...In With The New

The one enduring mystery of 2012 has been... Why is it so hard to keep this blog up to date?

I never had this problem with my last blog, the diary of our time in exile.  I posted on that religiously, sometimes more than once a day.  What was it about that blog that made it so easy to write?

Oh right.... white-hot, blinding rage.

Turns out seething anger and contempt are great motivators for writing.  Which makes a certain amount of sense - nasty reviews are always the most entertaining.

The previous blog was powered by the boiling anger about the collapse of our life as we had known it (and where fate had landed us).  It made the writing more therapeutic and cathartic.  And plentiful.

So... something to work on.  It isn't that there aren't just as many frustrating and bizarre subjects to write about here, I'm just going to have to find some other motivator other than howling at the moon.

So that's my New Year's resolution... more writing.  Along with the perennials - losing weight and quitting smoking.  The writing will be the easier of the three, one would think.

Happy New Year

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

The Orange County of my youth was a horribly racist place.  The hatred wasn't directed at African Americans, simply because there weren't that many.  My elementary school had only one black student and my high school had maybe six.

No, the hatred was all directed at... the Mexicans.

This was long before "Hispanic" or "Latino" entered the lexicon.  Anyone with brown skin was simply a Mexican.  From Brazil or Puerto Rico?  In Orange County, you were still a Mexican.  And you were despised.  Unless, of course, you were mowing the lawn.  I remember the politicians of the time (all Republican) railing about the coming invasion from the south, the brown horde massing at the border ready to swamp all the was good (and white) in a wave of tortillas and refried beans.

And it turns out, they were partially right.

There was an invasion.

Only it came from the east.

The most shocking thing to me, moving back after 30 years, is how huge the Asian population is here now.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  I would say that the community where we live is easily 50% Asian.  Same goes for the surrounding areas, including my hometown.  There was a report on the news this morning about the building boom down in Irvine, but the houses being built are all designed for Asian clients, complete with separate wok kitchens and no unlucky "4"'s in any of the addresses.

I'm not sure how exactly it happened, but I think it all began back in the 70's.  I remember a concerted effort at the time by the then new-ish Evangelical churches to "save" the Vietnamese after the fall of Saigon.  They sponsored families by the boat full  and congratulated each other on their good deeds and then were horrified when the Vietnamese did what most immigrants to this country do... prosper and multiply.  Now, central Orange County is home to the largest Vietnamese population in the world outside of Vietnam.  And the old timers continually bitch that the area has been dubbed "Little Saigon".

In the 80's, it was the Koreans.  On my infrequent visits home, I noticed the Methodist church near my folks started offering a service in Korean.  Within a few years, it was a Korean Methodist church, now offering one service still in English.  Now that don't even bother with that.  In fact, most of the churches  in town appear to be fully Korean.

And then, in the 90's, the powers that be actively courted Asian companies to fill the huge void that was left with the end of the Cold War and the disappearance of all the aerospace and defense jobs.

So here we are, living in 奥兰治县.

Awhile back I read an article that happened to mention a rival high school in my hometown.  It's located in the affluent part of town and was lily white when I was in school.  In the article it casually mentioned that the school was "80% minority(Asian)".  How anything that is 80% can be considered a minority is beyond me.  I mentioned this to my rightwing sister over the holidays and it got her dander up.  She and her husband marinate in Fox News and were still licking their wounds over the election.

"I know, it's awful" she said, lowering her voice.

She then went on to tell me tale of one of her (white) colleagues who lives in the school district.

"It's a nightmare" she said. "Her son can't compete.  He has a 3.5 grade point average, which is at the bottom in that school.  No matter what he does, he's beaten out academically.  Can't get into advanced classes, can't get any scholarships.  My friend had to take drastic action."

What did she do? I asked.

"She had to pull him from school.  Enroll him in a school where he at least stood a chance.  A school with more Mexicans."

Old habits die hard.

Me, personally, I think it's great.  I think it's what's helped turn Orange County from a provincial backwater into something approaching cosmopolitan.  The again, I come from multicultural L.A.,  where within a 10 mile drive I had Little Ethiopia, the Jewish Fairfax district, Little Armenia, Philipinotown, Tehrangeles, Koreatown and Japantown.  And probably a dozen other neighborhoods I never explored.  And in time I wouldn't be surprised if Orange County starts looking the same.  It is, after all, the home of "It's a Small World".

Ghosts of Christmas Past

This Christmas was going to be different.

The past four Christmases have been brutal and bleak.  Shortly before Christmas 2008, I lost my job.  A month later, the boyfriend did too.  By Christmas 2009, we had lost the house and were living in exile, shellshocked.  The next two Christmases were barren as well.  We decorated, of course, if for no other reason than to try and cheer ourselves up, but there was nothing under the tree.

But this Christmas was going to be different.  We were going to be able to celebrate the way God intended, with an orgy of overspending on needless gifts.  When all was said and done it looked like there was about $1000 in the bank just waiting to be gifted.  Of course, there wouldn't be a tree to put it under - this house isn't big enough for a tree, not even a pygmy one.  But tree or no, there would be gifts.

Then came the unexpected car repairs.

Followed by the unexpected trip to the vet.

Final bill?  $1100.

Oh well.  Better luck next year.

Actually, it's OK.  If nothing else the past four years have made us appreciate the season the way it was originally intended to be, or so one would assume.  Our dire financial straits had already stripped it of all the commercialism and consumerism and forced us to just focus on the joy and good will, since it was all we could afford.  And being far from home really made us appreciate the bonds of family, no matter how dysfunctional and infuriating they can be at times.

So tomorrow morning we'll pack up the dogs and pick up my folks and head on down to my sister's house to spend it with her and her extended family and enjoy the day.  Plus, we'll get to watch my sister be hectored by her mother-in-law about how she doesn't know how to cook, which is always fun.  Ah, the Christmas traditions, they never get old.

Merry Christmas.

Meet The Neighbors

One of the (many) drawbacks to condo living is that oftentimes you don't just share a wall with you neighbors, you also end up sharing their musical tastes.  Whether you want to or not.  I suppose it could  be worse. We could have been subjected to rap or hip hop.  Or yodeling.  Instead, all we have to deal with is...

Barbershop Quartet.

Honestly, I didn't know this existed outside of Disneyland.  Our neighbor on one side is a member of one such group and they practice.  Infrequently, mercifully.  And luckily this building is well built enough that you can't hear it through the walls, so you only have to deal with it when the windows are open, which is rarely.  They don't sound half bad, as far as these things go, not that I'm in any position to judge.  And it's certainly better than what's happening on the other side.  Because on the other side we have... Hector.

Hector and his wife moved in in August, buying the condo next door right out from under the elderly hoarder who was renting it.  Any way you slice it Hector is just odd.  He's probably in his early 30's and is what we used to call "husky".  I'm not sure he has a job because I run into at all hours when I'm walking the dogs.  Hector has a uniform of sorts, wearing the same ensemble every time I see him:  black button down long sleeve shirt, black poly-blend slacks, black wingtips.  Rain or shine, even when it was 105 degrees, he's the man in black, like a pudgy Johnny Cash.  I even saw him out gardening one day in that outfit.

I ran into him the first time shortly after they had moved in.  He seemed a little anxious and amped, which I've come to learn is just normal.  For him.  He introduced himself and then blurted out "just let me know is the music bothers you."

What music, I thought?

