Not As Good As 'Made In China?'

I went to the store today. It's been a rare occurrence in the past eighteen months or so, what with being 'between assignments' and all. But I need new workout shorts, since the two pair I have are wearing out. One has a hole right in the middle of the butt crack portion, so I can't really wear them outside (though I have, sorry Mom), and the other pair - my 'good' pair - are wearing out and getting threadbare on the fronts of the thighs. It's past time for new shorts, is what I'm saying.
   I went to the sporting goods store early, after my workout so I'd be primed for the purchase. And as I was sorting through the racks, and wondering how many people played basketball for there to be so many basketball shorts choices, I started noticing where the garments were actually made.
   Vietnam, Venezuela, Mexico, Sri Lanka. Swaziland. Really. Swaziland, the little landlocked dot in the top right of South Africa. They make garments for export now. Who knew?
   After I saw the Swaziland label, I started looking through other clothes I wasn't interested in buying, trying to find a 'Made in China' label. Didn't come across a single one. Which means that China is now too middle-class to do the kind of back-breaking cheap-labor work that made them an economic powerhouse.
   Which got me to thinking. What does a middle-class Chinese shopper do when they find a 'Made in Swaziland' label on their brand-new Mao jacket? Do they turn up their noses and paw through the racks until they find a 'Made in China' label?
   I mean, it's inevitable, right? Just like Americans are on a kick to find stuff that's 'Made in the USA,' the Chinese middle class has to be doing much the same thing, only with their own jingoism in the front. And that's kind of scary if you think about it too long.
   So what happens in another twenty or thirty years? Will shoppers in Swaziland be in the sporting goods store shopping for shorts, only to be brought up short by labels that read 'Made in Micronesia?'

Indefinably Slimy

I know this guy, you may know someone like him. He's pleasant enough, friendly enough in a superficial way, even kind of a man's man because he's fit and tough and smart enough to secure a job that gives him a very decent income. But every time I shake hands with him I want to go wash up. I thought I was alone in this until a week or so ago, when I happened to be talking to someone else about this guy, and they said pretty much exactly the same thing, they felt like they needed to hose off after being in his presence.
   I asked around, and it seems no one really cares for this guy, they all think the same thing, that he's more than a bit arrogant, condescending, and superior. Even though he's done nothing at all to merit the hostility directed towards him. I mean, seriously, he's always been a perfect gentleman, not an unkind word, not a dirty look, not one thing you could point to as a reason not to like him. And yet no one does.
   I got to wondering what it could possibly be, why would this person be so universally disliked with no apparent reason? I'm sure you seen animals have aversions to specific people, dogs growl and back away from some, cats hiss and run off. This is like that, only with people. I thought about it from time to time - when I encountered this guy - but never could put my finger on it. There was some indefinable sliminess about him, like a black cloud hanging over his head that infected every interaction he had.
   Then I saw him again and talked to him for a little while, and during that conversation it hit me. I knew what it was that put people off. He's the kind of guy who puts people into two categories: those who are useful to him and those that aren't. He's in 'the industry' and making a pretty penny at it, so I guess his useful radar works pretty well. As far as he was concerned I was not someone who could advance his career, and neither was anyone who shared my opinion of him.
   So what we were reacting to was his casual dismissal of us as inconsequential. Even though it wasn't overt, it was present enough for us to recognize. He was polite and cordial to us not because he was interested in talking to us or learning more about us, but because to be seen as impolite might get back to those people who could advance his career. Got it. Finally.
   But now here's the question. He's doing well in his chosen career, and being a colossal douchebag has more than paid his rent. Does that mean he's just lucky, or does that mean douchebaggery in general gets you ahead? Maybe it only gets you ahead with other jackass bastards? But if the people in charge are all jackass bastard douchebags, wouldn't they be alert to more of the same? You can't con a con man, after all, they know all the tricks.
   So I was pondering how I might go about becoming a colossal douchebag myself, because being that way certainly seemed lucrative. But I realized I just do not have it in me. I can't treat people that way, whenever I talk to someone I have to dig and probe and find out more about them. Because people are interesting, and the less interesting you imagine a person might be, the more interesting you find out they are. I've had people tell me things - true things, verifiable things - that I could never put in my fiction because readers wouldn't buy it.
   I guess I'm doomed to a life of middle-class wage slavery, all because I can't treat people like things. Seems like a fair trade-off.

