp of a presence hovered there, insubstantial as a cobweb, a ghostly hand raised to its fading chin, thinking. "You have a point. Doesn't make much sense to haunt you about your earthly tasks if you have no idea what they might be."
   "You think?" I said wearily. "So tell me already. I have to avenge the death of a friend? I have to put right some grave injustice? No wait, I have to find a way to bring you final peace. That's it, isn't it?"
   "I don't really know," the ghost said.
   "Are you kidding me?" I said. "You don't even know what you're hounding me about?"
   The spirit leaned against the foot of my bed, thoroughly confused. "They don't really give us details at Central Office."
   I pulled my pillows up, determined to at least be comfortable if I couldn't be asleep. "So they just told you to come haunt some guy named Don and didn't tell you why?"
   "I'm sorry, what was that?" the ghost said. "Don? Your name is Don? Are you sure?"
   "Pretty sure," I said. "My wallet's on the dresser over there if you want to check for yourself."
   The ghost sighed, a small chuckle escaping its ectoplasmic lips. "You're not gonna believe this. I'm supposed to be haunting a guy named Dan. Man, I'm really sorry. The bureaucracy we ghosts have to put up with... well, you can imagine."
   "Does this mean we're done?" I said. "You're gonna leave and not come back tomorrow night?"
   "Scout's honor," the ghost said, holding up three fingers.
   I flipped over, pulling the covers up to my chin. The seconds ticked by and I still felt a spirit presence, the hair on the back of my neck raising painfully as the ghost continued to watch me.
   "What now?" I asked, sitting up.
   "You don't happen to know a guy named Dan, do you?"

The Big Question

Why are there toasters?
   I know that doesn't sound like such a big question, but think about it for a moment. Most of our appliances are designed to take something tedious, like washing dishes, and automate the task. A blender is just a mortar and pestle with a cord, a washing machine is a mangle you don't have to crank, a microwave is a really fast, nuclear oven.
   But what are toasters designed to replace?
   In other words, if you didn't have a toaster, how would you go about toasting bread? If you didn't have a blender you'd chop food up by hand and if you didn't have a washing machine you'd use the sink (or go down to the river). But if you didn't have a toaster, chances are pretty good you wouldn't figure out a way to make toast, you'd just do without.
   When I was a kid I saw a contraption Texas settlers used for browning bread over an open fire, it was a cage-like thing that clamped food - not just bread - inside. So they did have a way to char up yesterday's dinner rolls, and today you can pay too much for almost the same thing at Williams Sonoma and use it on your barbeque grill. They're great for fish, if you're in the market. But bread? I'm not so sure. Seems like more trouble than it's worth.
   It seems to me that modern toasters got popular with the invention of modern sliced bread. It's a new appliance for a new age, not to automate any previous task but to create an entirely new one, the modern breakfast. All the things we think of as a balanced breakfast - juice, toast, cereal, milk - are modern, made possible by changes to manufacturing, farming, and society during the second industrial revolution at the end of the 19th Century. New food, new habits, and a new society need new gadgets.
   Could you do without a toaster? Sure, same way you could do without a TV, a microwave, and a blow dryer. But what kind of life would that be?

Future Fossils

I was down in the garage the other day, doing a little routine auto maintenance, when I noticed a bit of something in the dust underneath the storage bins. I scuffed my foot at it and found an IndyMac Bank lapel pin. It had to have been mine, I don't know that anybody else in my building has ever worked there. It was under five years of dust, dirt, cobwebs and kitty litter, which the guy parking next to me uses to soak up the oil from his leaking car. It was well on its way to being preserved in the strata of the ages until I disturbed it. Which got me to thinking. In ten thousand years, what fossils of mine would future scientists find?

   Old stamps. One-cent and two-cent, which you used to have to buy when the Postal Service raised rates. I'm thinking about using them all on one letter.
   Obsolete video games. These ran on computers that I long since trucked to the recycle place. I don't know what I'd run the games on, and I'm not really interested in playing them again, but they're in the closet just in case.
   Recipts from years back. They say you only need to keep the past seven years of tax returns, but I still got 'em all, going back to the 90's.
   College textbooks. For some reason I still have many of them.
   Acres of comic books. This would be the King Tut's treasure of my tomb. 'I see things. Wonderful things. All bagged and boarded.'
   Sweaters I never wear any more.
   Fast food wrappers.
   Old, broken sunglasses.
   Decks of playing cards with at least one card missing.

