I Thought Halloween Was Over

I went to deposit my unemployment check yesterday, which you have to do the old-fashioned way by going into the bank. No direct deposit with the EDD.
   This is a trip I make on foot, another excuse to get out and see my neighborhood, enjoy the semi-clean SoCal air and refamiliarize myself with what sunlight is. Usually it's a pleasant half hour. Usually.
   So as I was walking back yesterday, down Green St., I heard crows squawking overhead. Now, for my Texas friends familiar with grackles, crows are not them. Grackles are small, kind of brown-black birds that generally speaking behave themselves and know their place in the man-bird hierarchy. Crows are big, jet black, and think they're better than you. They lumber along the sidewalk, only grudgingly getting out of the way at the last minute.
   They're also loud. They were overhead in these berry-dropping trees that line Green St., about three or four of them, having a regular conversation amongst themselves. So far nothing out of the ordinary.
   I made it to the next block, and the crows were still loud as ever. I couldn't see them up in the trees but I could absolutely hear them. Were they following me?
   I reached the next block, no more berry-dropping trees, and I saw the crows at last. Four of them, two Heckles and two Jeckles, squawking at each other, and probably at me. But I thought they couldn't possibly be following me. What do I have that crows could want?
   But they were following me. I turned down Oak Knoll, and two of them plopped on the ground in front of me. They ambled along, talking to their buddies in the trees as I got more and more creeped out.
   When I got to the Lutheran Church they disappeared. And I thought I was home free. But when I rounded the corner, they were back, moving from tree to tree and making enough noise to raise the dead. I imagine. I walked quicker, trying to make it home before whatever the crows were planning came about.

Was I reading too much into it? Possibly. Was I being a bit of a sissy? Perhaps. Was I giving crows too much credit? Not at all. Let a bunch of cawing crows follow you for four blocks, disappearing only when you pass a church, and see how crazy you get. Creepy.

Worthless And Weak

I've been 'between assignments' for a while now, five months, and while I am getting some good work done - fourth draft of one novel, outline for another - I am developing some bad habits.
   I make time for 'The Price Is Right.' Daytime TV is indeed a vast wasteland, vaster than prime time for sure, yet if I'm in my apartment at 10 AM on a weekday I'm watching Drew Carey give away cars and vacations. Call it a habit decades in the making, I used to watch Bob Barker during summer vacation. It's my grandmother's fault.
   I drink waaaay more soda than I should. It's a habit I won't break for some reason. It really is just as simple as not buying it any more, but just as some people smoke when they drink, when I buy Lotto tickets in the convenience store I also get a soda. I'm a prisoner of my addiction, I need a government grant to get the aspartame monkey off my back.
   I go to the same online job boards day after day. This far into unemployment, if these job boards haven't landed me a paying gig by now they're probably not going to. And yet I go back again and again, thinking things will be different this time.
   YouTube. Farting dinosaurs. 'Nuff said.
   I don't shave every day, or even regularly. I'm one of those guys with perpetual five o'clock shadow. You know the kind, you see them in a store and you wonder what kind of job they have that they don't need to shave. Inside tip: they probably don't have a job.
   Mid-day grocery store visits. This far into my vagrancy, I know that most grocery stores are finished stocking by about 9:30 AM, and most old people don't get there until about 11 AM. So I swoop in during the sweet spot between stockers and seniors, when the aisles are blissfully free of obstructions.
   I play Mafia Wars on Facebook far, far, far too much. It's not even a particularly good game, but it's just good enough to keep me coming back.
   Glee. I can't help it, I like the show, and I have this odd fascination with Sue Sylvester. It's nothing I want to explore further, not in a public forum.

I really need a job.

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.