Whoopin' And Hollerin'

Several times a day, as I sit and write, or avoid cleaning, or actually do the cleaning, or as I just sit and watch TV, I hear someone outside whooping.
   For those of you not from Texas or the South in general, a whoop is not a 'yee-haw,' a whoop is the kind of sound you make when your high school football team erupts from behind the break-through and takes the field. It's what you utter when the meanest bull at the rodeo knocks its rider ten feet into the air. It's what you say after the best man makes the toast at an outdoor wedding. It's what comes out of your mouth when the strip club DJ tells you to 'put your hands together for Chardonnay!' At least that's what I understand, from what others tell me. But I digress.
   I hear this man whooping, several times a day, up and down the street out front. And it's loud, top-of-his-lungs loud, loud enough that I can hear it plainly and my apartment doesn't face the street.
   When it first started I thought 'jeez, what a jerk, some dude goes outside just to make noise and annoy the rest of the neighborhood.' But then, as the noise continued week after week, I started to wonder. Who was this guy? What was his deal? Why would he do this most of the day, over and over and over again? How determined was he to be a bad neighbor that he would keep this up for so long? I was going to wait for this guy to start making noise, and then run out and confront him, but that never happened.
   Then a few days ago I saw the culprit as I was pulling out of the garage. Or heard him first, then spotted him. It was the same guy I saw making a break for it a few months ago. A resident of the old folks' home across the street.
   So he's not a jerk, he's an old man with a problem. Either he's got some sort of dementia or he suffered a stroke. Or - terrible thought - he's got both.
   Clearly the nursing home staff take him out many times a day to give a break to the other residents. Can you imagine? If this guy whoops so loudly outside, what's it got to sound like inside? It's got to be driving those poor old folks crazy. Crazier. Whatever.
   But this was a lesson to me, never to assume I know what's going on. I thought the noise was some inconsiderate jerk from the apartment building to the North - they really are a bunch of douchebags - but instead it's a guy who clearly can't help himself.
   Another lesson for me: as dissatisfied as I am with working and writing and trying to make my break, at least I'm not that guy. I should count my blessings more. Grateful but not complacent.

Time Marches On

I have to take my glasses off to read things.
   I'm nearsighted, so have glasses mostly for driving, although I passed the DMV vision test without them so I don't have a restriction. I'm also slightly astigmatic in both eyes which means that at a distance I can see two highway signs instead of just the one that's supposed to be there.
   I've had glasses since I was a junior in college. At the time I thought it was because I was reading so much; with concentrations in English, History, and Classics if I wasn't asleep I probably had my nose in a book. And I worked in the library* so that's even more books to read. All these years later, though, I think my deteriorating vision had a lot to do with the introduction of aspartame into America's diet. Right about the time my eyesight started fading was when I started drinking diet soda. Really. Aspartame metabolizes into methanol in your body - wood grain alcohol - which can turn you blind. I think it got to me.
   All this is immaterial to the fact that I have to take my glasses off in the store to read stuff. They either go into my hand or up on my head like an old person. It's just embarrassing.
   Back when I was a waiter we used to make fun of people who came in with two pairs of glasses, and now I can see the day coming when that person is going to be me. And wise-ass waiters who don't yet feel their own mortality will make fun of me. Bastards.
   I can't wait for the day to come when we can harvest organs from vat-grown clones and replace our failing body parts. It's just a few years off, trust me, the government doesn't want you to know because if you stopped fighting mortality the hospital and insurance industries would fail utterly. The only thing that keeps them going is fear, after all, and if you take fear away, why do you need insurance? Why do you need to brush your teeth if you could just grow a new set? Why cut down on McDonald's french fries - quite possibly the most unhealthy 'food' on the planet - if you can just harvest your clone's liver when yours goes South? See? It's all a vast conspiracy to keep us beaten down and in submission.
   I want access to my clone so I can harvest his eyes, dammit. Of course, if my clone is my age, then his eyes are my age too, and quite possibly nearsighted and astigmatic.... this is getting complicated.


* or libary, if you wanted to get my boss upset

A Nose For News

I got a bit of a situation, and I don't quite know what to do. There's guy I know, I see him like once a month, once every two months, and he smells funny. And not ha-ha funny either, but also not repulsive. He's in this odd middle ground of olfactory confusion, and that's the source of the problem. I don't know how to tell him that he offends, because he doesn't smell offensive so much as strange. Really, really strange.
   Some people smell like the cedar chest or closet they keep their clothes in. Some people might smell like dirty clothes because they pulled their wardrobe from the hamper. Some people might smell like too much smell-good (like the janitor where I work (Ugh...)), and some people might smell like BO. Or whiskey. Or cigarettes. Or halitosis if they've got serious dental problems.
   This guy smells like none of that. He smells like no single identifiable thing, but he is absolutely, definitely funky. Funky like an old batch of collard greens, not funky like P-Funk (everybody get up).
   When you get a snootful of his aroma the top note is mostly old-man smell, that vaguely stale yet vaguely Bryllcreem-y pop that hits you right between eyes.* But after a moment or two, not even a second, the middle note assaults you, a waft of something compost-y yet not organic. Kind of like that sterile potting 'soil' you can buy that isn't really soil at all. And the finish - the bottom note - is a barely-there hint of decay, almost like something that's been dead outside for a few weeks. And, yes, I actually spent time trying to figure out what exactly each of these things smelled like.
   This wasn't a one-time thing, it's pretty much every time I see this guy, so I think he might intend to smell this way. God help him, I think it's on purpose. But it's not good. Waaaay not good.
   I don't think I'm going to say anything, I don't see him often enough that it's a huge deal, and we're not good enough friends that I can tell him anything and have him take it like a man. So I'm gonna let him go on stinking, while he probably thinks he's a major player. I'm assuming this is some sort of cologne, otherwise his whole house has to have the same smell, which would be a public health issue.
   For the life of me, I can't think of any other reason he'd smell like this. Unless his goal is to keep the ladies at bay, and then it's mission accomplished.