Kind of a pathetic haul. But maybe it'll provide a PhD thesis for one of my distant ancestors.

Things That Worry Me Which Probably Shouldn't

I'm concerned that bee keepers aren't doing enough to prevent their hives from developing a rudimentary yet malevolent intelligence.
   I saw a bee truck just last night - it's the beginning of the SoCal pollinization season - rumbling along St. John Avenue. I was in the hot rod and I had the top down, so I thought that perhaps the bees might swarm out of all the hives on the truck, lift me into the air and crown me their king. Didn't happen. But I did get the impression that they were watching me with their beady little compound eyes, trying to decide what to do about the guy in the convertible.
   See, I'm not afraid of bees, they're nature's little factory workers, diligently slaving away in their hives just like our grandparents used to do for Ford and Chrysler. But in nature beehives are separated from one another, you don't find queen bees building hives on neighboring branches in trees. Beekeepers, though, have hundreds of colonies all stacked one on top of another, and you can't tell me those bees don't talk to each other. And just like the labor movement brought unionization to the American auto worker, eventually bees are going to get wise and figure out there are way more of them than there are of us.
   If those bees last night had been organized, if they were all working together, think of the trouble I would have been in. And then think if those bees had talked with other bees, and so on down the line. We might all end up slaves to our honeybee overlords.

Just In Case Something Happens...

It's getting weird around here. Okay, fine, weirder.
   Last night I had a terrible night's sleep, really miserable, and I even tried to go to bed early. Couldn't get to sleep, tossed and turned, watched the clock slowly tick over the minutes hour after hour. I haven't had a night this bad since... since I had a regular job, I suppose.
   So this morning I went to the gym, only to find it empty. Literally. There were three people in a space where usually there are at least fifteen or twenty, with more coming in all the time. It was a ghost town. I talked to one of the trainers who said that three of his clients this morning all had a terrible night last night, couldn't get to sleep just like me. When I left the gym there were still fewer than half the people there who usually are.
   Now the absenteeism could be explained by St. Patrick's Day yesterday - possibly. It could be that every single person who usually gets to the gym at 7 AM was sleeping off too many green beers. Could be. But to have so many people who had trouble sleeping? We're moving beyond coincidence.
    Now I've put it out there, something weird is going on in Pasadena. If you don't hear from me, send in the rescue dogs.

Can You Spare A Fiver For A Liar?

I was down at the local Rite Aid this morning, getting razors and adult diapers, the razors because I'm out of them and need to keep clean-shaven and the diapers because I'm very lazy. Nah, just kidding about the diapers. As far as you know.
   Anyhoo... there are frequently homeless people panhandling by the front door, in large part because there's a Salvation Army Mission a block up and a block over. Today was no different, there was a guy outside, kind of grubby, asking for money for bus fare. Seeing as how I'm 'between assignments' - STILL - I didn't have anything to give him.
   I went in Rite Aid, did my business, paid, and left. Since I had a couple of quarters change I figured I'd help the guy out, bus fare is usually seventy-five cents, fifty cents for the Pasadena ARTS bus. Only the guy wasn't at the door.
   He was in the parking lot, poking his head into a relatively new jeep.
   No lie, the guy begging bus fare in front of the Rite Aid had driven there. So not only was he taking a prime spot from real homeless people, he was lying about what he needed the change for.
   As he approached a woman just getting out of her car he saw me and changed his pitch. He needed money for gas this time.
   I thought about getting together a homeless posse and bringing some frontier justice to this guy, but I let it go. He'll get his, sooner rather than later, it's a bitch when you're crushed under the great karmic wheel.

The Most Evil Person On Earth

No, I'm not talking about Dick Cheney. I have to go to the dentist today for my regular check-up. And I'll face... her. The person that haunts my nightmares and makes me wake screaming from a sound sleep. I'm talking about...
   The dental hygienist.
   She of the picks and scrapes, she of the bleeding gums, she of the terrible-tasting and very messy tooth polish, she of the well-meaning but condescending advice to floss my teeth, even though I tell her that I floss every day (and I really do). Yes, that's the one, you know her. No more than five feet tall, with purple scrubs, a surgical mask and an evil glint in her eye.
   I fear no man, but she terrifies me.
   Think happy thoughts, cross your fingers, and pray for me. I go to face the dragon in its lair, to challenge the grizzly in its cave, to beard the lion in its den. If all goes as planned I'll come out of it with only sore gums, a bitter aftertaste, more advice to floss, and a new toothbrush. Wish me luck.

