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.

Deep Thoughts #1

Membership Has Its Privileges

"George's Mancave"

Sounds intriguing, no?

A little mysterious?

Maybe dangerous?

It's just down the street here in the condo complex, a "Gentleman's Club".

Run out of one of the garages by, one would presume, George.  A discreet, hand carved sign by the side door is the only evidence of it's existence...

"George's Mancave"

I caught a glimpse of the inside several months ago when the garage door was up and George was hosing it out; even a Gentleman's Club needs a good Spring Cleaning.  There were a couple of ratty looking couches and even worse looking barcaloungers.  And a giant flat screen.  What little ambiance it has is evidently provided by a wall of neon beer signs.

The dogs and I walk by it all the time and it's apparently where all of the men of the complex congregate, day and night.  Handfuls during the week, but it can get to overflowing on the weekends.  You can always hear the muffled sounds of manly men and televised sports and the occasional "Pffft!" of freshly opened beer cans.  If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say Pabst Blue Ribbon.  With the recent hot weather George has taken to lifting the door a few feet for ventilation so now you can make out a gaggle of hairy man legs.

I've yet to receive an invitation and I doubt I ever will.  And that's OK.  As Groucho Marx famously said, I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.

Plus, I think a working knowledge of sports is required.

Shaken. A Little Stirred.

We've been experiencing a swarm of earthquakes.

One last night, three this morning (so far).

Last night's was a 4.5, today's have been a 4.5, a 3.4 and a 2.9.

Like bad Olympic scores.

All of them centered a few miles from here in The Land Of Gracious Living™, Yorba Linda.

As a native Californian, we tend to get a little blasé about earthquakes, shrugging off anything smaller than a 5.0.  But I've learned an important lesson this morning...

There is experiencing and earthquake.

And...

There is experiencing an earthquake WHEN YOU'RE SITTING RIGHT ON TOP OF THE FUCKING EPICENTER.

I'm still shaking.  No pun intended.

Snapped

It was a nearly perfect weekend.  I say "nearly" because we didn't quite make it all the way through before disaster struck.

We'd escaped to the mountains for a lovely weekend retreat after the boyfriend had returned from his family emergency back east.  We stopped by my parents for a visit on the way home and had a leisurely afternoon.  We had just finished a delicious dinner and were going to call it a night early.  If only we had made it to bed, the weekend would've been perfect.

The one thing left to do was to walk the dogs and I had gone upstairs to retrieve some shoes and I was nearly to the bottom of the stairs when something just... snapped.

In my leg.

Actually, it felt like an explosion in my right calf and I collapsed on the floor in pain.

I was lying on the floor stunned, the boyfriend was on the couch frozen in shock.

It was just a cramp, I told myself.  A really, really, really bad cramp.  I hoisted myself back up and the moment I put weight on my right leg I collapsed back onto the floor in excruciated pain.  Something was horribly wrong.

The boyfriend was panicked.  I hadn't been able to communicate that it was my leg and he was thinking I was having a heart attack.  As I eased myself up onto a side chair I told him that it was my leg.  "Maybe it's a cramp?" he said.  I assured him I had already ruled that out.  "Can you walk?".  That would be "No".  "Can you even stand?"  I'm going to say that's a "No" too.

We sat there staring at each other in silence for a few minutes, not sure exactly what to do. I'm sure he was running through various worst case scenarios; I know I was.  But we are nothing if not practiced in the fine art of denial and we both quickly came to the same solution.  We would sleep on it.

The dogs still needed to be walked and the boyfriend graciously offered to take care of it.  Because, you know, I couldn't even STAND.  I rolled myself onto the couch once they left and tried to rationally assess the situation.  Something was definitely seriously wrong.  There appeared to be no broken bones although when I first collapsed the pain was so great I had looked down expecting to see bones protruding from my leg.  With the bones ruled out, that left only a few other options and I quickly determined I had probably snapped a tendon or torn a muscle.  That art degree isn't completely worthless; I had had to take anatomy as part of my life drawing classes.  While the boyfriend and the dogs were out, probably for only ten minutes, the pain was growing progressively worse and by the time they returned the question became when, not if, we were headed to the hospital.

The nearest hospital is fairly small and on a Sunday night it was mercifully quiet and I was able to be seen quickly.  As I lay on the gurney I imagined the long night ahead.... the x-rays, the MRI's, the CAT scans, the surgery, the cast...