* or, if you're familiar with the blue alcohol dip barbers used to put their combs into, it's kind of like that, but not as astringent

Look Like A Terrorist

I know it's human nature to fear the unknown, it's an innate fear that's probably the single biggest reason our caveman ancestors lived long enough to have the kids who had the kids who had the kids who eventually became you and me. It's self-preservation turned to 11.
   But I hear people talking about other people who look like terrorists, and I ain't buying it. Timothy McVeigh, the single worst terrorist in America until 9/11, looked like a guy who used to play on my middle school football team. And if you think middle-school football teams harbor terrorists... well, you'd be right. But they're the kind of terrorists who light paper bags of dog poop on fire on your front doorstep, not the kind who use fertilizer bombs to kill daycare toddlers like Mr. McVeigh.
   What people mean when they say someone 'looks like a terrorist' is that 'someone looks foreign,' or more specifically 'someone is wearing a turban and a robe and a they have olive skin and a long beard.' Because, really, people from Ghana wear turbans and robes, but no one calls them terrorists. And the Amish sport beards that are eerily similar to the ones Muslim mullahs wear, but you wouldn't call anyone Amish a terrorist. They wear suspenders and straw hats, for God's sake.
   I'm in no way an apologist for Muslim extremists - they are dangerous and they are responsible for much of the violence in the world right now - but someone is not a terrorist because of the way they look, they're a terrorist because they're sullen, resentful cowards. It's what's inside that counts.
   Think about it. What if I was visiting, say, Fiji, and the people there had decided that pale white guys wearing uninspired office worker clothes were terrorists? I'd be stopped and frisked on every corner (they have corners in Fiji, right?), my picture would be on the 'no-canoe list,' and they'd have satirical t-shirts of pale white guys in office attire. How fair is that?
   While the Ku Kux Klan is vile and reprehensible, at least they're honest in their extreme bigotry. They don't like anyone who's not a white American Protestant and if you're anything but they'll tell you straight up that's the reason why they hate you. They don't hide behind 'looks like a terrorist.' So, when you think about it, the 'looks like a terrorist' crowd are bigger cowards and losers than the KKK.

It's Still Funny

I'm not eleven years old any more, haven't been for some time. But inside me there's an eleven-year-old who still laughs at the wrong time and at the wrong thing. At least wrong for an adult.
   It's raining in LA today, and rain is a rare commodity in SoCal if you didn't already know. That means Angelenos don't know how to deal with wet pavement of any kind, in a car, on a bike, or on foot. Especially on foot.
   I saw three people fall down today, and - God help me - it was hilarious every time.
   The first was at lunch. Today is Taco Tuesday, which means the building where I work (Ugh...) allows a local taqueria to set up a catering line and cook tacos to order out on the lawn. Evidently it was a half-day at some local school - or the kids were cutting class - and about ten students were availing themselves of the low-price tacos. One kid was harrassing another, slapping him on the back of the head, that kind of thing, and when the other kid had enough and was about to fight back the first kid ran. He hit some wet tiles and SLAP! down he went. It looked like it hurt, but it was also a really good fall, laid out like he was taking a nap. Too funny.
   Driving home through Echo Park I saw a guy in what I thought was a trench coat running for the bus. Turns out it was a bath robe and he was wearing Crocs. In the rain. One wrong step and WHOOOP! down he goes, with the bathrobe belt just dangling in mid-air and one of his purple Crocs sailing over his head. Also hi-larious.
   Finally, I stopped at Trader Joe's for food. As I was leaving I saw a lady quickly approaching the (extremely) slick tiles by the elevator. Before I could think to myself 'Self, she ought to slow down...' she puts a foot on the slick tiles - in baby blue Crocs to match her scrubs - and SLAM! hits the ground like a sack of lead potatoes. Other people were there to help her up and ask her if she was okay, so I just passed her by and tried to hide my smile.
   There are two lessons here. One, it's funny when people fall down. It's probably always been funny and it'll probably always be funny.
   The second lesson is 'don't wear Crocs in the rain, dumb ass.' I would extend that to 'don't ever wear Crocs at all, dumb ass,' but I'll settle for the first one.