Loud-Talking Stan

I was at a coffee shop the other day, Wednesday, meeting a few of my friends who are also 'between assignments' and have time during the day to go to places like coffee shops in Pasadena. The place is cozy - what indie coffee joint isn't - and they don't mind if a few deadbeats buy coffee, iced tea, or a root beer and sit down to shoot the breeze for a few hours in the middle of the day.
   The place was practically empty, and we were sitting in a corner all alone, when he walked in... Loud-Talking Stan.
   I didn't know anything was wrong, but my friend facing the door instantly tensed up.
   "What's wrong?" I asked, turning around to see a heavy, scraggly-bearded guy eyeing the pastries in the display case as he hefted his laptop in one hand. Not really unusual for a coffee shop, but my friend, who was a regular here, shook his head.
   "Maybe he'll sit outside..." my friend mumbled.
   But Loud-Talking Stan did not sit outside. He also did not sit in any of the other chairs scattered across the room. No, he sat directly behind us.
   Loud-Talking Stan liked to IM his friends. He also liked to say what he was typing out loud. Really loud. He mashed his fingers onto the keyboard as if he were trying to drive the keys into the table beneath, sometimes talking about himself in the third person. That's how I know his name was Stan. My friend whispered it to me as well.
   Loud-Talking Stan was having a lively, if one-sided, discussion with his friends on the opposite side of the free wi-fi connection about the comic books coming out that day. I know Wednesday is new comic day, has been for decades now, but for Stan the day seemed filled with promise, as if the sun were just coming up at 3 PM. I'm sure he thought he was mumbling, or even whispering, but his talk of Batman, Wolverine, and the Avengers drowned out our conversation. The noise was bothering my friends, so we moved outside.
   This kind of thing happens to me all the time, but I forget that it doesn't happen to other people. I seem to attract the homeless, crazy, inconsiderate, or desperate, they all want to be around me for some reason. And when I say 'around me' I don't mean 'in my vicinity,' no, I mean right next to me, as if we were riding a crowded subway together. So I take all the blame for Loud-Talking Stan and his comic book eagerness interrupting our do-nothing afternoon.
   When I went to get my own stash of comics later that evening, I have to admit, I paused by the newest issue of Wolverine. I thought about Stan's loud, earnest recommendation and then I moved on.

Industry For The New Milennium

After the financial fiascos of the past year or two, it should be clear to everyone that 'finance' should be a means to an end, and not an entire industry to itself. And any economy based solely on financial institutions is doomed to failure when those institutions fail - just ask Iceland or Charlotte, NC. Our economy shouldn't be based on imaginary dollars moved from one place to another, we need to get back to making stuff, our economy needs to be the sum total of goods moved and services provided.
   "But Don," you say, "the auto industry has failed just like the steel industry did. And the time for railroads was two centuries ago. What could the United States possibly make that the rest of the world wants to buy?" Well, thanks for asking, I have a few suggestions.

Garbage-based Deodorant. Americans generate a lot of garbage, and much of the rest of the world smells bad (pretentious Eurotrash, I'm looking your way). All we have to do is figure out a way to make our garbage smell better than stinky foreigners and it's an instant growth industry. And, let's be honest, we don't have all that far to go.

Discarded CD Solar Reflectors. Steve Jobs was right, the iPod changed everything; it killed an entire industry, as a matter of fact, which makes you wonder why pretentious record store douchebags were the first to go digital. Who buys CDs any more? And once you load your music onto your computer what do you do with the old ones? Solar is a growth industry, and they need shiny stuff. CDs are shiny and otherwise useless. Picture acres upon acres of worthless copies of 'Pocket Full of Kryptonite' shining valuable sunlight back into solar cells. Brings a tear to your eye.

McMansion Holidays. We have a glut of hastily-built, overpriced, immense homes all across the country, standing vacant and waiting for banks to realize they're never going to make back the money on those overextended mortgage notes. People in developing countries will have money for vacations, and rather than stay in an impersonal hotel that looks like every other hotel on the block, they can stay in an impersonal home that looks like every other home on the block. Oooh, look, granite countertops! And a jacuzzi in the master bath!

Soylent Green. Just hear me out on this one... the developing world is hungry, and the best innovations in the next century are going to come from third world nations, as long as they get enough to eat. Here in the US we have an overabundance of 'reality' performers whose only claim to fame is that they once showed up on TV. We take our surplus, make Soylent Green out of them, a high-protein easily-digestible food, and 'voila!' problem solved. I think the first to go should be Jon and Kate, then the big-booty Kardashians.