Two Things To Fix

The elevator has been out in my building for going on three months now, and while I appreciate the owner showing concern for my cardiac health by forcing me to use the stairs every day, it is getting kind of old. I know it costs a lot to fix an elevator, but there are unavoidable expenses when you're a landlord, and this is one of them.
   And then there are expenses incurred that are completely avoidable, if, as a landlord, you'd just fixed the first problem.
   To wit: another tenant moved out this weekend, a third-floor tenant. Seeing as how there was no elevator in service, the tenants had to muscle their belongings down three flights of stairs. This meant rolling a dolly loaded with a couple hundred pounds of stuff down the stairs - thump, thump, thump - over and over again. This, of course, chewed up the stairs. Not that it's any fault of the tenants', they were just moving out. Probably because the elevator doesn't work.
   So now, by having put off fixing the first thing, now the building owner has two things to fix.
   Isn't this a lesson most of us learned when we were in middle school? If you let a problem go too long, it generates new problems. Why does it seem the people who should know this the most practice it the least?
   Let's see how long she takes to fix the stairs now.

Bargains

I took a trip to the Rose Bowl Flea Market today. It's held the second Sunday of every month, rain or shine (mostly shine), but I haven't been in years. The last time I went I got a really good, really greasy corn dog from a vendor I would have been suspicious of if I'd seen him on the street. The best street food is like that, just the good side of too scary to try out.
   I expected to see a lot of the same kind of stuff from many vendors, you usually do in a flea market, but I also expected to come across a gem once in a while. An odd, quirky, cool little piece of something that you can't plan for but you know it when you see it. I didn't see it.
   Not to say that the flea market was a disappointment, you don't go to a flea market expecting Earth-shattering revelations, but I did leave feeling a little flat. Maybe it's because I couldn't find anybody selling corn dogs.

A few observations:
   The ticket-taker girls were all wearing black leprechaun hats and green sunglasses in honor of St. Patrick's Day. None of them seemed particularly enthused about the whole business.

   People will eat barbeque at 9 AM. I seen it.

   Bald dudes with tattoos on their heads gravitate towards one another. I think it's a new kind of speciation. Now they have to find chicks with tattoos on their heads to have little tattoo-headed babies.

   When the crowd gets very thick you get stuck behind people. I have been forced to amble along at the pace of a woman shopping for bargains, or to put it another way, as close to a dead stop as you can get without rolling backwards. Men know what I mean and sympathize. Women couldn't care less.

   At the front gate they play hurdy-gurdy music, or calliope music, or carousel music, whatever you want to call it. I thought I recognized a calliope version of 'The Trial' by Pink Floyd, which has calliope music in it. An amazing meta-reference for a flea market. Then they played the calliope version of 'Waterloo' by Abba and lost me.

On Stage At The Farmer's Market

Every so often I'll go to Pasadena's Saturday farmer's market, at the high school parking lot. I'm not a locavore or health nut - though I am pretty down on big corporations and agri-business in general - I go because the produce is waaaaay fresher than you can get in the grocery stores. Usually picked the day before, less than 24 hours before we consumers run our sticky fingers all over it, the produce I buy at the farmer's market lasts longer than what I buy in the store. It's also good to be out in the sun, walking amongst my fellow early-birds and listening to the music the blind guy by the flower stand strums on his guitar. It had been a while since I went, probably six months, and so today I decided the time had come to return.
   This time around I noticed something different. The vendors, usually friendly people to begin with, seemed very eager to talk. And I don't mean they were polite and had a few nice words, they wanted to outline every reason their customers should buy their produce, or honey, or beef, or bread or what have you.
   I noticed it first at the baker's stand. He was explaining his wares, always a good practice, but as the people went down the line he kept it up, talking about his ovens, his technique, his ingredients. That was one proud baker, I thought.
   Then I heard the honey guy do the same, talking about his bees and the local crops he helps bring to our dinner table. And the potato guy, who was able to talk someone's ear off in English and in Spanish and was only too happy to do so. And the flower lady. And the apple family. And the guacamole guy. And the seafood people.
   Did they all go to some farmer's market pitch class? This wasn't the reality six months ago. Back then, in the good old days, the vendors made polite conversation but unless you asked they didn't volunteer much beyond when they picked the produce, baked the bread, or pulled the fish out of the ocean. Today it seemed they had taken some sort of 'talk-too-much' pill with an 'overshare' chaser. Did you know the soil's ph affects the pungency of celery? I didn't either. But I do now. I couldn't have avoided knowing it if I wanted to.
   I might be reading too much into this, but I suspect this is a product of our data-hungry culture. With the internet and horrible 24-hour news channels and Wikipedia now our major news sources, the public has come to expect fast facts in an instant. You can find anything, from what a sucrose molecule looks like to what your favorite anorexic, talentless celebrity is doing this Saturday with just a few mouse clicks. There's a lot of noise out there, a lot of data flying around but not a lot of information. And now that trend seems to have hit the farmer's market.