This Is Humor?

I don't usually watch sitcoms. I make an exception for The Big Bang Theory - because it's about my people - and I do watch Modern Family from time to time but only because Sophia Vergara is a luscious handful. But tonight I decided to watch some sitcoms that normally I avoid.
   What a colossal crap sandwich.
   Seriously, it's bad. Very bad. Alarmingly bad. Not funny in the least, which is the best you can say, and insulting to boot. I think it was Seinfeld that started the trend of not-funny sitcoms, which continued with Friends and all those related mind-numbingly dull and awful programs. But it's even worse now, if you can believe. A room full of monkeys could write better jokes and situations.
   Or someone with a blog could do the same.
   So here, with absolutely no forethought or editing, is a list of sitcom premises that would do better than everything on TV today. Or at the very least they couldn't be any worse.

A wacky short-order cook leads a double life as a cannibal chef in an underground forbidden-foods club.

A motley collection of ne'er do-well itinerant jugglers decides to leave showbiz and settle in a small town where juggling is illegal. When beanbags are outlawed, will only outlaws have beanbags?

A frazzled young weather girl tries to find love in the big city alongside her work friends, all of whom hate her guts and are secretly trying to murder her.

An agoraphobic man meets a woman under house arrest on video chat. They find love and romance through the internet, and never realize they're next door neighbors.

A Victorian-era genius inventor must deal with the chaos that ensues when his half-wit lummox of a brother moves in with his ill-mannered, dirty family, complete with adorable talking piglet. Will our hero ever perfect the steam-powered zoetrope?

   See? Just off the top of my head and any of those would be better than 'How I Met Your Mother.'
   And I swear to God, if I see any of these ideas become shows I will find you and I will cut you three ways: hard, deep, and repeatedly. Try me.

Arkham Horror

Once a month, when the fog invaded the town after midnight, the citizens of Pelican's Crest locked their doors and stayed away from drafty windows. They never knew exactly what kind of fog it would be, but they knew that no matter what the fog was never a good thing.
   This time, as he watched the thick, puffy mist rolling in from the bay, Benjamin could tell it was an evil fog. Over the years he'd made a study of which kind of fog brought what kind of menace, and Benjy, his friends called him Benjy, knew the different fogs like he knew the way from his bedroom to the refrigerator. Zombie fog showed yellow-green under the street lights, and Dracula fog made noise because of all the bats and rats and centipedes, the 'children of the night' that stayed in the mist. Ancient Old Ones fog made Benjy's skin crawl in a way nothing else did, what with all the half-seen writhing tentacles and the crazy, babbling shrieks from people who'd seen something human beings were never meant to see.
   When he recognized what was coming Benjy grew disappointed. An evil fog was just no fun. Maybe there were a few random burglaries, maybe an armed robbery or two, and there was always some hick or out-of-towner who got caught out in the evil mist and became a serial killer or something, but it was nothing Benjy hadn't seen dozens of times before. Hell, most of the people of Pelican's Crest were already half-evil to begin with, so evil fog didn't affect them much. He almost closed the curtains and went to bed. Almost. But on this new moon – the fog always came when the night was darkest – he decided to peer into the enveloping mist just a bit longer, to see if anything good popped up.
   And that when Benjy saw him. A man in a pinstriped suit.
   He seemed so normal, like a regular guy, but he was walking in the fog like he knew where he was going. Which was right to Benjy's front door. Usually the people caught in evil fog twitched a lot, or scratched their faces, or mumbled to themselves, that kind of thing. Not this guy. He walked straight and tall, and as he passed under the street lights Benjy saw his deeply tanned face and silver-gray hair, his starched white collar, his shining gold watch and rings. And Benjy shivered. This was one seriously evil fog.
   The man knocked on Benjy's door just as if he were a regular guy instead of something that had escaped from the other side. Benjy didn't want to answer the door, he knew he shouldn't, but his feet took him downstairs anyway. Even though he didn't want it to, his hand grabbed the doorknob and twisted.
   The man stood there in his pressed suit, his tanned face grinning a jackal's grin, all teeth and no emotion. He rubbed his hand across his fresh-shaved chin, his pinky ring glinting in the porch light.
   "Hello, I'm from Wall Street," the man said, a serpent's hiss. "You have money in there, I can smell it. Could I come in and help myself to it?"
   No no no no no no no no no no no no no no....
   "Well, sure," Benjy said, his body refusing to obey his commands to run and hide. He felt like someone - or someTHING else - controlled him as he opened his front door wide and stepped aside for the tanned man in the suit.
   "Thank you ever so much," the man hissed, "a rising tide lifts all boats you know."
   "That's what the government tells us," Benjy replied.
   "Did you know I have a boat?" the man said. "A yacht, actually. Paid for it with my 2009 bonus. Some people seemed to think a bonus was... unmerited. What with all the unpleasantness last year."
   "Well, I'm sure you deserved it," Benjy said, the words coming from somewhere else.
   The man just laughed.
   Benjy closed the door. Neither he nor his money were heard from again.