The doctor finally came in and was pleasant enough.  He had me roll onto my stomach and started prodding my right calf.

"Does this hurt?"

No.

"Does this hurt?"

No.

"Does this hurt?"

No.

"Does this hu......................

I just about shot through the ceiling tiles in pain.

"Well, you've ripped one of your calf muscles."

How did that happen, I asked.

"Usually will guys our age" he began "it results when you go out to play sports or exercise without properly stretching."  He looked me up and down and then added "that obviously isn't the case here."  I could have done without that.

So what's the solution I asked.  Surgery?  A cast?

"We'll wrap it in an Ace bandage and send you home with crutches" he said.  It will heal on it's own.  Eventually.  It will probably be quite painful and it may take months.  You may need physical therapy.  And you may never walk the same again."

Lovely.

He said his goodbyes and a nurse came in with some Percocet, the only bright spot in an otherwise horrible evening.  After more waiting another nurse came in to wrap my leg and eventually yet another nurse came in with my discharge papers.  And my prescriptions.  I didn't get a Percocet prescription; no one is that lucky.  I did however get one for extra strength Vicodin.  Plus one for Valium, which seemed awfully generous.  The crutches showed up and we were sent on our way, elapsed time: only an hour and a half, which has to be a ER record.

By the time we got home I was so loopy I could barely make it into the house.  Getting a good night's sleep wouldn't be an issue.

When I awoke yesterday, I had almost forgotten what had transpired the night before.  And then I tried to stand up.  The doctor had told me I needed to stay off my feet for at least five days, but that wasn't an option.  After the work fiasco of the previous Monday, if I didn't show up for the staff meeting this morning I would more than likely be fired.  How I was going to drive was an open question.  The boyfriend thoughtfully brought me a cup of coffee since I was afraid of attempting the stairs sober.  I checked my email and saw their were minor revisions to a job that the boss had sent the previous night.  I figured I had nothing to lose and tried to play the pity card...

"Sorry for the delay.  I didn't get this email last night because I was in the hospital."

His reply was quick.  "Sorry to hear that.  See you at 11."

The boyfriend soon left for work and a question quickly popped into my mind... who would walk the dogs?  It was a rhetorical question, of course.  I pictured myself on crutches, a leash in each hand.  I then pictured the leashes wrapped around the crutches and me back in the hospital having broken my other leg.  The nurse had instructed me on  how to wrap my leg making sure not to make it too tight but I found that by wrapping it tight as a tourniquet I was able to walk on my tip toes.  If I didn't look gay before, I did now, prancing around like a reindeer.  But at least I was mobile and the dogs got their walk, albeit a brief one.

Next came the drive into work.  The one thing the doctor had told me was to avoid flexing my foot, something I quickly remembered in stop and go rush hour traffic.  The pain was so great that after about ten miles I seriously thought about turning around but soon enough I began to lose all feeling in my leg and made it into the office in about two hours.

I had about three hours of meetings and then another two hour drive home.  I actually didn't feel that bad at that point, primarily because by that time I hadn't had any feeling in my leg for hours.  For all I knew, it was dead.

Once I got home, I had only one task left: filling the prescriptions.  Once home, I popped two of each, Vicodin and Valium.  By the time the boyfriend got home, I was in good spirits.

So here I sit, Day Two as a cripple.  I'm realizing just how much I got through yesterday on adrenaline and the fear of losing my job.  Day Two isn't looking so good.

The Lost World(s)

Yesterday I found my thoughts drifting off to a magical place, a place from my past...

"Melodyland".

Why, I couldn't tell you.  Just popped into my head.  Melodyland was a "theater in the round" and located just around the corner of Disneyland.  It looked like a circus tent and put on a lot of productions for kids.  I still vividly remember a production of "Peter Pan" when I was in second grade that scared the hell out of me.  Eventually it was purchased by an evangelical church which ultimately went out of business.  I think it's a parking lot now.

That got me to thinking about other long lost attractions from my youth.

There was Lion Country Safari, one of the first "drive-thru" safaris.  

 It was famous for two things... Frazier the Lion and Bubbles the Hippo.