I hadn't heard a peep out of them.

"The music.  Just let me know if we're too loud.  We sing.  My wife and I like to sing.  Just let me know if we're too loud.  We sing a lot."

Got it.  Singers.  Good to know.

I never heard any singing, but it was late August or September and we had the windows closed and the AC running most of the time.

A couple of days later I ran into him again.

"I hope I didn't scare you last night" he said.

Huh?

"I was crawling under your living room window".

WTF?

Before I could say anything, Hector explained.

"We have bunnies.  My wife and I.  We have bunnies.  We keep them on the patio and one of them escaped.  I found it under your window.  That's why I was crawling under your window.  Didn't mean to scare you."

Got it.  Bunnies.  Good to know.

Hector was officially creeping me out now.

Sometime in mid-September I ran into Hector again.  I was setting off on a walk with the dogs mid afternoon and I could see Hector walking towards us.  Dressed all in black, as usual.  And carrying a full blown Santa suit.  As he got closer I could see he had a demonic grin on his face, ear to ear.

"I can't believe I'm already getting calls!" he exclaimed.

You're a Santa? I regretfully asked.

"You bet!  And I'm already getting bookings!"

Yikes.

The next time I ran into him, he was apologetic again.


"Hope we didn't disturb you guys last night.  My wife and I really got into it.  The singing.  We were really into it last night and we got a little loud.  Singing."

What the fuck is with the singing???  I still hadn't heard anything and didn't know what the hell he was talking about.  By then I had learned to just smile, nod and jerk the dogs in another direction.

Then the hot summer weather started turning fall-ish, the AC was turned off and we would open the windows.  And then that's when I heard it.

The singing.

What to say.  I wouldn't call it classical voice, exactly.  It kinda sounds like he's aiming at opera.  More than anything else it reminds me of a trash compactor we once had.  Screeching, that the word.  Dear god, and loud.  Hector evidently fancies himself the Fourth Tenor, but seriously, that voice could etch glass.  And the poor dogs.  That just might qualify for animal abuse.

They were just getting around to butchering the holiday classics when the weather turned again and we were able to close the windows.  Hopefully, forever.  With a little luck, we'll be long gone from here before the weather warms up.

End of Days

I'd almost forgotten about the Mayans.

On the news this morning they reminded us that, according to the Mayans, the world ends next Friday.

Honestly, I never really got all the fuss.  Yes, the Mayan calendar ends next week.  Guess what?  Our calendar runs out too, about a week and a half later.  Happens every year.  And you know what we do? We buy a new calendar.  For next year.

The Mayan calendar runs over 5,000 years.  When your calendar runs for five millennia, I'm guessing there's no great rush to start working on the next one.  The Mayans probably figured they'd take some well deserved time off (like, 1,000 years) before jumping on the next one.  And then the Spanish showed up.  Shit happens.

At any rate, I think it's best to get all that Christmas shopping done beforehand because I'm guessing a lot of morons are going to wake up on the 22nd and suddenly realize they need to buy gifts after all.

Size Matters

The boyfriend is a little slow.

Not lick the windows, short bus slow, but slow in the sense that it sometimes takes him forever to see the bleeding obvious.  So, after living here for nine months, it has occurred to him that this condo is too small.  I could have told him that the first day I walked in here, but this isn't about me.

And really, it is.  The kitchen is about the same size as one you'd find on an RV.  To get to the downstairs bathroom you have to turn sideways and shimmy past the washer and dryer.  We have a dining room table we've never used here because there isn't enough space to pull out the chairs and sit at it.  And then there are the closets, or lack thereof.  The "master" closet can barely fit a laundry hamper.  Which has led to another unfortunate situation... the "sunroom".

We chose this particular unit as opposed to other similarly doll-house sized units because it had a small enclosed patio off of the living room that we wistfully dubbed the "sunroom".  It eats up half of the space of the tiny backyard, which isn't such a loss because three other units look down on it and any time spent outside makes you feel as if you're in an prison exercise yard.  Plus, this time of year, with the sun low in the sky and blocked by the hills, the back yard receives exactly zero sun and after last week's rains, it's turned into a mold factory.

We imagined that the sunroom would give us a little more elbow room and allow us to hang onto more of our furniture.  What it has turned into is what this unit is sorely lacking... a walk-in closet.  Did I mention that it is technically outside?

It started with the boyfriend throwing up the ironing board since that was the only space in the house large enough to extend it.  With the ironing board there, the laundry soon followed and now it's a forest of clothes with shirts and slacks hanging off all the beams.  Absolutely all our clothes are now down there forming a hanging gauntlet you have to navigate to get to the garage or yard.  And then last week we unfortunately discovered... the roof leaks.  Badly.

So that seems to have been the final straw for the boyfriend.  Our lease here runs until the end of February and we've made the decision to move on to something more spacious.  Which brings up the perennial problem... money.

If our exile in Hooterville accomplished anything, it was to mask the severity of our drastically diminished circumstances.  Housing costs there were so low we were able to live substantially as we had before, paying $900 for a three bedroom house.  Our hovel here in Tinytown costs more than twice as much, and someplace larger will no doubt cost substantially more.

So the time has come to make some hard choices.

I wonder what a kidney goes for these days?

Danger Will Robinson

Turns out there is one drawback to taking the train... people.

Wednesday evening I developed a scratchy throat and by Thursday morning I had a full blown head cold.  It's too soon to call it the flu, but time will tell.  I really have no one to blame but myself.  I lead such a "Bubble Boy" existence - I work from home and only leave the house to walk the dogs.  My immune system wasn't prepared for the onslaught of humanity. At any rate, by the time today rolled around, I found myself with no pressing deadlines and an overwhelming desire to be horizontal, so I crashed on the couch with daytime TV.

Daytime TV is a demoralizing place.  Judging by the programming and the commercials, it's Loserville.  At one point, a commercial came on for one of those ambulance chasing law firms, the ones that promise you a financial windfall is someone you know suffered side effects/injury/ death from [insert drug name here].  And this one was no different...

"If someone you know has suffered serious side effects, injury or death from Robot Surgery..."

WTF?

ROBOT SURGERY!?!?!?!?!?

When did this happen?  Is this a thing?  Yikes.

So how does it work?

Is it like HAL from "2001" removing your appendix?  He wasn't exactly known for his bedside manner and if I recall, things didn't really end well.

My guess it's just yet another insurance company indignity; they've outsourced major surgery.  The robots are probably operated by doctors in India.  I'm picturing a med student in Bangalore with a scratchy video feed on a laptop making $12 an hour.  What could possibly go wrong with that?  They've done so well with customer service.

Well, it's none of my concern.  My insurance is so shitty there's little chance I'll ever have surgery, robot or not.  Not unless I do it myself.

Leave The Driving To Us

I have discovered a marvelous machine, a remarkable invention which I think may revolutionize life as we know it.  It's called... the train.

What do you expect?  I grew up in Orange County; the only trains we rode were at Disneyland.

But seriously, it's been a revelation.

I had a business meeting scheduled today in Downtown LA and while I was looking forward to the meeting, I was dreading the drive.  My recent experiences trying to commute to the city, inching along at 4 mph for hour after hour, sucking in exhaust on the 5, left a pit in my stomach just thinking about it.

And then it occurred to me... I could take the train!

The train?  Who does that?  Well, I did, and I'm giving it rave reviews.