Had About Enough

I stayed late at work today.
   Big deal, you say, who doesn't? Well, not me, for one, and not on a Friday, and not for over eighteen months now. When I was 'between assignments' I didn't have a work to go to, and for the past six months (yeesh...) I've been working as a contractor. When I hit 40 hours it's time to skedaddle, because they ain't paying me for 41. But today I stayed late, to fix problems that weren't even mine to begin with. And I got two words for that.
   Bull and shit.
   I got out of IT work - ostensibly - five years ago, when I went to work in HR. Sure, I was doing IT kind of stuff, but I was on the business side, not in IT. And it was good. So good that I kind of forgot why I was eager to get out of IT in the first place. But I remember now.
   Not only did they expect me fix things I had never seen before, they seemed kind of astonished that I didn't relish the chance to do so. This is the part of IT work that I absolutely hate hate hate hate hate with a passion that rivals Ignatz Mouse's hatred for Krazy Kat. Not only am I supposed to be responsible for other people's crap, I have to stay late and work on someone else's schedule for the privilege.
   I'll say it again. Bull and shit.
   See, years ago, back before I realized what a complete fraud corporate work is (in both the literal and figurative sense) I ended up working 50 - 60 hours a week on a project that was ultimately doomed to fail. And I got no thanks and nothing extra for it. I don't mind hard work, especially if it's my own projects, but slaving for some corporate shill for no other reason than to meet an artificial deadline is just foolishness.
   So let me ask you this: if I let it happen to me again am I a victim, or am I a chump? I'm thinking chump, because I know better. It just took a little reminder of what I moved out to California to escape to bring it all back.
   Time to pull the plug on this, stick a fork in me, I'm done.

Rocktober

I can't believe I haven't gotten up on my soap box about this one yet. Not last year, not this year until now. And this is such a big deal to me too. A mission. A calling. My raison d'etre, if you will. I have but one thing to accomplish in life and it is this:
   I want to get everyone calling this month 'Rocktober.'
   Always and forever. I want the calendar makers to change the calendars, I want the dictionary people to bow to public opinion and rename the months. I want elementary school kids to write 'Rocktober' in their awkward little printing, and bring home 'Rocktober' things to their mothers to hang on the refrigerator.
   I don't remember when exactly I first heard 'Rocktober,' but I can guarantee you it was the late 70's or early 80's on 99.5 KISS-FM, the home of rock-n-roll in San Antonio. Along with Rocktober came Rollvember. And then, in a fit of creativity and hero-worship, they came up with Zep-tember in honor of the best rock band in the history of, like, ever. No, not Hootie and the Blowfish, Led Zeppelin.
   For years now, probably since college when I had a lot of free time on my hands, I've been trying to get people to call this month Rocktober. Usually I'm greeted with a polite chuckle and a sad shake of the head, but a few people have eagerly come on board with me.
   And that's all it's gonna take. Just a few people here, a few there. Rome wasn't built in a day, you know, so to get my goal of having everyone agree that this month is called Rocktober is also going to take time. And perseverance. And maybe giving out candy as an incentive.
   Yeah, that's it. I'm going to give out free candy to people who swear they will use the term 'Rocktober' from now on. You don't even have to sign anything, just believe it in your heart and it'll be true. And I'll pass my free candy out on... oh... let's say Rocktober 31st. That sounds like a good day. If you get free candy on or about Rocktober 31st, you know it came from me, and you know that you're now obligated to use the phrase 'Rocktober' until your time is up.
   Deal? Good...

Modern Magic

Time was, back before the Second Industrial Revolution, back before the germ theory of disease, before the secrets of the atom were revealed, before Man had extended his reach to the Moon and beyond, people believed in magic.
   I'm not talking about sleight of hand or sawing a lady in half, none of that noise, I mean for-real, no-shit magic. Voices from the aether, visitations from beyond, spontaneous generation, spirits in trees and mountains, demons in black cats. The world back then wasn't something to be pondered and taken apart and understood in minute detail, the world was a place full of dark things and entities beyond human comprehension, and you had to remember your tiny place in the grand scheme of things or something was gonna get you. People were afraid.
   But not any more. It seems to me that we're entirely too pleased with ourselves lately, smug without due cause. Sure we can split the atom - some of your light bulbs are probably burning with nuclear juice right now - but that doesn't mean we can really control it. We know just enough to put the energy to use, but we can't clean up the mess it causes. But we think we're hot shit because we can get uranium to release a few particles for us.
   Or take bio-engineering. We can stick fresh genes into a plant or animal, been doing it for years. Most of the corn corporate-farmed cows eat is actually genetically engineered, designed to keep corn worms at bay. But we're so proud of ourselves for eradicating pests we haven't stopped to ask why we're feeding corn to grass-eaters like cows in the first place. Or if there are any consequences to doing that.
   And what about what we're doing to the environment? The defining characteristic of Mankind is our ability to adapt our environment to suit us, no other animal builds and plows and constructs. We're pretty special because we have thumbs and tools and we can make things out of other things. But we do it without regard to the consequences not only to ourselves, but to subsequent generations. Bigger, higher, faster does not always mean better in the long run. But we're glad to leave the solution to our grandkids.
   I think modern Man needs a good healthy dose of old-fashioned fear. We need modern magic, a big, black, nasty unknown to keep us honest and frightened. And in our place. I haven't figured out what the frightening thing is yet, or what modern magic should comrpise - there are so many options - but when I do you all better watch out.