M&Ms, Lotto, and Pot

A while back - a long while back, if you want me to be honest - I knew a guy who was living beneath his station. We were both waiters, so the bar wasn't set very high to begin with, but Jimmy had ducked under. While I was still living with Mom and Dad, Jimmy was living with Dave and Heidi. Dave and Heidi like their pot, and Jimmy REALLY liked his pot. A lot. An awful lot, if you know what I mean. I envied Jimmy the simplicity of his existence. Get up, go to work, finish work, come home, spark a J, and fade off into oblivion. Next day, repeat as before. No real decisions to make, no real responsibility aside from his account with his dope man.
   Jimmy lived on three things: M&Ms, his daily ration of pot, and the absolute certainty that the next time around he was going to win the Lotto. I'm not saying that he was really, really hopeful that he would win, he KNEW the next jackpot was his. Every time. It was an amazing display of both hope and delusion, with perhaps a bit of desperation mixed in.
   He never won. Not once. From time to time he'd hit a few numbers and get a buck or two back, maybe win five or ten bucks once in a great while. But that didn't stop him from going back over and over and over again, each time secure in the belief that his luck would turn and he would end up the next easy millionaire.
   And I wondered about this. Was he being foolish or was he being hopeful? Was there a difference between the two?
   His situation was desperate, he rented a small room in a tiny house in a pretty crappy neighborhood. He worked as a waiter and had no formal education beyond a high school diploma. He had no girlfriend, and his prospects for improving his lot in life were dim. He was obviously hoping to shortcut the entire process with a big-ticket Lotto win, but he also just as obviously needed something to look forward to, some aspiration to hold onto to distract him from the harsh reality of the shambles his life had become.
   He wasn't so different than everyone else. Each of us may have a much better situation, more money, more friends, love, a good job. But there is always something missing, something more we feel we could be doing, something better just out of reach. There's always a lotto ticket we think we could buy to instantly erase everything we don't like and make it all just the way we wish it were. But we know in our hearts that nobody really wins the Lotto, not people like you and me.
   But people do win. Every day. So I'm thinking I need to be a little more like Jimmy, a little more hopeful, a little more optimistic. A little less stoned, obviously, and a little more driven to make the change I want, rather than just wait for it to happen by itself.
   Now, where's my bag of M&Ms?

