Things I Wish Were True

Remember when you were a kid and everything was possible? You made Superman's cape out of a blanket tied around your neck and you were convinced that if you jumped off the roof just right you could fly. Or when you got a new pair of sneakers you knew you could run twice as fast as the day before. And it was true. The world was nothing but possibilities and all you had to do was want something bad enough to make it happen.
   As an adult - purportedly - I forget how it was back when I was shorter and smaller. I forget that imagination and perseverance make everything happen. Even impossible things become only highly improbable when you look at them the right way. So here's a list of things I wish were true, because I believe some day they all will be.

Every New Yorker takes a moment each day to look up and realize how cool it is to be living where they do.

LA drivers either speed up when they're supposed to or slow the hell down when it's appropriate, not the other way around.

For one year everyone gets exactly what they want for their birthday.

I make my living as a novel writer.

Chocolate cake is used as currency. Delicious, edible currency.

The pain of losing a parent goes away.

People and whales have a conversation about everything that's been going on for the past few hundred years and they forgive us.

Spats come back in style, at least for billionaires wearing waistcoats.

People stop and think for ten seconds about the consequences of what they're about to do.

The lazy and sly stop preying on the gullible and trusting.

Love is easy.

I figure out what that light switch in the other bedroom actually does.

People stop and think for ten seconds about the consequences of what they're about to say.

Those without get what they need, those with too much give what extra they have freely.

Someone figures out a limerick that rhymes 'Nantucket' with something that isn't dirty.



That's it for now. I'm sure I'll think of more later.

COMMUTE - there - 40 minutes      back - 37 minutes
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 47 days

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.

Tales From My Past - That's Not Stolen, Is It?

There's something about me - the way I look, maybe the way I carry myself, maybe the way dress - that attracts crazy people, homeless people, people with some sort of agenda, and desperate people of all sorts. Now, if you add all those things together, a crazy, possibly homeless desperate person with an agenda, then you'll get something special.
   You'll get someone trying to sell stolen goods.
   It doesn't happen to me so much any more - with one recent exception - but for a while there when I was younger, I had the opportunity to buy something hot about once a month. Here are a few I can remember:

A guy trying to sell me a pickup truck bed full of auto mechanic tools while I was mowing the grass at my grandfather's rent houses. No lie. Drove right up while I was emptying the clippings and told me they would make a great Father's Day present. When I asked if they were stolen he laughed nervously and sped off. I was sixteen.

A guy trying to sell me a clarinet when I was at the Greyhound station waiting for the bus from Austin to San Antonio. He kept cajoling me, telling me he could tell I had money, even though I was taking an $8 bus ride. I finally turned my pockets inside out, showed him I had $1 on me, and said if he'd take a dollar for it, I'd love the clarinet. I was eighteen.

A guy in Sherman, TX trying to sell me a ditch witch, you know, one of those cool, rentable power tools that you can use to dig a trench? I was at the Wal-Mart buying shampoo and Pringles (really), and as I was leaving he drove up with the ditch witch on a little trailer. Said I could have it for $100, and that I'd make my money back with a good weekend's work. I told him if he could figure out a way to sneak it into my dorm room I could find a hundred bucks. I was twenty.

Two guys in Rome tried to sell me tickets to something. Since I barely spoke Italian and I read it even worse I had no idea what they were tickets for. But since they were trying to sell them to me around midnight as I was taking pictures of St. Peter's, I'm pretty sure they were stolen. I was twenty-seven.

A woman in O'Fallon, IL - if you've never been, don't bother - tried to sell me a box of cigarettes. Not a carton, a box full of cartons, probably a gross of cigarette packs. Camels. She started at $300 and worked her way down to $75 as I repeated over and over that I didn't smoke. When I asked her if they were stolen she told me she got them from an Indian reservation, which didn't really answer my question. I never did check to see if there was a reservation around there. I was twenty-nine.

A scary-looking little Japanese guy in Okinawa tried to sell me stereo equipment. He spoke English very well, and I could see the tattoos peeking out from under his long-sleeved shirt. I was extremely polite to him as I refused his business, explaining that Japanese electronics wouldn't work when plugged into American power outlets. I ran back to Kadena AFB and locked my billet door. I was thirty-one.

What I Remember About... My First Day of School

I got in trouble. Yeah, big surprise there, I know. I was doing something with cardboard and scissors, I recall, and whatever I was doing wasn't the way the teacher wanted it done. Probably I was making a mess or something because I was used to being alone. But the teacher made a point of stopping class and pointing out to me and everyone else what I was doing wrong, making an example of five-year-old me. The bitch.
   Much more importantly, however, I remember the day BEFORE my first day of school. I remember it specifically because I was eating a baloney sandwich and watching reruns of the Batman TV show. It always ended with a cliffhanger, and in this one Batman and Robin were shackled to a wall with huge nails poking out around them. At the other end of a long hallway the Joker and Riddler (I think) had balloons filled with poison gas which a big fan was slowly blowing towards the Dynamic Duo. It was certain death, the balloons would hit the nails and Batman and Robin would inhale the poison gas. How were they going to get out of this one?
   I never did find out. I was whisked off to school the next day. Bastards.

