You Know What This Town Needs?

I went on a long walk today instead of going to the gym. Where they want to take my fingerprints. And I had a few thoughts about how to improve the city.

   Moving sidewalks. I'm walking for my health, but I do get a little tired now and then. If we had Jetsons-style moving sidewalks I could take a breather when I needed and still make progress to my destination.

   Refreshments. Just like they have for marathon runners, only good. Not cups of warm water, mugs of ice cold beer. And bowls of pretzels. Maybe some Cheeze-Its if that's in the budget.

   A ban on creepy people. No hard-bitten strung-out broads driving beat up panel vans, no extra-hefty gentlemen carrying tiny little dogs, no Eurotrash holding cigarettes the wrong way and giggling in their mother tongue, all those people are up to no good and they should be prohibited. Possibly flogged.

   Conversely, we need more crazy conspiracy people. The kind who will hold an earnest conversation with you about just why the aliens are coming for Jesus and give you a pamphlet to prove their point. But we need to put them all in one place, maybe right by the pawn shop. They can fight it out in a cage match to see whose nonsense wins.

   More big, goofy dogs. The kind who knock things over with their tails and don't realize it. We should be able to pet at least one big friendly dog every block.

   Street food. I noticed a definite lack of hot dogs, churros, and pretzels on every corner. Sure, the local restaurants would object, but if you're buying a hot dog from a cart you weren't going into Cheesecake Factory in the first place.

   Street performers. They could move from block to block every half hour, so they wouldn't totally block foot traffic or screw up any single business for too long. Jugglers and fire eaters draw crowds.

See? Seven great ideas just from an hour of wandering around. If the Pasadena City Council would implement just a few of these suggestions Old Town would be a much more fun place to be. They should hire me as their Idea Man. I could totally do that.

Dumpster Diving Don

I had to get into the garbage bin in my apartment complex today.
   This was not a pleasure cruise, I had serious business. Vital business. The kind of crucial business that would make me jump into a dumpster filled with other people's leavings.
   I went down into the garage and emulated what I'd witnessed the garbage man do before. You see, you have to really put your back into it to move those things around, even though they're on wheels. They're heavy enough by themselves, but when you put a couple hundred pounds of...
   I'm sorry? What's that? What was so important that I had to crawl into the dumpster in the first place? Yeah, um... that's... uh... classified. Sure. Classified.
   So once I got the dumpster out of the little tiny space they keep it in, I pulled myself into it, right over the side like I'd been doing it all my life. Even landed on my feet. I made sure I was wearing nothing new, nothing that I wouldn't mind just leaving there in the dumpster if I needed to.
   Okay, you, with the hand raised, looks like you have something on your mind. What do you mean I didn't answer the question? Of course I did. I was in the dumpster on vital, classified business. Meaning, Mr. Smarty-Pants, that if told you what I was doing in there I would be in violation of all sorts of national security stuff. Secret clearance, all that.
   Excuse me? Yes, well... okay, you're right, my clearance did expire something like five years ago, but... I'm still bound by... there are some things that civilians... Okay. Fine.
   I was in the dumpster retrieving Lotto tickets for tonight that I'd accidentally thrown out this morning.
   There. Are you happy?
   What's so funny? Huh? Bet you'll all feel like chumps when I win a million bucks tonight. That'll make dealing with the garbage juice worth it.

A Few Suggestions

I was carrying groceries in the other day, climbing the stairs because the elevator STILL isn't fixed yet, and I realized that two hands is sometimes not enough to get the job done. I thought it would be pretty useful to have either another set of arms - four total - or a prehensile tail. I couldn't decide between the two, because two more arms would be really handy in a fight, but with a prehensile tail I could hang from things like a monkey. Or a possum, whatever.
   That got me thinking about what I would do to improve the function of the human body. It's great the way it is, but, really, it could stand an upgrade.

Another opposable thumb on each hand. This would make sure you didn't drop a hammer onto your toe, for instance, and would make for some really interesting musical instruments.

Removable skin. I know, it sloughs off and renews itself now, but every so often don't you just want to tear it off and start over again?

Directional ears, like a cat's. When commercials on the TV are too loud and you can't find the remote, you could just flip your ears back and reduce the volume.

Elbows that could bend the other way. Right now our elbows are limited to less than 180 degrees of movement. Think of the torque you could get on a baseball if your elbows bent down a few more degrees.

Eyes that can see in the dark. Think about it, no more stumbling over shoes and clothes on your way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. You'd need another eyelid or something to make it dark enough to sleep.

Half your brain turns off at a time. Like dolphins, who let half their brains sleep while the other half keeps on going. Think of what you could get done if you were mostly awake all the time. Of course this would be bad for the mattress companies.

Puppet Veracity

I don't think I'm alone when I say that ventriloquist's dummies kind of creep me out. Unless you're a ventriloquist yourself, I think it's a safe bet that almost everybody gets a little shiver when those lifeless doll's eyes turn your way.
   Yet I am completely entranced by puppets. If I find the puppet section in a toy store, watch out, I'm trying on every one that will fit on my meaty mitts. Especially if it's a dinosaur. Unlike ventriloquist's dummies - which really will murder you in your sleep - puppets are friendly and plush and adorable. And Craig Ferguson likes them too, so that's an endorsement right there.
   Puppets attract people, when you see someone with a puppet on their hand you want to go towards them; when you see someone with a ventriloquist's dummy you want to get as far away as possible. And when you have a puppet on your hand, you can get away with saying things you never could otherwise. 'You could stand to lose a few pounds, honey.' I didn't say it, the puppet did. 'Boy, this meatloaf is so dry it could choke a corpse.' Now, Mr. Dino, don't get sassy.
   I think everybody should get a puppet alter-ego, that way you could say everything you're really thinking and yet claim the notions came from somewhere else.
   To the scrawny white guy in Best Buy: 'Okay, Brandon or Cody or Jordan or whatever your name is, you get paid to know about the features of this TV, not to play Rock Band all day.'
   To your boss: 'Yes, I do mind, and no, I'm not working late. Suck it.'
   To the guy at the car wash: 'I know you're new to this country, but the car is supposed to come out cleaner than it went in.'
   To the Post Office clerk: 'Hey bitch, don't walk away from the window when I'm next in line.'

See? It'll be like one great big therapy session, all the time. What could go wrong?

Missing 'The Dungeon'

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

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

A Very Special Posting

You know what I miss? 'Very Special' episodes of TV shows. Time was the TV networks actually made the effort to appear to be serving the public interest, at least a little bit. Back in the day ABC actually had the After School Special, which aired after school - duh - and always seemed to star Christy MacNichol for some reason. The stories explored topics like divorce, or substance abuse, or teen pregnancy. I was a little young to watch them, and I also didn't care. My sister recently gave me a boxed set of the shows on DVD, and they came in a miniature Trapper Keeper. Sweet!
   Then we got a few 'very special' episodes of shows like Diff'rent Strokes or Blossom or Punky Brewster. And it seemed like every episode of Moesha was 'very special.'
   And now... nothing.
   Maybe I'm not watching the proper channels, but I haven't seen or heard of a 'very special' anything in quite a while. As far as I can tell this means either a) kids have wised up in the past twenty years, or b) the TV networks stopped caring enough even to pretend to be socially relevant.
   I'm guessing it's b).