When Last We Left Our Hero

   Captain Grant Manley had just finished single-handedly fighting back the assault of the Neptunians, and now he stood in the airlock of the USS Victorious with their purple ichor dripping from his skin-tight pressure suit. His Q-ray blaster smoked, still hot to the touch, and the plutonium fuel gauge on his jet pack read almost empty.
   "That's the last time those six-armed fiends try to interrupt our peaceful fact-finding mission," Manley growled through his pearly white teeth. He handed his space helmet to Teddy Courage, his trusty cabin boy. "I tell you Teddy, if we weren't trying to win their hearts and minds I'd have half a mind to vaporize their entire village."
   "Yeah, lucky for those bug-eyed freaks you're such a pacifist," Teddy said as he reverentially unzipped Manley's pressure suit, peeling it off his Captain's broad, muscular shoulders. "They look like a pile of something the dog threw up."
   "Now, Teddy," Manley chastised, "there's no call for that kind of talk. They're sentient beings just like you and me. The only real difference between us is their primitive culture and their poor hygiene. Oh, and their laughable religion."
   "I guess you're right," Teddy replied thoughtfully. "Sorry about that."
   Manley hugged Teddy tight to his rippling chest. "All is forgiven, lad. But between us, when we finally bring civilization and culture to these poor, backward aliens I'll be glad to leave this terrible place."
   "I don't know," Teddy replied, still wrapped in Manley's embrace, "I kind of like it here now."
   "It is beautiful in its own austere, desolate way, like a cloistered monastery or an oil rig or a French Foreign Legion outpost," Manley replied.
   "Or a prison," Teddy replied. "A maximum security prison."
   "That too, lad," Manley chuckled. "But I long for purple mountains' majesty and amber waves of grain."
   "So do I," a lilting, musical voice said.
   Estelle Sparks entered the airlock, all long legs and cascading raven hair. Her lithe, buxom form was barely contained in the USS Victory's standard singlesuit uniform, and the Q-ray blasters she carried on each ample hip said she was just as much at home on the battlefield as in the kitchen.
   Captain Manley released Teddy and grabbed Estelle fiercely, staring into her violet eyes. "We've been apart only a few hours, just long enough for me to dispense justice, and yet I feel as though it's been days."
   "Oh, Grant," Estelle sighed, "I want nothing more than to melt into your arms. But we've just received an alert from the Earth Council. It's terrible, the Neptunians are preparing to use an Ultimate Disintegrator."
   "Say it isn't so!" Manley gasped.
   "How would they get the materials to build an Ultimate Disintegrator?" Teddy asked. "Isn't their whole planet nothing but rocks and methane sand? And hasn't the Earth Council enforced a trade embargo on all Neptunian exports for years now?"
   Manley turned to his trusty cabin boy, his square jaw set beneath his steel-gray eyes. "The Earth Council hasn't led us astray yet, lad. If they say it's so then it must be. And my destiny is now clear."
   "Grant, you don't mean..." Estelle gasped, her bosom heaving.
   "I'm afraid so, First Officer Sparks," Manley said. "Fire up the nuclear generator and ready the Atom Cannon, we're going to have to teach these Neptunians a lesson."

Socrates Walks Into A Bar...

Hey, buddy, what can I get you?
   Ah, that is the question, is it not?
Uh... right. Beer?
   Is this beer refreshing?
Yes.
   Is this beer delicious?
Uh-huh.
   Is it your opinion, then, that I would find this beer thirst-quenching?
Well... sure. Look, pal, I don't got all day.
   And how do you know that I, in particular, enjoy beer?
You just look like a beer kind of fellow.
   Yet I look like no other person in here, and I see many of them drinking beer.
Maybe you're right, how about a tequila sunrise?
   Is this tequila sunrise refreshing?
All right, that's it. When you want to stop being a wise ass, let me know.
   No wait, don't go. I'm sorry, it's just... I use questions with my students, and it's hard for me to turn off at the end of the day.
No harm done, pal.
   Socrates.
Harvey.
   You're a virtuous man, Harvey.
People have called me worse. So you're a teacher?
   Do I look like a teacher?
Jeez, you just said...
   Sorry! Sorry! Okay, I'm turning it off. Seriously. This time for real.
All right. What'll it be?
   That's a tough one. You know what I'd really like?
The only thing I know is that I don't know.
   Ah... you got me there.
People think that because I'm a bartender I don't read.
   Man, I'm parched.
There is no one thirstier than you.
   Another good one.
I got a lot of time during the day.
   I'll take that beer. You got any pistachios back there?

Introspection

I had to go down to Old Town today, and as I walked there and back I learned a few things about myself.

   I don't expect homeless people to be very tall. Certainly not 6'5". I don't expect them to look something like Garrison Keillor either. I like my homeless people to be smaller than me, and sickly, it makes me feel safer.

   Looking for a business I don't know the name of with a half-remembered address from someone who's never been to Pasadena is an ill-advised venture. But it does get me out of the house for an hour or so.

   If I'm distracted - really not paying attention - say, looking for an address or a business that doesn't exist, people give me a lot of room. I don't know if I look like I might start swinging, or if people suddenly become more courteous, but the end result is the same, they stay away. And I'm cool with that.

   It bothers me when women pushing baby strollers also have little pocket dogs trailing on a leash behind them. There seem to be plenty of them in Old Town during the day, and I don't know if they're treating the tiny dog like a baby or treating the baby like a tiny dog. Kind of creeps me out and I never realized it before.