I happened to mention my plan to a friend and you would've thought I said I was going by flying saucer.  But really, it couldn't have been easier.

There's a station not far from here, near my folks.  I drove over and parked (for free), bought my ticket and soon after, the train pulled up.  I boarded the train at 9:29 and 20 minutes later I was staring up at the Downtown skyline.  It took me longer to drive to the station.  Down one flight to the subway, and 15 minutes later I was at my destination, early enough to have a cup of coffee and prep for the meeting. I was in shock.

Now, there are some drawbacks.  The drive from OC to LA is not exactly what you would call "scenic", but the view from the train is simply ghastly.  Mile after mile of industrial wasteland, crumbling factories and rusting and decaying warehouses with the occasional truck depot or scrap yard or cement plant to break up the bleakness.  And the homeless encampments.  It's like something out of a "Terminator" film.  But that's a small price to pay for the convenience, and besides you can just turn your attention to returning e-mail, which is what I did.  Which is something you can't do in the car! Actually, you can, but you shouldn't.

The return trip was just as easy.  At one point, each way, we passed over a parking lot.  And then I realized it was Interstate 5.  I can't even imagine what my blood pressure would be right now if I'd driven.

And then there's just the shear romance of it.  Union Station in LA is astoundingly beautiful, the very last grand train station built in this country.  Even the little train station in my old home town has such a Mayberry, small town charm.  I have to admit, I was completely sucked in by it all.

It all felt so "Mad Men"-ish.

Dames des Chats

This place definitely gives off the vibe of "The Land of Misfit Toys".

Nearly everyone here rents and most seem displaced.  The condo complex seems less like a little community and more like a refugee camp.  Everyone just seems so... downsized.  Downsized by age or circumstance or the recession.  Or relationships gone bad; there is an inordinate number of single women of a certain age here. And quite a few of those appear to have taken the next logical step... Cat Lady.

I see them, peaking warily out the windows as I walk the dogs.  The cats, not the women.  And the phenomena isn't evidently limited to this complex.

I had to run to CVS to pick up a prescription and decided to pick up a few sundries while I was there.  As I approached the register I was bummed to see a line.  It was only three people, but this was CVS, a company that apparently only hires people who find the Walmart application process too rigorous.  Worse still, I hadn't bothered to wear my glasses, so I couldn't even peruse the tabloids while I waited.  So to pass the time, I turned the attention to the woman in front of me.

She was probably late 40's and careworn.  My guess was she was quite the looker back in the day, but she'd let herself go and now shuffled along in a velour track suit that had seen better days.  And then I saw her cart.:

Two boxes of wine and ten pounds of cat litter and too many tins of Fancy Feast to count.

And that was it.

My heart went out to her, and then I glanced at the woman in front of her.

Same thing.

And the woman in front of her, too.

All three... Cat Women.

The quantities and brands differed, but all three had carts chock full of cheap booze, litter and cat food. And nothing else.

My first thought was absolute sadness.  Actually, my first thought was... "are they having some sort of sale?  On dog food too??"  But my SECOND thought was absolute sadness.

We worked through the line and the woman in front of me finally reached the counter.  "And gimme a carton of Virginia Slims" she growled, sounding like Brenda Vaccaro on a bad day.  Well, there's that.

As she trundled out the door I thought to myself "there but for the Grace of God go I..."

But with dogs.

Hoard For The Holidays

Saturday we witnessed the rarest of things, a success story on "Hoarders".

Or maybe it was "Hoarding: Buried Alive".  Either or.

Now, I love me some "Hoarders" (who doesn't) but I have to admit it had gotten increasingly difficult to watch because there were never any winners.  Each episode seemed to end exactly where it started and over time the whole enterprise was becoming depressing and dispiriting.  Oh sure, occasionally they'd make a house kinda sorta livable, but when they'd return for a visit weeks later, more often than not it was even worse than before.  Usually, after days of shoveling, the best you could hope for was maybe a glimpse of a long unseen floor or forgotten bathroom.  Just once I wanted to see someone overcome the compulsion, to kick the habit, to break free of that monkey on their back.  The crocheted monkey cozy they'd found at a garage sale.

And Saturday was the day!  I can't remember his name...  George?  They always seem to be named George.  Or Debbie.  At the start, George seemed to be a particularly hopeless case.  His home was so full of crap that the back rooms had been sealed off for years and the the only way you could traverse the rest of it was by crawling on your belly atop six feet of God-knows-what with your ass scraping the ceiling.  I almost turned it off.  Almost.

But damned if George didn't do it!  It took three massive trucks to haul away his shit, but by the end of the episode his house looked great.  OK, maybe not "great", but still.  There were still a lot of boxes but  now you could at least make out discernible rooms.

We went to commercial break and when we returned the words "TWO MONTHS LATER" flashed on the screen and I thought to myself "This too shall end in tears..." but miracle of miracles, the house looked even better than before.  All the boxes were now gone and it seems our George has quite the knack for interior decorating.  One man's garbage is another man's ironically hip collectable.

Originally I watched "Hoarders" strictly for the entertainment value, but since we moved here I also watch to try and get some insight into my neighbors.  This condo complex is a huge nest of Hoarders.  They should rename it "Rancho de Firetrap".  Almost everyone parks on the street because all of their garages are filled to the rafters with junk.

Our original next door neighbor was a kindly older lady who grew considerably less kindly when the owner of the unit she rented sold it out from under her. She had so much crap it took her weeks to move it all out, and even then she appears to have just thrown in the towel and left a ton of junk in her open garage and on her patio.  The other residents swooped in like a swarm of locusts and picked it clean in minutes, ferreting it all back to their own little hidey holes.

Our lease is up in a few months.  Here's to hoping we can make it out before this place burns to the ground.  It's just a matter of time.

We Gather Together

Well, we made it through the family Thanksgiving relatively unscathed.  A minor miracle, seeing as how the holiday fell so soon after the election.

You see, my sister and brother-in-law are Wingnuts.

That wasn't always the case.  They've always been Republican, but they used to be the thoughtful, intelligent sort, the ones formally referred to as Rockefeller Republicans, the liberal on social issues, fiscally conservative kind.  Somewhere during the Bush years, probably shortly after 9/11, they took a hard right turn into Crazytown.  That's when I remember the Glenn Beck stickers start showing up on their car.

My parents, by contrast, started out as good solid Midwestern Republicans but over time have shifted to being even more liberal than me and the boyfriend.  I think it was because of Nixon.  I remember a family trip back to the East Coast during the summer of 1973 where my mother insisted we stay at the Watergate hotel and tour all the highlights of the then ongoing Watergate investigation.  My folks even bought me a wanted poster featuring photos of all the Nixon staff.  Good times.  They've been solid Democrats ever since.

But back to Thanksgiving.  Family get-togethers had already grown tense, but the election of Obama sent my sister and brother-in-law clear 'round the bend.  Innocuous small talk would veer violently into talk of Death Panels and Re-education camps and secret U.N. agendas.  My brother-in-law would rail on and on about gun rights and grow enraged when I pointed out the fact he didn't actually own any, you know, guns.  An innocent comment about the weather would launch a full scale attack on "so-called" climate change.  Each holiday seemed to grow increasing worse and we finally reached our nadir a couple of years ago at an Easter Brunch with my sister chasing after me in the parking lot screaming "Socialist!  Socialist!  Socialist!"

So, we, banned any mention of politics from that point on.

