The Spirit Of LA

Midway through life's journey I found myself in a dark alley, for I had forgotten which parking lot held my vehicle.
   In Hollywood was I, after midnight, when the freaks emerge to do their freakish things and honest citizens flee to their homes. Certain that I had parked down a side street I ventured thence, only to discover by my twistings and turnings that the clear path eluded me. Vile odors of body fluids assailed mine nose as the alley I traversed had clearly been used as toilet, vomitorium, and bordello. Perhaps all at the same time.
   I spied a junkie, strung out as was his wont, bracing himself against the wall, his clothes and demeanor two weeks unwashed. Hard upon that a pimp did swagger forth, ostrich-plumed cap large and emerald, and behind him staggered his soiled dove, no doubt looking to sell her favors for the promise of silver.
   Turning to make my escape I encountered a shadow, the odd form of a person where I had just passed, though I had seen him not before. 'O apparition,' said I, 'if you be friend aid me now, and if you be foe please show mercy.'
   He(?) emerged into the street light, slender to the point of emaciation, clad in patent leather rainment that in other circumstances might have been part of a gimp outfit. Work boots he(?) wore, scuffed and worn, and a Raiders jacket, with a cap turned sideways. His(?) face might have been from the Orient, or perhaps a swarthy inhabitant from below the equator, but had been so extensively altered by surgeons that his(?) origin could not be determined, nor could his gender. He(?) gestured behind himself to a food truck I had not seen before.
   'I have come to guide you through this inferno,' he(?) said, and even his voice sounded genderless, 'though too late I cannot tarry, for I have an audition in the morning.'
   Behind me the pimp approached, smacking his bitch upside the head. Behind them the junkie stood upright, his eyes now full of chemical fury. I turned to the genderless abomination before me, choosing the lesser of two evils.
   'Let us be gone to yon food truck,' said I, hurrying towards him(?). 'Of many questions I have let this be the first: what manner of being are you?'
   'The Spirit of Los Angeles am I,' he(?) said, bowing as if he were on stage. 'It is appointed to me that I be your guide out of this abyss. Mine own reality show shall be my reward.'
   'Let us make haste, then,' said I, leaping into the food truck. 'Does this conveyance vend tacos?'

Who Approved This?

They closed a highway in Los Angeles this morning. Not because of a fire or an earthquake or mudslides or rockfall - all of which have happened before - but to film a commercial.
   Yup, you heard that right. The city agreed to close an entire Eastbound stretch of the 105, the main artery leading out of LAX, to let some production company film a car commercial. Not only inconveniencing tens of thousands of people trying to leave LAX only to find they can't, but also making Saturday a nightmare for the people who live around LAX and have to deal with all the traffic that should have been on the highway.
   Am I the only one who thinks this is astonishingly wrong?
   Living around LA you get used to seeing film trucks, especially in Pasadena, where I live, which is a favorite location shoot since it's only about 10-15 miles from most studios. The first year you live here you get excited when you see the equipment trucks and the catering vans, and you try to spot anybody famous. Which, of course, you can't. Then the bloom wears off the rose and you see the film crews and trucks and tattooed fat guys in shorts for what they are, an interruption in your day that you can't avoid. Seeing the trucks stops being an 'ooh... look' moment and becomes an 'aw... crap' moment. You stop looking for famous people and start looking for the 'no parking' signs so you can tell how long the circus is going to be in town this time.
   Film productions do close streets from time to time, and every six months or so they'll close the Colorado Street bridge on a Sunday for a commercial. But an entire highway? And not only that, but the highway that is the ONLY way to get out of LAX without taking surface streets? Who got paid off to agree to that?
   Oh, wait, it's Los Angeles. EVERYBODY got paid off to agree to that.