   I don't mind when skateboarders almost commit suicide by rolling through a crosswalk when cars are turning left. It does bother me when pedestrians do stupid things, I really don't want to see anybody killed, but, surprisingly enough, the same does not apply to skateboarders. Who knew? Douchebags shouldn't be riding on the sidewalk anyway.

   Evidently I don't look like someone who wants to receive the word of God. A roly-poly fellow with a scraggly beard and a stained jacket was handing out Jesus literature while I waited at a crosswalk. He tried to give a pamphlet to everyone but me, and, to tell you the truth, I was a little disappointed. Maybe he could tell I was distracted.

For Your Convenience

Last night was sitting on the couch eating dinner, as I usually do since I don't have a dining table. What can I say? I'm a guy who lives alone, it never occurred to me that I should get a dining table. Still hasn't. Anyway, I tried to eat healthy, so I had some baby carrots, apple slices, dried cherries, walnuts, and a whole wheat English muffin with a little peanut butter on it. Proud of my dietary restraint, as I munched away I realized that I had spent a total of two or three minutes arranging my meal, because all of the food preparation had been done for me.
   The carrots came already peeled and washed and in a bag, the apple slices too, the cherries had the pits and stems removed and the walnuts were already shelled. The English muffin came pre-sliced. I did have to stir up the peanut butter - I get the kind that separates - but that was the only real effort I had to expend, aside from plugging the toaster in.
   Wasn't this a Twilight Zone episode? The one where modern man becomes so dependent on others to do menial tasks like peeling and slicing carrots that in the end he becomes irrelevant? When did I become so busy that I can't cut up an apple? Or slice my own English muffin?
   And what about the packages these things come in? When I slice my own apple the only thing left is the core, which could become compost. If I did that sort of thing. Carrots would leave tips and stems and peels. But when I'm done with my pre-sliced apples, and carrots, and cherries, and walnuts, I have four plastic bags. Thick sturdy things with zip-tops, that don't biodegrade in the least. I hope hermit crabs find a nice home in them when they wash back up on the beach.
   I'm not advocating a return to the 19th Century or anything - I'm not really down with the idea of eating what I kill - but, jeez, what is consuming all this convenience food freeing me up to do? Watch more TV? I do enough of that already, thank you very much.
   Time to make my own sourdough starter, churn my own butter, and smoke a ham. Or maybe I'll just hit Jack-in-the-Box, COPS is on tonight...

Making It Easy With Archetypes

I'm getting lazy. Or lazier, I suppose, and I really don't feel much like doing a lot of work figuring people out. Dogs and cats let you know how they're feeling, if a dog doesn't like you it growls, if a cat likes you it rubs all over your ankles. Bared teeth mean the same for both species. I think as human beings we need to do the same kind of thing. We have language though, so having someone just come out and say what they're thinking isn't the best course of action, they could be lying, or sarcastic, or they could speak some mumbo-jumbo language I don't understand. Like French. No, if we want people to be clear, we need archetypes.
   I'm not talking stereotypes, I'm talking archetypes like they have in melodrama or in Roman comedy. If someone is a wise old man, they should have a long white beard, if they're a villain they should have a twisty mustache, if they're sneaky they should always look from side to side out of the corners of their eyes.
   See, if people would just act like their archetypes it would save everyone a lot of time. Don't know if you should get that interest-only adjustable rate mortgage on the property you clearly can't afford anyway? Check out the broker, is he wearing a battered stovepipe hat, flourishing a cape and cackling evilly? Then don't get a loan with him.
   Not sure if your Congressman is taking bribes? Go to Washington and visit his office. Does he have sacks of money with big dollar signs on them strewn around his office? Does he look like a pig wearing robber-baron clothes? Then he's probably on the take.
   Wondering what your girlfriend is going to become once you marry her? Go visit her mother. Is she wearing curlers with a kerchief wrapped around her head? Is she wearing a housecoat and fuzzy slippers in the middle of a weekday? Does she threaten you with a rolling pin? Then she's a battle axe and her daughter's going to be just the same.
   See? It would work out great, and keep me from thinking too much.