The question remained whether the truce would hold, what with the re-election of the Kenyan Anti-colonialist Usurper.

And, for the most part, it did.

My sister briefly went off on an anti union tirade, but her heart didn't really seem to be in it and it fizzled pretty quickly.  I've never quite understood her beef with the unions, especially considering... she's in one.  And not just any union, mind you.  She's a member of the much hated Teacher's Union, scourge of Republicans everywhere.  Thanks to the union, she makes close to six figures and, with tenure, can never be fired.  Without it, she'd be lucky to be making $30K, if she hadn't already been downsized.  I guess cognitive dissonance is just one of those things you learn to live with on the Right.

She gained a little more traction with her main bugaboo.... the "War on Christmas".

As a music teacher, she's on the front lines of the heathen assault to strip the CHRIST out of CHRISTmas.

"They insist on calling it a 'Holiday Concert' or a 'Winter Concert', but I just throw it back in their faces.... it's a 'CHRISTMAS Concert'".

She says parents have complained.

"Mostly it's the Asian or Muslim ones."

Gee, couldn't see that coming.

She's most upset with the kids.

"None of them even know the words to most of the Christmas Carols."  

And really, why would they, being all Buddhist and Muslim and shit?

Evidently the whole thing recently lead to a confrontation with the principal.

"What is he going to do, fire me?  I have tenure."  She said, cluelessly.

At that point, I just walked away.  I find that works best.

Christmas is at their house this year.  Should prove to be a hoot.

Long Time, No See

Yes, I know.  It's been awhile.

One of my friends asked "So, have you abandoned the blog?"

No exactly.

I mistakenly assumed once I had been relieved of my duties with my former employer that there would be scads of time to blog.  It has proved to be just the opposite.  Forced to scramble for work like a cheap Vegas hooker, I haven't had a break in the action in over a month.  Which is a good thing.  If I know one thing about my business, it's that everything will grind to a screeching halt this week for the rest of the year.  Had to bank as much as possible to make it through the lean holiday period and into 2013.

And screech to a halt, it has.  I have one remaining job, a vanity project for a high powered agency executive in LA.  She's been less than diligent about providing feedback and notes.  I had hoped to have it wrapped up by today, but she just informed me I should have everything I need "first thing in the morning".  On Thanksgiving.  Before she jets out of town to Aspen.

"Ill be checking e-mail between runs, so hopefully I can see something first thing Friday."

Riiiiiight.  I'll just blow off my family Thanksgiving for your little puff piece.  What do you think this is, Walmart?

"I'll be back from Aspen sometime Monday."

OK Honey, break a leg.  No really... break a leg.

The upside of all of this is that it would appear, knock wood, that there will be nothing but time to blog in the coming weeks.

So my apologies for the absence.  I'll make it up to you.  I promise.

The Curse of the iPhone

I love my iPhone, but there is a problem and it is growing exponentially.

Not with the technology, but with the morons who use it.

This is increasingly what I deal with:  I do a job.  I email in the final file.  Within hours I receive a hearty "Looks Great! Thanks!" from the client.  Days or weeks later comes the angry email... "What is this?  This isn't what I approved!  It's totally different!"

I don't know what they think happened.  Do they think I snuck into their office and swapped out the file like it was Folger's Crystals?

By now I know the drill, so the first thing I ask is...

...Did you approve this on your iPhone?

And the answer is always yes.  It was approved after looking at it on a 3 inch iPhone screen.  While driving.

What the iPhone has done is it has unshackled stupidity.  No longer do you have to be content being incompetent from a corner office, you now have the freedom to be incompetent on the go.

This was a particular problem with the last job.  Typically, once I had finished a job it went to our proofreader.  We actually had a full-time, dedicated employee who's sole job was to proof all the copy on every job.  Her name was Dorothy.  Within hours, Dorothy would email in her A-OK and the job would go off to the client, and within hours of that, the client would shoot off an angry email pointing out all the typos.  But that wasn't Dorothy's fault.  Dorothy was a busy girl.  Dorothy was rarely in the office.  Dorothy was doing her job on an iPhone.  As you can probably imagine, when you proof page after page of 9 point type on an iPhone, things get missed.  Dorothy couldn't be expected to catch things on an iPhone could she?  That would be silly.  So it was my fault.

Which brings me to this morning.  I had designed a logo for a sporting wear company.  The owner emailed me on Wednesday asking for a minor change and asked me to re-send the files.  I did so immediately.  This morning I received a text...

"You never sent me the files I requested on Wednesday."

But, in fact, I had.  I found them in my "sent" file.  I texted him back and said that I did in fact send them but that I would send them again.  And I did.  Fifteen minutes later I texted him again, asking if he had received the files this time.

"No."

We tried again.  Again he said he didn't receive them.

Finally, I did the unthinkably retrograde thing.  I called him.

"So you didn't receive any of the files?  I've sent them three times.  Are you getting any email from me?" I asked.

"Well" he said, "I do receive email from you, but they take too long to download on my phone so I just delete them."

I took a minute and counted to ten.  I explained that the emails he was deleting were in fact the files he requested.  The reason they were taking a long time to download was because they were, you know, his JOB.  They were image files.  They were big.

"Oh" he said.  "I don't have Wifi.  Can you send them faster?"

Oy vey.

I told him I would reduce the file size but that it would lower the resolution and might be hard to make out on a iPhone screen.  He said OK and so I did it.

He emailed back.

"These look fuzzy.  Make them bigger."

I get the impression I will be on this Merry-Go-Round all day.

Work For Hire

You would think by now I would be used to this, being unemployed.  By my reckoning this makes six times in the last fours years.  First, after I was downsized out of my long-time agency job in 2008.  And again, six months later at the next agency.  Then followed nine scary months with no prospects whatsoever as we drained our savings and my 401k until out of desperation more than anything else, I took the job in Shitsville.  That agency folded like a cheap card table five months after we moved there.  There was the brief stint at a real estate firm before the owner decided his wife's cousin's son-in-law could do the job cheaper.  He was 18.  Then there was the magazine that went belly-up after two issues and finally the most recent fiasco in the fast paced, psychotic world of online social media.

I'm beginning to think my job is actually being jobless.  Without any benefits of course.  Every time I'm able to panhandle some freelance work, the government declares me Fully Employed! and of no need of assistance.  I've lost track of how many jobs I've applied for online.  It has to be over a thousand by now.  I stopped keeping count somewhere back in the 700's and that was in 2010.  My experience has been that every time you fill one out and hit "send" it just goes down the memory hole.  In four years I had never received a reply to a job application.

Until last week.

I had found a job posting online for a cable channel.  I can't say which one because the industry is small and people talk.  Suffice it to say it's core demographic is shut-ins with cats.  I had filled out the online application but didn't expect anything to come of it since nothing had come of any in the past.  So imagine my surprise when I was contacted a few days later and told the V.P. wanted to meet with me.  The interview was set up for yesterday.

I was so thrilled just to get an interview out of the deal I didn't really even care that it was for a channel I wouldn't be caught dead watching.  Somehow or other, if it came to that, I would make it work.  Once again, I was desperate.


So yesterday I schlepped to the San Fernando Valley. If anything, the logistics of getting the job would be worse than the last one, but at that point I figured we'd worry about that later, if the time came.

Initially I met with the H.R, director, a squat little man.  He ushered me into his office and asked if it was OK if he asked some questions and noted the answers. What was I going to say, "No"?  The first question was... "Name your three worst personnel conflicts at past jobs."