Near Nudity In The Afternoon

I have never seen so many shirtless guys in my life as I saw this afternoon. Even counting the very best episodes of COPS. I don't know what the deal was today, but it seemed men who really shouldn't be parading around bare-chested were only too willing to put it all out there, sharing their complete lack of shame or inhibition.
   It started right out of the parking garage on Wilshire with an EXTREMELY bronzed older man roller blading down the sidewalk in front of LACMA. Usually that sort of thing is confined to Venice Beach, maybe he got lost. The flesh-fest continued in Hancock Park, then into Koreatown, and into that part of Silverlake that isn't infested with Yuppies. Even downtown had shirtless guys, who for some reason all seemed to be riding bicycles. My tour got interrupted by the 110 - no shirtless guys on the highway - but then when I got to Pasadena it started all over again with two different guys mowing their lawns. Their own lawns, which just doesn't happen in SoCal. The ultimate spectacle, though, had to be the chubby kid in the Speedo running around outside the aptly-named Vagabond Inn. Today was a smorgasbord of inappropriate displays of man-boobs, love handles, and grody chest hair. And one gnarly Speedo.
   It's not even particularly hot, not even for LA. Must be something in the water.
   But this does raise an interesting question, one that has perplexed philosophers for millennia. To wit: Without the perceiver, does the perceived exist? Would all those fat guys without their shirts on have even been there if I wasn't also there? Had I not been passing by in the truck, would the street have been empty? Or even better, have those fat, shirtless guys always been there, and I just happened to notice them this afternoon? Did the fact that I happened to see one at the beginning of my commute color my perception enough that I became hyper-vigilant, attuned to the slightest glimpse of a hairy nipple? If one does not see the fat shirtless guy, can that fat shirtless guy be said to exist at all?
   That's philosophy right there. You can tell by all the question marks.

Celebrity Sightings

Since I live in Pasadena, which is close enough to Los Angeles that you could spit on it - and I have - people from elsewhere ask which celebrities I've seen. I usually tell them that I could trip over a celebrity and not know who they were, but the truth is I have seen some celebrities over the years. Usually people had to point them out to me.
   Monday, though, I saw a celebrity I did recognize immediately. So I did the thing they hate, which is I took a step back and craned my neck to get a better look and make sure that was who I thought it was. And it was. Victoria Jackson. In Von's. Buying vegetables and bread.
   See, mostly I don't care about celebrities, but I actually like Victoria Jackson's work. So I was thinking that I should go up to her and tell her that, which was odd because I've never felt the urge to do that before. As I was trying to figure out a slick way to make it happen, I realized I was being a creepy stalker and she probably just wanted to go through the self-check aisle and get back to whatever it was she was doing before she realized she needed groceries. Probably making dinner, which even celebrities have to do. And then she was gone.
   Because I know you're going to ask, yes, she was short. And, yes, she looks like she does on TV. Nice skin.

Here are a few other celebrities I've recognized, and where I saw them.

Outside Bungalow News, which is now closed:
   Richard Moll
In the Target electronics department:
   Dr. Drew Pinsky
At the Chateau Marmont
   Demi Moore
   Ashton Kutcher
At the Hollywood and Highland complex:
   Ryan Seacrest
In the CNN building elevator:
   Larry King
At Sabor, a cafe on Colorado Blvd. by the Dr. Drew Target:
   Staci Greason
On Highland, right by his Mozza restaurants
   Mario Batalli

Hey There, Tiny

I drive a truck. It's a 1999 Tahoe, it's big and blue (and tan), it fills a lane, and in California it says 'Texas' with a capital 'T.'
   Here in Texas, though, it's just one more truck out of the crowd, and it's not even a particularly big specimen. A Tahoe is just a Suburban on a shorter frame, after all.
   I was out today, shopping with my family, and we had one of those occasions when you park in the lot and there's no one nearby, and then when you come out of the store you're surrounded by huge trucks, monstrosities with push-bar front bumpers and gigantic tool boxes in the bed, and tires taller than a third-grader. Back when I used to drive a '72 Chevelle this happened all the time, especially in Sherman, TX where I went to school and rednecks outnumbered regular folks twice over. It's just what you deal with when you make your home in the Lone Star State.
   I've never once had that happen to me in California. Not even when I drive my car, because there just aren't enough trucks on the road to make it possible. My truck is always one of the largest in any lot, if not the largest by far, compared to all the hybrids and rice-burners and sensible econo-boxes that seem to multiply like rabbits under the SoCal sun. So it was kind of disconcerting today when my sister's crossover got lost behind F-250's and Silverados and Tundras, some of them diesel and still idling, surrounding her vehicle like so many metallic bison circled to protect the little one in the center.
   I did't like it. To be honest, I've grown used to being the guy with the truck in the land of car-owners. The one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind, so to speak. I didn't appreciate having one of my defining characteristics reduced to mere background clutter.
   God help me, I'm looking forward to going back to SoCal, where my truck is unique, and people pay it the respect it's due.
   Oh, the humanity...

Hot...