Squatchologist

Over the past several months I've been pondering my options, so to speak. Thinking about what I'm going to do with myself, how I'm going to make a decent living doing something I actually want to do, what sort of a mark I'm going to leave on this society when I'm gone. I hope to make an impact with my novels, of course, but there's no reason fiction has to be my only outlet. I can do other things too. But what...? Then, last night, it hit me right between the eyes. The answer. The thing I can do that will both contribute to society AND make my name a household word. I know now the path my life must take.
   I'm going to find Bigfoot.
   That's right, I'm going to get out there in the wilderness - what little there is left - and find the hairy ape-man of North America. But I'm not going to do it like those other crackpots, I'm going to do it right. I figure I'll need lots of scientific equipment, you know, the kind with lots of lights and dials. I'll need a helicopter too, and an iPad for some reason. And new boots. And some sort of flannel shirt because Squatchologists always wear flannel. Just like Canadians.
   How will that make me a household name? I'm not only going to find Bigfoot, and capture him, and bring him back to display in a series of cross-country railroad stops, I'm also going to make him the darling of the salons. And I don't mean hair salons or nail salons - where they really are talking about you* - I mean the intellectual salons. They still have those, don't they? Places where adults can have a calm, rational discussion about the issues of the day? Like Fox News? HA!
   Hoo-boy.... anyway... That's right, I'm going to make Sasquatch into the Mark Twain of the 21st Century. I'm gonna need corporate sponsorship, of course. I figure Nair would be a good first sponsor, seeing as how I'm gonna need to de-fur Sasquatch to make him presentable. And then maybe a Big and Tall Man store, because Sasquatch is gonna need a tuxedo. And a top hat.
   Yeah... sounds like a plan. All I gotta do first is get out there and find him. How hard could that be?


* my friend Andrea went to one nail salon where the ladies speak Chinese. Andrea speaks both Mandarin and Cantonese but she was born here so she speaks English without an accent. And, evidently, she looks a little more Korean than Chinese, so the ladies assumed she couldn't understand what they were saying. They weren't being nice. At. All.

That's An Entrepreneur

I was driving to the fencing studio this afternoon, in the hot rod with the top down. Had the radio going, minding my own business, when I heard someone say something. I turned to my left where a large gray van sat idling. A young boy was looking over at me and I realized he was the one who'd been speaking. I turned down the radio and asked him to repeat himself, thinking he was asking for directions or some such.
   "Would you like to buy some candy, sir?"
   I laughed. There was no way I was going to buy candy from some kid in a van at a stop light. But that doesn't mean I don't admire him for the effort. For a real salesman every encounter is an opportunity for a sale, even if it's some guy driving a convertible you talk to in the middle of traffic. The kid looked like he was in middle school, probably trying to win a sales contest where the grand prize is a go-kart or something else equally cool and ultimately unattainable where you have to sell a million Snickers bars.
   He was young enough that he hadn't quite thought out the actual logistics of the deal. Had I agreed to buy candy, where would we have pulled over? How would we have made the exchange? How much would the candy have been and what would I have gotten for the cash? Despite all that, I still like his go-getter attitude. He's got a long career ahead of him selling something.
   Of course, I'm so un-hip I'm thinking 'candy' meant actual candy. For all I know I could have scored some meth or crack or something. That sure would have made fencing interesting...

What Do You Do?

   Okay, pop quiz, hot shot. What do you do when:

You're in a store and you see a sign in Spanish, and even you can tell it's misspelled? Ignore it or say something?

You're talking to a friend of a friend and you find out he works as a cook at steak house. You also find out he's a vegetarian, so while he might know how to cook meat, he certainly doesn't care to do the job well, but nobody at the restaurant knows his dietary preference. Rat him out or keep the secret?