Are you fucking kidding?  Who the hell would answer that?  "Well, there was that one time when I beat my boss senseless with a coffee mug..."  I've had my share of office conflicts, but none I was going to share with this little Oompa Loompa.  I demurred and said none came to mind.  He continued... "We'll, if you did have a personal conflict in the office, what steps would you take to prevent it from escalating into anything violent?"

Was there some history of violence at the company which I should know about?

Mercifully, the V.P. I was to meet with buzzed him and said she was ready for me.

Jessica was her name.  She was a big girl with shoulder length dirty hair.  She was wearing a periwinkle sweater with food stains on it and a khaki skirt that hadn't seen an iron in years.  Here office looked like the home of a hoarder.  She was, I thought, the prototypical viewer of her network.  We exchanged some pleasantries and I scanned her office to get a sense of who she was.  Usually, in an interview with a creative director, I check the book case to get a sense of their aesthetic but Jessica's bookshelves were full of books on food. Specifically, dessert.

"30 Minute Cakes."

"30 Minute Pies."

"Rachel Ray Desserts."

"Microwave Baking."

Clearly, Jessica had a sweet tooth and time management issues.

She started to leaf through my portfolio, casually, thoughtlessly, as if it was a three month old issue of People in a doctor's office.  After about a dozen pages she looked at me and said...

"Your work is very clever and conceptual.  We don't do that here."

And that was the high point of the interview.

It was a long, sad, angry drive home.  I'm just getting too old for this shit.

El Jefe Grande

You live with someone ten years you think you know them.  Then something happens that is so shocking you find yourself wondering whether you really know them at all.

We were addressing some much deferred maintinence at our little cabin in the woods.  The ancient pine trees in the front yard had grown into the power lines and when the winter snows came, the limbs would be so weighted down that they stretched the lines to near snapping.  I swore I would take care of it in the Spring, and then the Summer, but I always ended up putting it off.  But now, with Fall in the air and snow on the way (perhaps as early as this week!) there was an urgency to addressing the issue.

I contracted with some local tree trimmers on the mountain and the plan was for them to arrive "mid morning" on Saturday.  "Mid morning" for them ended up being 8:30 am.  The foreman, the man I had met with the week prior, was a burly looking white guy in his 40's.  He showed up in a pick-up, trailed by another another truck with a two man crew and a massive arsenal of chainsaws.  I looked at the chainsaws and thought of the boyfriend, peacefully sleeping upstairs and realized immediately this wouldn't end well.

I spoke to the foreman and stressed how conservative I wanted to be.  I wanted the trees left as natural as possible while yet clearing the power lines.  We spoke of being "surgical" and "judicious" and "thoughtful".  He claimed to understand what I wanted and promised that they cared deeply for the trees.  He then gave his marching orders to the crew, in Spanish, and hopped in his truck, off to another job somewhere on the mountain.

I went inside to get a cup of coffee and heard the first chainsaw rip into action.  And looked up fearfully at the ceiling.

Didn't take long.  Within a few seconds I heard the boyfriend jump out of bed and go stomping along the ceiling to the stairs.  He stormed downstairs, he was not happy.  I swore to him I had no control over it, that they said they were coming later, that there was nothing I could do.  He poured himself a cup of coffee, slowly waking up and calming down.  Together we walked out onto the deck.

And saw the carnage.

It's amazing how quickly you can wreck havoc with just a chainsaw.  They hadn't been at in more than a couple of minutes and already the largest, oldest pine was missing four of it's largest limbs.  It looked like a quadriplegic.

I was shocked, to say the least, and then I looked at the boyfriend, face as red as a tomato, the look of hate in his eyes.

And then it happened.

"¿Qué estás haciendo? Usted está masacrando mis árboles! ¡Basta ya! ¡Basta ya! ¿Dónde está el gran jefe? Tengo que hablar con el gran jefe inmediato. No toque otra rama. Soy furous!"

I was stunned.

The boyfriend speaks Spanish?

Where the fuck did that come from?

In ten years, the only time I've heard him speak Spanish was at a Mexican restaurant, and even then he sounded like a white boy.  Where the hell were these bi-lingual skills when we truly needed them?  Like all the years we suffered through Teresa the lazy housekeeper?

I turned to the boyfriend, gobsmacked.

He looked at me sheepishly.  "It's just something I picked up back when I worked in food service."

It was too late to save our one pine tree, but el Jefe Grande returned in time to sort our aesthetic issues and the other two trees were spared the barbaric trimming of the first.  Hopefully the damage isn't life threatening to the poor tree, which has to be at least a hundred years old.

So now I find myself wondering is I really know the boyfriend at all.  What other surprises await?  Will he break into Mandarin the next time we order Chinese?  Or are his secrets deeper, darker.  I guess only time will tell.

Or, as the boyfriend might say, "sólo el tiempo lo dirá."

The Sound of Silence

The first time I saw this apartment was the day we moved in.  Circumstances were such that once the boyfriend found it, there wasn't time for me to drive down from Bumfuck to check it out, so I had to give my blessing based only on the images online.  I didn't know at the time about the dollhouse proportions, but there was one thing that gave me pause... It was located across the street from a high school.

It wasn't so much the traffic and noise I was concerned about.  It was...

Band.

More specifically, Marching Band.

I know of what I speak having spent fours years blaring a trumpet in one myself.  I remember the early morning practices, and evenings and weekends too.  I remember the constant repetition of badly arranged pop tunes, over and over and over again.  I had visions of being blasted awake by "Call Me Maybe" all in brass.

We moved here in March, well past the football season.  Last month as I saw the high school gearing up for the new year I girded for the worst.

And then... nothing.

School has been in session for weeks now, and yet, no band.

I know they have one.  There's a ginormous fifth wheel trailer emblazoned with the band insignia parked across the street.

Maybe they practice elsewhere?  That would explain the trailer but seems like a logistical nightmare.  Not to mention a not particularly wise use of tax dollars.

And then, yesterday morning, I was walking the dogs.  We were taking our time since I had nowhere to be and nothing to do, other than look for work.  And as we descended down the hill towards the street and school, I saw a half dozen golden Sousaphone bells gliding silently over the fence of the athletic field.  Looking closer, through an open gate, I could see the entire band, instruments raised, flanked by flag girls and rifle twirlers, all performing  intricate looking formations.

In silence.

I strained to hear and could just barely make out the sound of one snare drum, quietly banging out a staccato cadence, marking time.

WTF?

"Silent Marching Band"?  How the hell does that work?  I wouldn't think that would make for a memorable half-time show.

Do they just lip-synch?  Maybe the times have changes and they just march around with prop instruments to pre-recorded tracks?  If so, then I think we owe a collective apology to the surviving half of Milli Vanilli.

On further reflection it occurred to me that this has got to be one of the quietest high schools in the world.  You never hear anything.  No bells, no announcements, no pep rallies, no nothing.

If I had to guess I'd probably blame it on the neighbors.  I think it's a case of NIMBY-ism run amuck.  They move right next door to a high school and them raise a stink about the noise... of a high school.  Probably threaten to sue every time they hear a glockenspiel.

Even I have to admit that's kind of sad.

Not that I'm complaining

Women and Children First

And so it ends, my so-called job.  Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Honestly, the writing was on the wall months ago.  Things had grown so bitter that the only question was whether it would end by being fired or with a nasty resignation.  In the end, it came down to the root of all evil... money.  As in, there wasn't any.