You ever see that Twilight Zone episode where the Earth was moving closer to the Sun?
   Yeah, that's LA today.
   Even better, the air conditioning in my apartment doesn't work. Not just my place, the entire building. It's the elevator all over again. My desk is hot. My desk chair is hot. My walls are hot. My carpet is hot. The toilet seat is hot, for God's sake.
   I'm from Texas, and I know hot. I used to make a living doing manual labor, and I was a lifeguard. I've been outside in the worst of a Texas summer and I'm alive today to talk about it. I know how to sweat, is what I'm saying. But I've lived here for eight years and I've grown acclimated. 99 degrees F is hot anywhere, but in LA it seems hotter. Probably all the concrete. And all the sweaty people.
   I was going to try to think of a way to make money off this, but I just don't have the energy. Thunderstorms are brewing out in the IE and the natives are getting restless. Angelenos freak at just the mention of rain, let alone at actual drops. A thunderstorm is enough to spawn heart attacks.
   I have an oven thermometer I use to get an accurate air temperature reading. I haven't had the courage to use it. Right now, at my desk, it's 88 degrees.
   Hot...

At L'Hotel Pretentieux

'Allo, monsieur, I am Thierry. Welcome to L'Hotel Pretentiuex. May I provide you Spanish almonds while Manuel retrieves your bags?
   Actually, all I have is this carry-on.
Oh... but of course. Manuel will just have to pretend to be valuable for another hour. Usually patrons of the Pretentieux have more... extensive baggage needs.
   Not me, Just here for one night.
Certainly, sir. But that will hardly give you time to enjoy our wide array of amenities. Would you like a seat at our tapas bar? The menu is almost certainly affordable for a man with your wardrobe.
   No thanks. Just a room key.
Perhaps a guided tour of our climate-controlled wine cellar? It was once used to hide partisans from socialist forces.
   Really? Partisans? In Los Angeles?
The Pretentieux had an entire Burgundian cellar dismantled boulder by boulder and brought to the United States to be painstakingly rebuilt exactly as it was.
   Nifty. I just want to hit the sack.
Ah, sack. Perhaps you would like a visit to our club room. It was once the pride of the duke of a certain demesne in Italia. The Pretentieux had it...
   ... dismantled plank by plank and reconstructed.
Precisely, sir. Down to the last bit of wainscoting and the buttons on the leather chairs. We serve the finest port in crystal snifters.
   I've been on a plane all day, I just want to lay down.
I believe you mean lie down, sir. Lay is transitive while lie is intransitive.
   Thanks.
We have a wine lounge, which we complement with only the finest artisanal cheeses, or certified organic vegetarian fare if that's your preference.
   I'm a meat-eater.
Of course you are.
   Please. A room.
Certainly. We have a dizzying array of choices in accomodation...
   The cheapest one you have with a TV and an alarm clock!
We frown on raised voices at The Pretentieux, sir.
   Son of a... I came all the way from San Antonio for this...
San Antonio? Really? I'm from Austin.
   I thought your name was Thierry.
It is. My parents are kind of hippies.
   How about that room? A quiet one, away from people.
Right on, man. You wouldn't believe some of the posers we get in this place.

Damn Bicylces

They've gone and done it. The bicycle mafia has ruined - devastated, really - a street I travel regularly, and I've had it with them and their kind. Or with you and your kind if you ride a bicycle on my streets.
   Cordova, a street I use several times a week to get where I need to go, has gained a bike lane between Lake Avenue and Hill Street.
   'But Don,' you say, 'Cordova's a two-lane street, how could they possibly squeeze a bike lane in there?'
   Well, they didn't squeeze it in. They took out a lane to make room, one on each side. Bastards. What had been a nice two-lane road now is one-lane, with a big yellow-lined turn lane in the center that no one's ever going to use, all so the freakin' bicycle weirdos can have their stupid lane, when they had a perfectly good road to begin with.
   Now I'm going to get stuck behind some jackass going 20, with no way to go around them because there's a bicycle lane to my right and a yellow-lined turn lane to my left. All so bike riding douchebags can go to and from PCC on a road no bicyclists take to go to school in the first place.
   So here's what I'm gonna do. And no, it doesn't involve smashing my truck into bicyclists, killing's too good for their kind, and it would gum up my truck. No, I'm going to start walking in the bike lane. See, I figure the lane's got to be safe enough, and even though there's a perfectly good sidewalk I want to assert my pedestrian's rights to use a bike lane for my own purposes, even though I clearly don't belong in it. Eventually I'll get my own pedestrian lane in the road, so the city can make Cordova one-lane. Not in each direction, just one lane.
   Just makes me so mad...

Everything I Need To Know

Everything I need to know about driving I learned from LA drivers.