It's late at night and you're in Los Angeles proper, on Santa Monica between La Brea and Highland. You see a suspicious-looking character skateboarding down the sidewalk, jumping curbs and making a nuisance of himself. You also see him take a huge spill and grab his ankle like he's really hurt. Laugh and drive off or see if he needs help?

You and a few of your co-workers have a secret nickname for another co-worker, and not a flattering one, something like Muffin or Buttlicker or D-Bag. Someone mentions the name in passing in front of that person, who then wants in on the joke and asks who Muffin really is. Tell him the truth or pretend not to know what he's talking about?

While grocery shopping you see an actor you admire, one who you'd really like to speak to and - perhaps - get an autograph from. But she looks like a bag lady in old sweats, hair in a scarf, and battered gardening shoes, and clearly is in a hurry to get in, get what she needs, and get the hell out before anybody recognizes her. Go for the introduction or respect her privacy?

   Each one of these may or may not have happened to me. Can you guess what I might have done?

Copper Tastes Bad

Over the past three days plumbers have replaced the hot and cold water pipes in my building. Aside from the plaster bits on my bathroom floor and the long sheets of plastic lining my carpet, the plumbers left something else.
   Really, really, really gross tasting water.
   Fresh copper pipes make water taste horrible. Awful, like blood when you bite the inside of your mouth. Just nasty, or, as my sister used to say in high school, 'rasty.'*
   I don't know what to do, that's the sink where I brush my teeth. I rinse my mouth out there, and I don't want to go to sleep with coppery-fresh breath. So I'm thinking I need to go get a supply of Perrier and swish with that for a while, until the new copper gets a sheen of mineral slime on the inside and it stops tasting horrible.

You know... there are times I'm really thankful that the most I have to worry about is that my bathroom water tastes bad. I could be living in Somalia or Afghanistan or some other place where the best water is the one with least amount of parasites and a safe home is a distant memory.
   Maybe I'm just gonna drink the damned copper water and count my blessings.


* Really nASTY

Unexpected Ecologist

I was in the convenience store today, buying a Lotto ticket - you can't win if you don't play - behind a homeless guy who was talking to himself as he bought a quart of Miller. I couldn't make heads or tails of his dialogue, he was muttering and not finishing sentences, but I did notice that his clothes were too big. And not like he'd lost a lot of weight, like they were someone else's once upon a time. Which they most likely were. The guy got his quart of Miller in a paper sack and shuffled off to his wheeled basket piled high with soiled treasures picked from others' cast-offs. And a notion suddenly struck me.
   That homeless guy is a grass-roots ecologist.
   Think about it. Almost everything he owns, wears, or consumes is recycled or recyclable. The paper bag wrapped around his beer is probably made from recycled paper, the bottle almost certainly is, his clothes are recycled, and the collection of things in his wheeled basket is recycled.
   He may not know it, but that man is providing the example for the rest of us. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Talk to yourself, forget to bathe, argue with floating dandelion seeds.
   Well, maybe not those last few, but you get the idea.

Healthy, Or Just Lazy?

I was standing in my kitchen just now, pondering my meal options for this evening. I've been trying to eat healthier lately, which means I don't have a whole lot of ready-to-eat stuff in the pantry or refrigerator. And that means if I want to provide my body sustenance I either have to make something or go out and buy something.
   When I say there was nothing ready-to-eat I mean NOTHING. I have: rice(uncooked), two cans of tuna, canned tomatoes, canned beans, spices, frozen turkey, olives, apples, sun-dried tomatoes, onions, turkey gravy mix, couscous, pancake mix, flour, sugar, sweet relish, dill relish, maple syrup, eggs, and frozen lunchmeat.
   Yeah. Figure that one out.
   I thought about it, then dithered in front of the refrigerator, dithered in front of the pantry, thought about going downstairs, looked back into the refrigerator again to see if maybe something had appeared in the past five minutes - nothing had - and then I thought some more. Finally I decided to make some sort of tuna salad thing, even though I don't have any bread. And I was proud of myself.
   Then I got to thinking. Did I decide to make tuna salad because I was trying to be healthy, or because I just didn't want to put on pants, shoes and a jacket, go down the stairs - because the elevator STILL isn't fixed - and drive to get junk food? I want to think I'm eating healthier because it's the right thing to do, not because I can't be bothered to walk down three flights of stairs.
   But, honestly, if I had the gumption I'd be eating Taco Bell right now. Instead I'm shoveling tuna salad into my gullet. It's just easier.
   Take that, Jillian Michaels! You can be lazy and healthy at the same time.

Le Danse Macabre - LA Style

It's raining in LA today. If you live here, or you have lived here, then
'nuff said, you can go on about your business, no need to read further. For the rest of you, however, let me 'splain...