I'd actually worked for the company for over a year as a freelance consultant, back when it was a fly-by-night virtual operation.  It was already a somewhat fraught relationship when it ended up being purchased in March (for between $5 and $10 MILLION, if one is to believe the New York Times, and really, why wouldn't one?) by a multinational holding company.  With it came an infusion of cash and an offer for a full-time job.

The first problem was the matter of logistics.  Our new corporate overlords insisted the high flying company be grounded, and grounded in office space they already leased in a nearly inaccessible corner of West L.A.  A full-time job would require four hours a day stuck in traffic.

The second, and more concerning problem was the salary, which was laughably low.  It actually would've been a pay cut.  "But you'll have major medical" my boss protested.  Yes, and a $1000 gas bill each month.

We struck a compromise.

I would sign a short term contract for three months.  By that time the company would be am internet sensation and the cash would be rolling in and then they could offer a more big boy salary.

Never happened.

And I can't say I'm surprised.  One of my chief functions was creating the new business pitches and over the past three months I had done dozens of them.  Not a single one led to any new work.   And after watching my boss in action during one of the pitch meetings a couple of weeks ago, the reason why became clear...

My boss was a dick.

Arrogant, condescending and a pants-on-fire liar.  It was a huckster performance of epic proportions. If I was a potential client, I wouldn't let him park my car, let alone have access to my advertising budget.  We still had some existing clients, but there was no way those billings could cover the vastly increased overhead.  And so, with the money running low,  the decision was made to just let my contract expire.  The decision had been made that my position was expendable, at least until last week when they suddenly seemed to realize what it was I actually did.  That resulted in one final week-long flurry of stupidity, which is why I was missing in action from the blog.

I'm actually a little relieved.  I feel like I got the first lifeboat off the Costa Concordia (Titanic references are so 20th Century).  All the same, it's a little scary be unemployed.  Again.

Once more into the breach...

Park Place

Little did we know when we moved here we'd have to pay for parking.

Not technically.  We have a two car garage.  The only problem is it currently only fits one car.

While we downsized our lives moving here to Tinytown, we weren't able to downsize our stuff.  We tried, selling off whole rooms of furniture before the move.  And yet, it wasn't enough.  As the movers pulled away and we barely had room to move about the condo, the garage was still half full of boxes.  We assumed this would be a temporary situation.

Over the past six months, we've tried to clear out the garage, to the point that every square inch of the condo now resembles a Russian nesting doll, with things within things within things.  Still, not enough.

Initially I parked nearby in "guest parking".  After a few days of that I walked out to my car to find a parking ticket.  Not a real one.  A ticket from the rent-a-cop who patrols the complex after hours, the man who has become my arch-nemesis...

"Officer Jacobson".

After the first ticket I wrote a very nice note, explaining that we had just moved in and were trying to rectify the situation and left it under my windshield wiper.  The next day I walked up to the car and saw another ticket.  Again from Officer Jacobson.  Only this time he had violently circled the portion saying that after three tickets the car would be towed.

And so began a game of cat-and-mouse with me and Officer Jacobson.  I'd park in guest parking for a day or two until I received another ticket and then went and parked my car on the street for a few days.  Which is a pain in the ass.  The nearest street parking is blocks away.  After giving Officer Jacobson a few days to cool off, I'd resume parking in guest parking and we'd start another round.

Until last month.

I had only parked in guest parking for one night when I went out and discovered my car was gone.

Towed.

By Officer Jacobson.

Without even giving me the customary fake ticket.  Asshole.

It cost $286 to get my car back and another $40 for the cab ride to the tow yard.  Cabs in OC are worse than New York!

Since then I've decided not to take any more chances with Officer Jacobson.  I've been parking on the street now for weeks and schlepping everything clear across the complex.  The only problem now is I'm still getting tickets.

And these ones are real!

Really...."street sweeping"?  I got my third one last week.  At $40 a pop.  For some reason I've got a mental block when it comes to Tuesday street sweeping.

I finally figured out a solution.  I usually have lunch at least once a week with my folks so I've just scheduled it now for Tuesdays to make sure I get my car off the street.  The only problem is I need to park the car in guest parking until 5, when "street sweeping" officially ends.  I'm afraid if I forget I'm parked there, I'll walk out the next morning to discover Officer Jacobson has struck again.

At this rate, parking is going to cost me $1000 a year.

Medium Rare

The boyfriend and I have become fans of the "Long Island Medium",  the suburban New York woman who talks to the dead.

I wonder if she could contact my career?

It's apparently "crossed over" and I have a few questions.

Sell Baby, Sell

Call me old-fashioned, but when I first entered the advertising business the goal was fairly simple and straightforward...

Sell people more crap.

Maybe we did it with stunning visuals, maybe with a too-clever-by-half commercial, maybe with a jaunty little jingle or a celebrity spokesman or maybe we just bludgeoned people over the head with an offer they couldn't refuse.  Whichever path we chose, the hoped for result was always the same...

Sell people more crap.

I was summoned up to LA yesterday for one of our horrible, terrible, not very good marketing meetings, this one with a potential new client.

The meeting was scheduled for 9am, so of course I left at... 7am.

I was still an hour late.

And that very may well have saved my life because had I actually sat through the entire meeting I probably would've driven my thumbs through my own eardrums.

The meeting went on for many hours (with a break for lunch).  There were PowerPoints and four separate whiteboards which by the end of the day were covered with lists and diagrams and indecipherable marketing acronyms.  My boss didn't really listen much to the client, but in his defense, the client didn't much listen to him.  While one was speaking, you could see the other formulating their next barrage of marketing babble.  It was an endless buffet of word salad.

By the end of the day, a consensus had been reached.  We would move forward by:

"Reaching out to our core constituencies and engage the relevant communities in a proactive conversation that would leverage brand equity via all media channels to provide for a uplifting user experience that would result in positive outcomes."

In other words, we're going to try and sell people more crap.

How?

We didn't address that.

In fact, the "how" is increasingly seeming beside the point.  These marketing meetings are apparently an end all unto themselves.  I've yet to see one result in more work.  And this one certainly won't either.  Dropped halfway through the day as almost a throwaway line, the client offhandedly said "the ad campaign we launched last year has proven very effective so the plan is to carry it through all of 2013."

Oh.   OK.  Good to know.

Would've been better to know FIVE HOURS AGO.

But there 'ya go.  The Magic of Modern Marketing.

We are well and truly fucked.  But at least the hours were billable.

On Love

And  to think I owe it all to the Ex.

Throughout half of the 90's I was in a dysfunctional relationship.  The wheels finally flew off and the whole thing imploded in 1997.  It was bitter at first, but soon we were civil to each other.  It was the relationship that was bad, not him, and within a few years we were friends again, which was easier to do since he had moved to Northern California and there was zero chance of running into each other.

For the next five years he burned through a succession of new boyfriends while I remained single.  Not necessarily by choice.  Somewhere along the line I had become a freak magnet and my dating life was a disaster.  Ultimately I just threw in the towel.  I think the final straw was Mark, the "Adult Baby".  That date seemed to be going so well up until he asked me to diaper him.  After that I was pretty much resigned to a life alone, and to be honest I was actually OK with it.


So flash forward to Labor Day weekend, 2002.