Appease The Spirits

I've been thinking lately about animal intelligence, chimps, for instance, or whales, or dogs, and the implications that has for the existence of animal souls. Tribal religions included animal spirits, and religions like Shinto include nature spirits for mountains, trees, streams, and what have you. Animism like this is a very, very old tradition, prehistoric as a matter of fact. So I got to thinking some more, why would spirits be confined only to people, or animals, or big chunks of nature like mountains?
   What if our modern things have spirits?
   Like my TV. What if there's a Sony 42" LCD spirit in there that I need to appease? Or the oven? What if there's a fire spirit in there just getting angrier and angrier that I'm not performing the proper rituals to it? And I'm fairly certain there is a spirit in my refrigerator, given the noises it sometimes makes. But I pay a lot of attention to the refrigerator, so I think I'm pretty safe there. Maybe all that attention I'm giving the ice box is pissing off the spirit of the toaster.
   But what about cars? Or pencils? Or couches? Or buildings? Or compact florescent bulbs? God help us if there are garbage spirits all gathering together at our colossal landfills, we're in trouble.
   And what about food? If animists say trees have spirits, then shouldn't things that come from trees have spirits? Like apples? Then things made from apples, like apple pie or cider would have spirits too. And tacos would have spirits. Spicy, delicious spirits that give you gas later on in the day.
   I think I need to appease the spirit of my bed now and go to sleep. I hope the spirit of my pillows agrees with me.

Chicks With Tattoos

In the past week or so I've noticed a lot of chicks with tattoos. And I don't mean the kind of chicks you'd think would have tattoos - seeing a tramp stamp down by PCC is no challenge at all, believe me - I'm talking about women you wouldn't think could get away with the tattoos they sport.
   A teller at my bank has one of those wrist-tattoo thingys, it says 'Gabriel' with hearts, etc., like a little permanent chain around her wrist. Since I have to watch her hands as she deposits my unemployment check, I can't avoid seeing it. She's a perfectly proficient teller, but time was that tattoo would have meant she didn't get to talk to customers.
   A lady in business attire walking down Lake Avenue, with little bows tattooed on the backs of her calves, with lines like she was wearing nylons. At first I thought she was wearing nylons, enough of a novelty that I took a second look and discovered the horrible truth. I don't know any woman who would get inked like that, except maybe a stripper. But if she was a stripper, what was she doing out of bed at 10 AM? And if she was a former stripper, don't you think she'd get it removed or at least wear pants?
   A woman working in my local Trader Joe's has full sleeve* tattoos on both arms up to her wrist. Every time I've seen her she's been wearing a long-sleeved shirt, but since she's working the fabric rides up and you can see the vibrant color she undoubtedly paid a lot for. Body art like that doesn't really inspire confidence in the person stocking your produce section, and I wonder what she's going to think of that cool ink in five or ten years when she wants to attend her kid's PTA meeting. Say what you will about fairness, heavily-inked people are seen as sinister and untrustworthy. And with serious flaws in their judgment.
   A trainer at my gym has a tattoo up her right side, something I've never seen before. I don't know how far down it goes, but as she was demonstrating a stretch to one of her clients the ink peeked out above her waist. And it wasn't on her left side, which I can't figure out, but then again I don't want to.
   Is it just me? Is it just here in SoCal? Or are there waaaaay to many presumably professional women sporting inappropriate body art? And, yes, I know I sound like a cranky old man. I'm just going with it now.

* sleeve is a funny word. Say it over and over and over, and then look at it spelled out. HA! Too funny.

Am I Being Punk'd?

I know that I complain about my impending old-man-ness, what with my attendance at local city district meetings and my worry about water quality and Pasadena's revision of its General Plan. But I thought I was delicately treading the path, not charging towards cranky old man status like a little kid running for the ice cream truck. (They still have ice cream trucks, right?) I got a piece of news today that makes me realize I am now officially The Man.
   One of my friends is running for US Congress.
   Seriously, one of the guys I worked with at the OG, a guy I played basketball with, a guy whose bachelor party and subsequent wedding I attended - a couple of good stories there, trust me - has tossed his hat into the ring to become a Congressman. The primary is tomorrow, March 2nd.
   It's good for him, he's one of the few people who decide to try to make a difference instead of just complaining about things like some nimrod with a blog. But it's bad for me, because now I realize I should be part of the solution, rather than just pointing out the problems. And that's kind of a drag, honestly. It's much easier to be like Statler and Waldorf, sitting up in the balcony heckling than being like Fozzie, down on stage tap-dancing to save my life.
   I'll keep you posted on what happens. With my luck this will be just the first step and Chuck will be running for office come November.