Lebowski Fest - Part 2

Let's back up a moment, and pretend that the show hasn't started yet, that I'm still standing at the corner of Wilshire and Western waiting for my friend. What might that street scene look like?
   There would probably be an awful lot of traffic, cars going every which way. And there were. But there might also be a surprising amount of foot traffic. Not only is this because the Los Angeles Metro 'Purple Line' terminates at that intersection (used to be part of the Red Line if you've never heard of the Purple Line) and because of the many LA Metro bus stops, but it's also because people in that part of LA tend to be pedestrians, surprisingly enough. So what might one have seen on a Thursday afternoon, anything of note?
   How about two Mormon guys who looked about 14 years old, complete in their short-sleeved white shirts, black pants, carrying their bicycle helmets, and looking as out of place as... well, as Mormon missionaries at Wilshire and Western. Even better, how about the heavily tattooed pregnant woman who crossed the street with them, chatting on her phone? Or the Mexican ice cream vendor with his homemade cart and barely-audible tinkling bell?
   It's a pageant of humanity, I tell you.
   To complete the Lebowski Fest story, after the killer set by the little 9-year-old Japanese guitar god (he did, like six or seven songs, didn't miss a note as far as I could tell... I'm still flabbergasted), and a taped fake-satellite appearance by Jeff Bridges, they finally - FINALLY - started the movie. As I mentioned before, there were surprisingly few people dressed in costume. But there were many, many people who could quote the movie line for line. And they did. And quite a few of them snuck out from time to time to indulge in a little herbage, if you know what I mean. Smelled like the art teachers' lounge in high school. Which is why they have the time to spend on a Thursday night going to Lebowski Fest. It was, actually, very fun to have people recite the best lines with the film.
   On the way out, the panoply of humanity continued. What might you have seen? Glad you asked. You might have seen a very enterprising young immigrant woman who didn't speak a lot of English but knew enough to set up her hot dog stand on the sidewalk right outside the theater exit. Stoned moviegoers can eat a lot of hot dogs, I saw it with my own eyes. You might also have seen another entrepreneur who dressed in a tattered hospital gown and held a pitifully hand-printed sign advising that 'they dropped me off from the syke ward' (yes, he misspelled 'psych' ward). This is actually a problem in LA, but about three miles East, in Skid Row downtown, so the guy would have been better off selling hot dogs. Or, perhaps, putting on a bright blue sombrero and playing the trumpet. Badly. As the guy hanging out by the parking garage did.
   Lebowski Fest hasn't been in LA for three years, and this was very fun. Aside from the attendees mostly being men 'of a certain age' - as old as I am, and who had probably seen the movie in theaters originally - it was a great time. I'd do it again, as long as that little Japanese kid was going to play again.

Lebowski Fest - Part 1

I went to the LA Lebowski Fest last night, and it was AWESOME! Much better than I thought it would be. But there's more to the tale...
   First, as with any LA story, is the trip there. The Lebowski Fest was held at the Wiltern Theater, which is at the corner of Wilshire and Western (duh), deep in the heart of Koreatown. Unless you live or work within a few miles of it, there's no easy way to get to this part of LA from any other part. Especially at 5:30 PM. So I knew what I was getting into. At least I thought I did.
   It took 45 minutes to go fourteen miles or so, but that's pretty much par for the course in LA, not unusual. However, as I traveled down Western, I saw some examples of the worst driving LA has to offer, and that's saying something. People driving the wrong way down the street just to make a left turn into the parking lot for a pizza place (must be good pie), buses plowing through red lights at top speed, one gentleman walking down the center stripe - he wasn't begging for money, just trying to get somewhere with his rolling luggage and thought the double-yellow was a good place to do that. An amazing display of impatience, incompetence, and rudeness, even for LA.
   After I got the tickets, my friend and I had Korean BBQ - naturally - a few blocks down Wilshire. After the security purse-screening we got in the theater and she got a White Russian (see the movie if you don't get it); it's a real theater, not a movie theater, they serve booze. We expected more people dressed as the Dude or Walter or Jesus than we saw.
   There were a few introductions of bit players, people from the movie who had 5 lines or less, and the inspiration for the Dude, Jeff Dowd, who was, honestly, kind of incoherent.
   But then, ah... but then... they introduced 9-year-old Yuto Miazawa. He's a little kid from Japan, who totally, completely shreds a rock guitar. Unbelieveable. He ROCKS!!! His set consisted of great guitar-melting old-school American rock like 'Highway Star' by Deep Purple, 'Crazy Train' by Ozzy, 'National Anthem' by Jimi Hendrix (the kid did it right), and even 'Freebird' by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Funny/tragic note: one of the LA 20-somethings actually leaned over and asked me - during the opening riffs - 'is this Freebird?' Douchebag. The best part of it all was listening to this amazing guitar virtuosity, backed by a 9-year-old Japanese kid's voice. Like listening to Pikachu rock out with his... you know what I'm saying. You have to listen to this kid play.
   More about the screening and after the show in another post.