Most of my plans had fallen through with the exception of a Saturday pool party in the Hollywood Hills.  That proved to be a demoralizing experience being probably the oldest person there, surrounded by impossibly beautiful 20somethings.  I left early and got home around 6 and the phone rang.

It was the Ex.

He and his boyfriend of the moment and about a half dozen friends were out in Palm Springs for the weekend.  One of the friends had cancelled at the last moment, but the room was already paid for, so he extended an invitation to come out and join them.

So I went.

They were staying in one of the many small gay resorts in Palm Springs.  It would never be mistaken for a Ritz Carlton,  that's for sure.  Or even a Motel 8.  But what it lacked in amenities it more than made up for in, how shall we say... opportunities.

So there I was, on a lovely Sunday afternoon, September 1st, minding my own business when I ran into... the boyfriend.

In the jacuzzi.

I was smitten immediately and I hoped he was too.  We hung out for most of the rest of the weekend.  I gave him my business card as I was packing to leave, never thinking for a second he would actually call me.  So imagine my surprise when he did the following day.  We planned our first date for that Friday.  He was living, ironically enough, in OC.  I was living in LA.  He drove up that Friday for dinner.

And basically, he never left.

And here we are, ten years later.

I love him now more than ever.  I can't imagine my life without him.  And I miss him desperately.

Happy anniversary honey...  I love you.

Summer Jobs

Honestly, I thought I'd be blogging much more this week, seeing as how I fully expected to be unemployed.

My job, such as it is, has been tumultuous from day one, but in recent weeks it had crossed over into abuse.  Twenty-four hour abuse, with demands coming it at 4 in the morning or the dead of the night.  Things escalated over the weekend and it seemed only a matter of when, not if, things came to a head.  And who would pull the trigger.  I can't say what exactly my boss was thinking (and Lord knows, I've been trying for months) but I do know my resignation letter has been sitting on my desktop, ready to go, since Monday, just waiting for the red line to be crossed so I could hit "send".  When that didn't happen, although we came close, I simply changed the date on the letter to Tuesday and waited for it to happen the next day.  And the next.  And the next.  And then today.

And then, like a scene out of "The Hurt Locker", most of the major bombs appear to have been diffused during a lengthy conference call this morning.  Now, suddenly, we're all singing "Kumbaya".  I don't believe it for a minute, but I'm hoping the faux goodwill holds at least until the new year.  Looking for work during the holidays sucks, unless you're aiming for department store elf and I think we can all agree I'm too tall for that.  Although, at the rate I'm going, I don't think we could rule out a slot as "Santa" for next year.

Summer for us officially ended this past Sunday.  We won't be going to the mountains as we traditionally do for Labor Day because the boyfriend will be out of town attending to family business.  I'm especially disappointed because tomorrow marks our 10th anniversary and we'll be celebrating it apart.  We'll no doubt make it up when he returns, but somehow it just won't be quite the same.

Sunday was also, coincidentally, the day I finally finished reading the biography of Steve Jobs.  I actually bought it last December and took it to the mountains to be my winter reading.  Then came the unexpected job offer and subsequent house sale and move to OC and months went by without a trip to the cabin.  We missed most of the Spring and it wasn't until June we began visiting more regularly.  And that's when I finally started reading the book.  A few chapters a week whenever we were up, week by week, month by month, until, with perfect timing, I finished a few hours before we left for the season.

Look, I'm a Mac guy going back 20 years.  I'm not one of those freakish people who camp out overnight whenever a new gadget goes on sale, but I would definitely consider myself a "true believer" and a Steve Jobs admirer.  So I was really quite anxious to read the book, which I found absolutely fascinating, but also a little disheartened to discover that there was one overarching impression you came away with after reading it...

Steve Jobs was a dick.

Brilliant, but a dick.

Genius, yes, but... a dick.

I mean... page after page, chapter after chapter, an unending litany of bad behavior and people wronged.  There doesn't appear to be a single person in his entire life he didn't fuck over at some point.  And he made absolutely no apology for any of it.  I kept waiting for the chapter where there was some sort of redemption, maybe when he discovered he had cancer, maybe after he had a liver transplant, maybe, I don't know, on his fucking deathbed.  Nope.  His theory until the end seemed to be that if you're a visionary, if you're brilliant, if you're ahead of the curve, then you can afford to be a dick to everyone around you because despite your bad behavior, you're somehow advancing mankind.

I suppose that's fair enough, as far as it goes, in relationship to Steve Jobs.  I mean, for better or worse, he's certainly advanced the way we see and interact with the world over the past twenty years.  It's a much different world since the launch of the iPod, and there's no further proof of that than the fact that the biography I just read may be the last physical book I ever buy;  I've already downloaded my reading for the coming Winter on my iPad.

And here is where the tale of Steve Jobs bodes ill for the future:

Most people are not geniuses.

Most people are not brilliant.

Most people are not pushing the envelope and ahead of the curve.

Most people are, at best, middle management.

And their takeaway from the book will be that the key to success is being a dick.

And the way I know that this is true is the way the boss ended the conference call:

"I believe in running a company just like Steve Jobs and by pushing people to do their best..."

No, you don't.

You believe after reading the book that you have a license to treat people abhorrently with no consequences.  Thanks to Steve Jobs, being a dick is now the goal.  And after this week, I think we can safely say... SCORE!

The Dark Night Rises

We managed to get away to the mountains for the weekend.  We actually made it up every weekend in August, which is surprising because with the move to OC and the added distance I was afraid we'd visit infrequently.

If we were prudent we should've just given up our little cabin.  We can barely afford one household, let alone two.  And at the depth of the recession we came close to pulling the trigger.  But at the end of the day, we simply couldn't do it and the reason we couldn't do it is simple:  It's become our sanctuary.  It's amazing what a brief escape to the mountains can do for the soul.

There are the obvious benefits, the seclusion, the peace and quiet, the fresh air and the scent of pine, the wildlife, the deer and the squirrels and the bears and the raccoons and the streaker...

Yes... streaker.

Most summers the worst we have to contend with is the occasional marauding bear, but this summer has been different.  This summer there's been a middle aged man stalking unsuspecting villagers in the nude  and "waggling his wienie", to borrow a phrase.  It's been amusing more than anything else, although you'd hear talk in the store of the possibility of it escalating, maybe  even getting violent.

Violent?

With what?

Not many places to conceal a weapon and from eyewitness accounts he wasn't packing much of anything anywhere else.  The whole thing would've petered out (pardon the pun) soon enough with the coming change in the weather, but it appears the perpetrator may have inadvertently outted himself.  The sordid details are pretty hysterical, and I would guess pretty libelous were I to spill them, so I'll say no more.  Suffice it to say that if there's a lesson to be learned it's that you shouldn't hit "send" when you're three sheets to the wind. But I digress.

In addition to the obvious delights of living in the mountains, there are the completely unexpected joys.  Chief among them are our friends.  When we bought the cabin we never expected to meet many people since so many of the population are also weekenders.  But I think it's safe to say we have more friends on the mountain than we do in town.

And then there are the simply magical qualities, at least for someone raised in the suburbs of LA.

First would be summer thunder storms.  Growing up in OC and living in LA, it is rare to get any weather that you cold refer to as "dramatic".  But watching a storm form from nothing in the early afternoon and darken the skies until it suddenly just bursts is something that still mesmerizes me.  We had a couple of storms two weeks ago that just erupted in a downpour. The temperature dropped 25 degrees in 20 minutes and we got nearly an inch of rain in less than an hour.  Thunder that shook the house and blinding lightning... I love it.  Although, the lightning did touch off three small fires, which is no small deal in the middle of a forest.  Luckily, the next day's storm snuffed them out.