Veer. Especially when there's no reason for it.
    If the space is too small you should still try to parallel park.
Buses can drag race.
    No matter what, always slow down and gawk at a car on the side of the highway. You never know, there might be something cool.
Don't get out of the way, especially if you're going 10 mph slower than the posted limit.
    Right-hand turns from the far left lane are a fantastic idea.
If you don't know where you are, stop in the middle of the street and look around.
    One-way streets are really just a suggestion.
It's okay to back into traffic from a driveway, other people will watch out for you.
    Fire trucks are like a good blocker in football, let them clear the way and you can follow behind.
Pedestrians are invulnerable, so you don't have to watch out for them at all.
    Your conversation with the person in the next car is more important than going when the light turns green.
After the red there's time for another three cars to turn left. (this is actually the only way to make a left in certain parts of LA)
    When it rains act like it's your first time behind the wheel, that way you'll fit in with everybody else.


COMMUTE - there - 35 minutes      back - 36 minutes
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 20-something days, I'm losing track...

Truly Uncivilized

They don't have breakfast tacos here in SoCal.
   In a place as cosmopolitan as Los Angeles, or as suburban as Orange County, you'd think you could find a decent flour tortilla and a scrambled egg to fill it. But you'd be wrong. They use mostly corn tortillas, and what flour tortillas that do exist are travesties that would get the sellers run out of South Texas on a rail. Possibly tarred and feathered too.
   The lack of flour tortillas is a direct cause of the lack of breakfast tacos, and it's kind of pissing me off. See, in Texas the breakfast taco is a thing of beauty, a small, 6-inch flour tortilla, packed with a combination of scrambled egg and something else. Potatoes, bacon, cheese, maybe all three, maybe barbacoa or carne guisada. Or my personal favorite, eggs and chorizo, which is a Mexican sausage. If you're wondering what goes into chorizo just stop right there; you're better off just enjoying it and not asking too many questions.
   The best breakfast ever invented in the history of mankind is one chorizo and egg taco, one potato, bacon, and egg taco, both with a bit of homemade salsa, a dash of salt and pepper, and a small Fanta Red to wash it all down. It'll start your day off right. And, damn it all to Hell and back, I can't even come close to that here.
   They have breakfast burritos in SoCal, but if I wanted a three-egg omelet wrapped in an edible baby blanket I'd make my own. You'd think that in a place like LA, where you can find - literally - almost anything available anywhere else in the world I'd be able to get that little slice of South Texas heaven that is the breakfast taco. But the blind idiot gods presiding over this cultural wasteland have dictated that I will not find that satisfaction.
   Maybe I should buy a taco truck and start making my own. Bring a little culture to this neglected backwater of a town.


COMMUTE - there - 30 minutes, very light pre-holiday traffic      back - 30 minutes, I left early
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 45 days - halfway there!!

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

Pimp-tastic

There are days I hate LA. And mean LA itself, not the greater LA metro area, which I'm also not all that fond of. I'm talking about LA North of the 10 and South of the Hollywood Hills. The place they keep everything the world thinks LA is. The place where I'm working now. That's the part I hate.
   But some days, you just gotta love it.
   Like today. I left the building for lunch, more accurately I left the building with a co-worker who wanted a sandwich from a particular place and I went along for the ride because I wanted to get away from the office. He got the sandwich, I got a bottle of iced tea, and we turned back towards work.
   And that's when I saw it. A pimpmobile. A for-real, honest-to-Pete pimpmobile complete with fully-attired pimp behind the wheel. It was green for the money with gold trim for the honey, and just waiting at the light with everyone else. Freaky stylin'.
   I have to admit, I was happy the rest of the afternoon after seeing that.
   LA taketh away, but LA giveth too. You just try rolling past a green-and-gold pimpmobile wherever you live. Bet you can't.


COMMUTE - there - 37 minutes      back - 30 minutes to go 10 miles, LA sucks
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 49 days

So... I'm Supposed To Drink That?

