Building A Mystery...

There's a question I've been pondering for years now - YEARS - and I still don't have an answer. I'm a fairly smart guy, so this lack of a solution has me troubled; is it something I'm just not seeing, or is there some veil the truth is hidden behind. I don't know, and the longer this goes on the more I think there are some things man was just not meant to know. What's the question? Glad you asked.
   How does Radio Shack stay in business?
   Seriously, have you been in a Radio Shack recently? Or even in the last ten years, because they haven't changed at all. They stock store-brand RC cars, terrible off-brand cell phones, grossly overpriced TV and stereo cables, batteries and... that's about it. Every time I've had to buy something at a Radio Shack* there's been one guy working and nobody else in the store. I felt I was interrupting his day, or perhaps a pending drug deal, with my petty commerce. Like going into that suspect hamburger joint, you know the one, that never seems to be open except late at night or early in the morning, and then you find out from a neighbor that Armenians own the place and are using it to launder money from whatever fraud they're perpetrating.
   Radio Shack bothers me and yet intrigues me at the same time. Bothers me because I strongly suspect there's something crooked going on, either at the stores or at the corporate level or both. If you can't reconcile their reported profits with the fact that the stores are mostly empty all day long, then somebody somewhere is fudging the numbers or completely making them up. Intrigues me because, on the off chance they're not totally lying then they have a magic business model, something other corporations would do well to copy.
   But I'm putting my money on the lie. You just can't sell enough batteries and cables to keep a store like that afloat.

Now... what about the Sunglasses Hut? They're always devoid of customers, so the fact that they're still in business seems kind of shady. HA! Get it? Sunglasses... shady... hooo boy... that's comedy right there.


* cell phone charger, cell phone battery, and cable TV adapter. And, with the cell phone battery, I bought a gorilla-shaped flashlight. Really.

An Argument Like Music

So I'm driving to work today... yeah, sounds weird to me too...and I'd just made it through Koreatown with my windows down because it was a nice, cool morning. I heard what I thought was someone's car stereo, blaring some terrible rap.
   But I was oh so wrong.
   A white car pulled alongside me - between Crenshaw and Rossmore if you're familiar with the area - which was the source of the music. Except it wasn't music, it was an EXTREMELY angry woman berating the man in the passenger seat.
   As traffic moved along it was like listening to the ocean waves, I would pull ahead and the argument would fade. We'd reach a stop light (lots of those) and the argument would grow louder as the car pulled alongside me. The light would change and the argument would lull into the background again. Over and over and over.
   I expected at some point the woman would stop yelling, or at least take a breath, but she just kept going. I tried to hear the actual words she was saying, but the only thing I could tell was the man - husband, boyfriend, son, brother? I don't know - had been late for something. Perhaps the first in his long line of infractions that earned him the most serious tongue-lashing I've witnessed in a long time.
   At least it kept my morning commute entertaining. I'm still pissed off that I have a commute, but that's nothing I can fix for now.

-- Oh, and I saw a guy smoking a pipe today too. That's odd because the last person I knew who smoked a pipe was my father and he quit smoking back when I was a freshman in college. You just don't see that any more. And, yes, the guy smoking the pipe was old.


COMMUTE: there - 35 minutes back - 40 minutes
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 85 days

Am I Being Punk'd?