But by far, for me, the most magical thing about being in the mountains is... night.

Real night.

Total darkness.

You think you've seen total darkness, but you probably haven't.  Light pollution from even a medium sized city will throw enough of a glow up to obscure the night sky.

But in the mountains... pitch black.

Which can be completely unnerving at first.  But once your eyes adjust, the heavens open up above your head.  I've never seen so many stars in my life.  You can actually see the Milky Way, a river of stars.  Two weeks ago, we had the Perseid meteor shower which was just stunning.  This weekend, as I gazed up from the deck I saw a satellite go by.  And when the moon comes up, it turns everything into another world.  Staring out on the universe gives you such a peaceful, serene feeling.  It makes it seem like everything is going to be OK.

Old Habits Die Hard

I had almost forgotten just how racist Orange County was back when I was growing up here.  The decades long Extreme Makeover had shifted OC's image from that of a rightwing backwater to that of a Gold Coast cosmopolitan playground for Nouveau Riche Housewives.  It's debatable whether that's really much of an improvement, but there's no denying it certainly plays better on TV.

But then, occasionally, the mask slips.

The dogs and I set out yesterday on our morning walk and I was shocked to see school was back in session at the high school across the street.  Who the hell starts the school year on a Thursday?  We rounded the corner and ran smack dab into a news truck from one of the local LA stations, strategically placed, antenna mast fully deployed ready to broadcast breaking news.  News of what?  There was no one around to ask so I speculated they were there to cover the asinine school calendar.

Later that day, as I was leaving for school, I noticed there were now three more news trucks parked around our complex representing all the major networks.  What the hell was so newsworthy in our little neighborhood?  They all seemed to be focused on the high school and as I drove to school I tried to figure it out.

Maybe it had something to do with all the recent racial tensions here in Anaheim, brought on by the unfortunate police shootings.  They had been holding various "town halls" in an effort to diffuse the situation, so perhaps they were holding some event in the school gym.

Turns out, I was half right.  It definitely had something to do with racial tensions, and if I had to guess, they aren't going to be getting any better any time soon.

The latest controversy revolves around a high school tradition going back generations, part of the annual "Senior Week" festivities in the Spring...

“Seniores and Señoritas” Day!

Well, that sounds nice... a day to celebrate the area's rich Hispanic history?  What could possibly go wrong with that?

“Pictures from last year's event show students wearing sombreros and fake mustaches. Others dressed up as border patrol agents arresting kids dressed as illegal immigrants.

Some students came as gang members, sporting bandanas and tear drop tattoos on their faces.  There were also students dressed as gardeners, and even one girl who dressed as a pregnant woman pushing a baby stroller.”

Oy vey.

Didn't anyone...the administrators, the teachers, the parents or the students themselves, see a problem with this?

I realize this area, and the high school it represents, are still predominantly lily white, but it's hard to chalk this up simply to racial insensitivity.  I'm afraid it's not a bug, it's a feature.

The really disheartening thing is that last Spring's senior class, the one called on the carpet, was born in 1994, when, one would hope, we had moved beyond a lot of this crap.

It looks like Orange County is going to have to suffer through at least one more generation of bigots.

BRB

My apologies for the dearth of posts.  My alleged job has more or less eaten every waking hour this week.  I'll return in a day or so and to help pass the time here's a little light reading for the dog days of summer.

You’re Soaking In It

I'm normally not one for communal swimming pools, but I have to admit that during these hot, humid dog days of summer, the condo complex pool sure looks inviting.

Until you see this sign...

 
Allow me to translate and simplify the crypto-medical legalese...

"DON’T LET YOUR KIDS SHIT IN THE POOL."

Obviously this is some sort of ongoing issue otherwise why go to the expense and trouble of manufacturing a sign and bolting it to the gate?  The complex is evidently rife with pool-shitting kids.

So, thanks, but no.

Notes From The Rat Race

Yesterday was my weekly schlepp into the City of Angels and it was demoralizing.  Not because of the two hour drive in and the two and a half hour drive home - that's already baked into the Monday Misery Cake.  It was demoralizing because it gave me a glimpse into what we've become.

I say that as someone whose been out of the day-to-day corporate rat race for nearly five years, working from home and unexposed to the daily stupidity and venality that comes with office life.  And it was based on two observations.

The first was amusing at the time, but depressing the more I thought of it.  Once I finally reached the office after the tortuous drive in, I hobbled my way to the bank of elevators that go to the lofty floors of our corporate overlords.  I was a little taken aback to see half a dozen people waiting since the elevators are generally pretty swift and it was 11am, before the normal lunch rush.  I noticed every single person had their head bowed staring at their smart phones, some texting, some not.

And then I saw the open elevator.

It must have just arrived, I thought.  Otherwise, why would everyone just be standing there?  And yet, no one seemed to notice.  I made my way on my one good leg and my hulking laptop bag to the elevator, excusing myself as I squeezed past everyone.  No one looked up.  I ambled into the lift and assumed at least SOMEONE would notice the open elevator.  Nada.  As the doors closed, I gazed out on these people, heads down in prayer, praying to their little smart phones.  Now that I think of it it just seems like a sad commentary on where we are in the Year of Our Lord, 2012.

The second observation was just disgusting.

Like Lesotho, our corporate owners have plopped us down in the center of one of their other acquisitions, a fairly well-know and (formerly) respected ad agency.  We occupy a land-locked cluster of cubicles surrounded by agency hipsters.

Now, I have nothing against hipsters; I like to think I was one myself back in the day. Although the current wardrobe has changed and I think not for the better.  Wearing board shorts and bow ties to the office definitely makes a statement, but I think not the one you're aiming at.  Unless that statement is "douche bag".


The other notable hipster change is the attitude, and that's what I found so alarming.

I was set up to work for at least part of the day in the office and for hours I was able to overhear the ongoing hipster conversation.  There were five of them and they were all gathered together to brainstorm ideas for an afternoon creative meeting.  And the conversation went something like this...

"Did you see that new Nike campaign?  We should definitely rip that off."

"For the outdoor campaign, I found these cool Coke billboards to copy."

"We need a slogan... how about this one from Nintendo?"

"Look at this logo Urban Outfitters did... we barely need to change anything, not even the font..."

And on and on and on.  Cruising the web and stealing other people's work without a care in the world.

It didn't take long to call it a day.  When someone had the balls to mention that all their ideas, coming as they did FROM OTHER PEOPLE, didn't really hang together as a cohesive campaign, the leader in the bow tie helpfully reminded them that they just had to show SOMETHING, it didn't necessarily have to be good.

With what passes for "work" out of the way, they could get around to the really important business... shopping for new jobs.  They all started trading gossip and job prospects regarding various other shops.  Someone mentioned that he had heard that one of the hotter boutique LA agencies was hiring and everyone let out a collective gasp.  Then one of the other guys piped up and said...

"I would SO love to work there, but my entire portfolio is ripped off from their work."

There was a slight pause, and then someone else gave him the reassurance he was looking for.

"You should go ahead and do it anyway.  It's not like anyone gives a shit about this stuff anymore."

It just made my heart sink.  Remind me again why I got into this business in the first place.