A plumber came to the building today. To do exactly what I don't know, but he had to turn off the water to the entire building to do it. No biggie, it usually happens when they work on the shared water lines for the entire building. It's always fun clearing the lines when they turn the water back on, it spits and sputters and the toilets (or terlits, if you're Archie Bunker) pop and bang and rattle. Like a little haunted house. I got that today, and a little more besides.
   The water ran brown. And not a deep, rich, earthy brown, more like a tan-ish dookie brown, ocher and unappetizing.
   The building is old enough that sediment in the lines is unavoidable, but this was above and beyond. And it just ran and ran and ran. I had to flush the terlits a few times to get the water to run clear. This alarmed me, of course, so I went online and took a look at the Pasadena water quality reports. And, yes, that is totally an old man thing to do, I don't need you to remind me of it.
   Not to be alarmist, but the official report for 2008 lists potential contaminants such as microbes, pesticides, organic chemicals, and... drumroll.... radioactive stuff. And I'm supposed to drink this, do laundry with it, cook with it, and make my rubber duckies pretend to be battleships in it.
   I was spoiled growing up, I lived in San Antonio, which has a large, tasty supply of water in a limestone aquifer that filters rainwater so completely they have to do almost nothing to it to make it suitable for consumption. The worst thing I had to worry about was cleaning the bathroom because the water was so hard (all that limestone, you know). But it wasn't radioactive. Or doo-doo brown.
   I already have a water filter pitcher that I use, now I guess I have to figure out how to make that work for every other water line in my apartment.

Ode To The Streets Of LA

O, potholed asphalt 'neath my wheels,
Rough in the best of times when dry
Winds howl and morons teem your way,
How much a week's rains doth destroy.

Water from heaven takes your stones
And erodes your oily binding,
Leaving you crack'd, warp'd, and broken,
Vengeful traps for my truck to trip.

Ev'ry mile a painful adventure,
Now I pick my way with care lest
Mine axle do snap asunder like
A stale churro left long outside.

O, potholed asphalt 'neath my wheels,
The weather knave doth say more rain
Shall fall hence. Could'st a favor
For me do? Stop falling apart.

'Tis a small thing I beg of you,
Fight the dictates of entropy
And crumble not into foul ruin.
Do this and I shall tread lightly.

Pray, but keep thyself in one piece,
Expose not pipes and wires below,
And I will pledge to drive well as
Many have not the fortitude.

O, potholed asphalt 'neath my wheels,
You are my true friend, have I told
You that anon? Just let me get
Where I need to go and not die.

LA Thanksgiving

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

Cutting Off The Tail

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

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

Old Folks Say The Darndest Things

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

Makeup Sponges and Cigarette Butts

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

Where's My Giant Pineapple?

When I moved out to Pasadena a few years ago, I expected several things. Warmer winters, for one, which I got. A few celebrity sightings, which I got. An earthquake or two, which I got. And I expected to see lots of buildings in the shape of food. This one I did not get, and I'm still kind of miffed.
   When you think about Los Angeles you think about buildings shaped like food. You also think about rampant police corruption, plastic surgery, and Ponch from CHiPs, but mostly you think of gargantuan food-shaped buildings. At least I did. But Los Angeles has lost its only cultural roots, the food-shaped buildings aren't here any more. They're all gone, the Brown Derby, Tail O' The Pup, that one shaped like a hamburger. The only one left is Randy's Donuts, and that's waaaay down by LAX, not a drive I'm willing to make, even for doughnuts.
   Without a big hat, or a huge milkshake, or a colossal apple every few blocks or so, Los Angeles lounges in the California sun like what it is, mile after mile of urban blight. Just like the allure of 'Hollywood' disguises the terrible truth of the entertainment business, LA needs the architectural distraction provided by a hot-dog-shaped building to keep people from noticing how desperately ugly the rest of the city actually is.
   And even though I'm picking on LA, most cities in the US are ugly too. Especially with the highway-adjacent sameness you find everywhere, Wal-Mart and Target and TGIFridays with Borders and Home Depot and vacant shells of Circuit City. Our highways are sad, homely conduits leading us to buy more things at an outlet mall just like the one thirty miles away. It's depressing. But we can fix it.
   We should all tell President Obama that even though he's working hard on other stuff, he needs to put forward the Food-Shaped Building Act of 2009. We need more buildings shaped like something else, and it's time we started demanding them.

California Moment

This friend of mine wanted to go to a job fair down in Long Beach. She’s been unemployed for a while, longer than I have, and she needs a paying gig. We talked about it Monday, and I told her I’d tag along, more for something to do during the day than to apply for a job. She said we’d leave about 10 AM, get to Long Beach around 11, go to the job fair, then go have lunch and see Long Beach. Cool by me, it’ll get me out of the house.
   So the next morning I get ready. Showered, shaved, bowels voided, the whole nine yards. Remember, we’re supposed to leave at 10 AM, she’s going to pick me up. I get an e-mail at 9:30 AM: ‘not too impressed with the list of companies... shall pass’
   That’s right - she flaked BY E-MAIL!! Half an hour before she was supposed to pick me up. Only in LA.