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

Sinatra and Shatner

During my time 'between assignments' I have a lot of time to think. I try to use this time wisely, pondering the larger questions of our existence, making the effort to tease the secrets of the universe out of our daily struggles. I made just such a breakthrough last night, when I realized that, for years now, William Shatner has been doing a Frank Sinatra impression.
   As I've written about previously, I recently rediscovered classic Star Trek, the one with the red, yellow, and blue velour shirts, the one with the hippy 60's vibe. The one that became a star vehicle for William Shatner. I noticed that on the show he wasn't quite Shatner, though. That is, he wasn't nearly the hammy parody of himself that he generally plays now. Which I thought was interesting but then didn't think any more of.
   Fast forward to last night, when I happened upon a PBS special featuring Frank Sinatra. The special was filmed in Carnegie Hall in 1980 (jeez, that's 30 years ago) and had never been seen before. As I watched Sinatra go through his Reprise hits, entertaining a concert hall full of jaded New Yorkers I finally saw it. Shatner's gestures are Sinatra's. His phrasing is Sinatra's. His knowing smirk is Sinatra's. Shatner has spent the last half of his acting career imitating Frank Sinatra. And getting away with it.
   During one of the PBS breaks to beg for money - which they do constantly now - a biographer noted that with his singing Sinatra intended to imitate Tommy Dorsey's trombone playing - lots of sustain, fluid, semi-classical legato of phrasing, no break between two lines of the lyric. So that means Shatner is also imitating a trombone. Which explains a lot.
   I'm calling you out, Shatner. I know your secret and I've just spilled the beans. Now, in the twilight of your years, you can go back to being a real actor. The ball is in your court.

One last thing: 'Send in the Clowns' sung by Sinatra isn't schmaltzy and horrible, it's sad and poignant. It makes sense.

I'm With The Band

I've been hitting the job boards the last few weeks, trying to find a new gig. Not that I'm all that enthusiastic about another corporate job, but I do need somewhere to sit from 9 to 5 Monday through Friday. But as I was filling out yet another online profile for a job no one is ever going to call me for, a solution to my dilemma hit me like a bolt from the blue.
   I'll start a boy band.
   And I don't mean I'll be the Svengali-like behind the scenes maestro, like that creepy tax evader guy from the 90's. No, I'll be out in front, singing the songs and dancing the dances. The fact that I can't sing is in no way a hindrance to my plans. I'll be just one of five out-of-work old dudes in this new boy band. But which archetype should I follow?
   The Cute One - you might think he's gay, but he gets more ladies than all the others combined.
   The Shy One - his shyness is less a function of his own personality and more a function of the others' overbearing 'look-at-me-now' personalities.
   The Funny One - funny is such a relative term. He's funny in comparison to the other four, and in comparison to, say, bubonic plague.
   The Dangerous One - he's dangerous in a non-threatening way. Mostly this is expressed with tattoos (real or temporary), pierced ears, and greasy hair.
   The Smart One - he's smart because he knows what a book is, and he's pretty certain what one does, or at least what other have told him a book does.

I think I want to be the dangerous one, but I'm probably more suited to being the shy one.
   Now I just need a name for the group, and the good ones are already taken: Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Air Supply...

Crazy Guy Radio

The other day I saw a guy talking to himself out on Colorado Blvd. Usually I might think he was part of the Bluetooth generation and was just some oblivious douchebag talking loudly on the phone, but this guy had no phone or earpiece and he wore dirty, torn clothes, needed a haircut and some dental work, and was talking into his only possession, an empty Snapple bottle. He was one of those crazy guys who carry on a conversation alone.
   I walked a few blocks further down Colorado where I saw a different guy talking to himself. He wasn't quite so obviously needy as the first guy, a little cleaner, a little less obviously insane. But as I stood by him waiting for the light to change, I couldn't help but notice he also didn't have a cell phone or earpiece, and he had his left arm wrapped over his head to press fingers on his right ear. Another crazy guy, carrying on a conversation alone. I walked on, the day a little bit sadder.
   Then it me. There has to be Crazy Guy Radio, a way that obviously deranged people use to communicate with each other. The first guy must have been talking to the second guy, blocks away, even though neither of them had a telephone. So even though it looked like each was crazy, talking to someone who wasn't there, they actually were carrying on a legit conversation.
   Maybe this is the case with every crazy person on the corner who talks to himself: he's really talking to someone else, but we can only hear one half of the conversation. And the reason they wear tin foil hats is to improve reception on the Crazy Guy Radio Network. It's obviously the only explanation.
   Someone should organize crazy people who talk to themselves, so that during an emergency, when the phone lines go out, we can stay in communication. Of course, there's no guarantee any of it's going to make sense...