   I'm available for consulting, once the 'captains of industry' catch up to me.

Armistice Day

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. That's when World War I officially ended with the signing of the treaty between the Allies and Germany. In Europe it's Armistice Day - an armistice being the compact ending conflict - and here in the US it's become Veteran's Day. Flags go on graves in the national cemeteries, here in Pasadena we get a flyover from a World War II vintage fighter squadron and students don't have classes at PCC. And that's about it. Veterans get a handshake and a 'job well done' and they move on.
   But in countries where soldiers spilled blood and bombs gouged the countryside they do things a little differently. One of my great uncles died in World War II, in Nordhausen three weeks before V-E Day. He's buried in the Netherlands, alongside his comrades-in-arms in a cemetery that looks much like those in the US, row after row of white crosses, too many of them.
   The difference is that in the Netherlands a family has adopted my uncle, they've assumed responsibility for maintaining his grave which they visit regularly. They've been doing this for decades, the role passing from father to son several times over. I'm grateful beyond words that people generations removed from the conflict still think enough of my uncle's sacrifice that they would do this in memory of him today.
   It makes me realize that I take our soldiers for granted. Politics aside, international relations aside, personal ideology aside, the men and women of our armed forces put their lives on the line every day for you and me. A family in the Netherlands remembers this, maybe we should too.

iPod Hijinks

A few weeks back the owner of my apartment building decided that the time had come to replace some of the worn exterior wood bits. This meant that for about two weeks straight there were carpenters all over the place, with saws going, wrenches turning, hammers banging, the whole works. I got used to seeing the guys, and since I was one of the few people around during the day they got used to seeing me. We even had a few conversations about my car, and I got used to being around people once again.
   Then they were gone, and I was alone. Bereft, as it were. No more racket interrupting my concentration, no more trucks blocking the entrance, no more Big Gulp cups on the stairs.
   So this morning I was headed out to the gym, wearing my iPod. While I do wear it at the gym, I rarely wear it any other time, so this was unusual. I was walking down the stairs, iPod kicking it old school with a little Public Enemy, Flavor Flav with 'Can't Do Nuttin' for You Man', a jaunty little ditty if ever there was one. Like many people do when they think they're alone, I was singing along, which I thought was humming, or maybe whispering.
   But I wasn't alone. I rounded the corner and came face-to-face with the plumber. He was coming up the stairs as I was going down and we met in the middle. Since he was the one with the toolbox I stepped out of the way and he kind of raised an eyebrow at me.
   'Gotta love the Flavor,' he said as he climbed to the second floor.
   Perfect. There's nothing like an extremely white guy like me getting caught rapping. Kind of pathetic and presumptuous at the same time. Guilty, as charged.
   I turned the iPod off until I got to the gym.

From My Bookshelf

Did you know that 'The Wizard of Oz' is over one-hundred years old? I don't mean the movie, I mean the book by L. Frank Baum. It was published in 1900, and at 40,000 words is about half the length of 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' and about one-fifth the length of 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.' The entire Oz series was the Harry Potter of its day, with another 13 books published after the first one. And you thought J.K. Rowling invented that kind of stuff...

The Annotated Wizard of Oz edited by Michael Patrick Hearn
   This is the Centennial Edition, published in 2000, which includes an extensive preface and biography of Mr. Baum and W.W. Denslow (the amazing illustrator), a timeline of their efforts to publish the book, and the amazing success that followed, which included stage plays and silent films, all decades before the 1939 film with Judy Garland.
   The annotations are the extensive notes accompanying each page from the original printing, providing cultural details, thoughts from Mr. Baum or Mr. Denslow, and references to the entire Oz ouvre, all 14 books.
   If you wanted to create a blockbuster kids-book franchise that also appeals to adults, this is the place to start.

Quote: (from the annotations) 'That a man of cold, hollow metal should desire a soft and tender heart is another case of whimsical irony in the story. The Tin Woodsman embodies the Romantic rebellion in the Industrial Age. He cannot love because he has been turned into a machine himself; only by getting back in touch with that human part of him he has lost, his heart, can he be whole again.'