   Rain in Los Angeles means 'drizzle' or 'mist' in other parts of the country.
   Rain in Los Angeles increases your commute time by 50%, at the very least.
   Rain in Los Angeles prompts people to drive too fast on the freeway or not fast enough.
   Rain in Los Angeles leads people carrying umbrellas to believe they're invulnerable, and that it's okay to walk out into traffic.
   Rain in Los Angeles makes otherwise level-headed people lose their minds.

Driving in LA in the rain is this insane ballet of aggression, caution, fear, and outrage that is enough to put wrinkles in a baby's face. If you're on the highway traffic slows for no reason, backing up for miles. When it finally starts going again you expect you're going to see a wreck, or the remains of one, but no - there's nothing. You've been stuck for forty-five minutes because the pavement is moist. If you're on city streets you have to contend with people who either don't believe rain changes the handling characteristics of their car, or people who think rain means their car is in imminent danger of exploding at any second. No middle ground. One moment some jackass rockets past you like the sun is shining and there's no one else on the road, and the next you're crawling like an inchworm behind a guy who believes slow and steady for everyone wins the race.
   And we're all in it together. Rain and traffic and insanity get every single one of us. So you'd think we'd pull together - one for all and all for one - and try to make the best of a clearly bad situation.
   But there's where you'd be wrong. Out there, in the naked city (on the naked highway?), when the heavens have opened up, it's every man for himself. You have no friends, no allies, no family, it's you against everybody else.
   Kind of like at the buffet line in Vegas, come to think of it.

My Identical Twin

When I was younger, I used to think it would have been cool to have an identical twin. Cool for me, I mean, not so much for my parents. One of me was waaaaaay more than enough, I can't imagine what a nightmare two of me would have become. I used to think of all the things that I could do with a brother the exact same age instead of a stinky little sister.
   Make no mistake, I love my sister dearly, and I promised my parents long ago never to mention the crooked carnies we bought her from when she was a baby. Still, you can't exactly practice lighting your farts with your little sister, but it's an obligation when you have a twin brother.
   Anyway... I was reading in Scientific American the other day - the October 2010 issue - that humans have about 20,000 genes, with about 3 billion nucleotide pairs. Not a whole heck of a lot, actually. Most of the human genome is identical from person to person, there are differences only in about 1 in 1000 nucleotide pairs. Which means that from me to you there would only be a maximum difference of about 3 million pairs, and that's only if every single nucleotide sequence was different. Chances are good you and I have far fewer than 3 million different genes. Maybe only on the order of a few hundred.
   So I got to thinking. If the maximum difference between two people was 3 million nucleotide pairs, and if there are 6 billion people on the planet...
   There's an extremely good chance that somewhere out there - right this moment - there is a man who has EXACTLY the same genome as I do. He could be older, he could be younger, but with so few possibilities for differences in genes, the probability is solidly in the positive range. The math is simple enough to do, it's not even calculus.
   Somewhere in the world I have a genetic twin, who is walking around, blissfully unaware that he and I are the same down to our very last strands of DNA.
   And why is this important? Other than being a way for me to get the twin brother I never had, it would be good to find my genetic twin just in case I run up against any problems. You know, accidents, disease, that kind of thing. If I can find this guy then I'll have someone whose organs I can harvest when the going gets tough.
   Of course, maybe that guy has the same idea about me.... We are exactly the same, after all.

The True King Of Love

I'm sure you all get spam e-mail, it's one of the ugly drawbacks to the benefits of the Internet. Less junk mail in your regular mailbox, tons of spam in your e-mail inbox. For some reason I get spam for boner pills every single day. You know, Levitra, Viagra, Cialis, that kind of thing; maybe these spammers know something I don't? And while most spam is filtered properly, these purveyors change their e-mail addresses so often - and misspell 'viagra' on purpose - that my e-mail inbox can't keep up. I mark the messages as junk and delete them.
   Until today. I was deleting the latest boner pill spam when I came across one I just couldn't ignore. Finally, at long last, one of these guys had come up with a clever marketing ploy. The subject line read 'Levitra_MakesYouTheTrueKingOfLove.'
   I didn't open the e-mail, of course, but it's still there in my hotmail account* so I can look at it and laugh. And maybe give a small footnote to a marketing textbook. This horrible spam - for a product I don't need and won't buy, let's be perfectly clear - did what it was supposed to do. It made me stop and notice it. King of Love... Well now, who wouldn't want that? Being the true king of anything is great, but being the True King Of Love? Sign me up.
   It's not just about the volume, any idiot with manual from Barnes and Noble can set up an e-mail server and become a spammer. But the minimal effort they take with their subject lines makes me wonder if they're more interested more in jamming up e-mail inboxes rather than trying to move product. Maybe if they took just a little more effort, like this person did, they might ring a higher percentage of sales.
   True King Of Love... I like the sound of it. It would make a great business card.


*my public e-mail, the one I use when I fill out online forms, precisely so my real e-mail account won't have to deal with all the spam