Frazier was an ancient lion that was purchased from a Mexican circus.  He was like 100 years old and toothless, with a tongue that perpetually dangled out of the side of his mouth.  The ladies found this irresistible.  They say he sired 30 or 40 cubs in the short time he lived there.

Bubbles the Hippo was a fugitive.  She somehow escaped and was on the lam for several days, hiding out in the ares various drainage ditches.

Speaking of hippos, there were also hippo paddle boats.  I know this because I sunk one.  I thought it would be fun to ram my sister's boat, and when I did so I cracked the fiberglass shell on mine and started taking on water.  I ended up having to wade ashore and spent the rest of the day covered in pond scum.

The other memory I have of LCS is that it was the site of my Junior Prom.  Why it was held there is one of the enduring mysteries of my High School days.  It was awful

There is a whole cluster of Lost Attractions near Knott's Berry Farm.

First up, The Alligator Farm.

Because everyone knows alligators are native to California.

And then there was Movieland Wax Museum.

The worst wax museum EVAH.

It was so bad it was good.  The most overheard phrase at Movieland was "who is that supposed to be?"

And then there was my all time favorite....

"Japanese Village and Deer Park".

I have no idea why I was so fascinated with the Japanese Village, but I was.

It had absolutely no rides or real attractions.  The thrill quotient was pretty much limited to feeding deer.

Or feeding dolphins.

Or feeding sea lions.

You could also see such natural wonders of Japan such as bears doing karate...

Or dolphins jumping through flaming hoops.  Just like in Japan!

Sadly, the park closed in 1975.  Orange County just hasn't been the same since if you ask me.

A Tale of Two Cities

I have to admit I haven't really been paying attention to all the turmoil here in Anaheim.  I say "here" because, technically, that's where we live.  More on that in a minute.

The riots and protests were triggered by Anaheim police shooting and killing two un-armed gang members in the space of one week.  That didn't catch my attention because we'd only recently moved from California's lawless Central Valley where police shootings are so common the rarely raise an eyebrow.  In Hooterville, do you know what we'd call a week with two unprovoked police shootings?  "A slow week."

The police shootings were only a symptom of a bigger problem which gets back to the subject of where exactly we live.  While technically we live in the City of Anaheim, in reality we live in Anaheim Hills.  Big difference.

Anaheim was once just rural farmland, but the arrival of Disneyland and Interstate 5 turned it into a middle-class bedroom community.  A white middle-class bedroom community.  But that was then and this is now and now the City of Anaheim proper is a mostly Hispanic, working class and low wage.

The trends were obvious even back in the 60's and I have to think the powers-that-be took a look at the fate of next door Santa Ana.  Santa Ana was once quite prosperous and now it's what passes for "the ghetto" in Orange County.  There had to be a way to counteract the prevailing trend and the city officials hit upon a novel solution...

A land grab.

To the east, along the foothills was a huge swath on un-incorporated County land which had already been zoned for upscale planned communities.  The boundaries of this land only touched the Anaheim city limits at one very narrow, itsy bitsy spot, but that was enough.  The City of Anaheim annexed it and overnight had their own version of Beverly Hills.  And the tax revenue and luster that went with it.  If you look at a map of the city, Anaheim Hills shoots off to the east like a barely attached baby's arm.

The people who live here are loath to admit they live in Anaheim.  You always make a special emphasis on the "HILLS" if you mention it at all. A lot of people still refer to it a "Nohl  Ranch", which was the very first community that was built.  I grew up here and dated a girl who lived around the corner and I actually thought it was a separate city when we moved here.  And that's what the locals would like everyone to believe.

And that's really the crux of the issue here.  Anaheim elects all it's city officials on an "at-large" system, not by various wards or districts.  And for years all the city officials have come from Anaheim Hills.  People in the less well off city proper have absolutely no representation in the city.  Things in Anaheim Hills are really quite nice.  Things in the rest of the city, not so much.  And the shootings just triggered some very long simmering (and completely justified) resentment.

We'll see how things play out.  Disney is mortified to have all this going on blocks from their investments.  I expect we'll see a major Mickey Mouse donation for some parks or rec centers or something to keep the natives less restive.

And speaking of Disney gifts, look what I found, at the top of the post!

It's "Andy Anaheim"!

A character created by the Disney folks and given to the city as a mascot in anticipation of the opening of Disneyland.

What is he exactly?  A squirrel?

Maybe they should update it and put a gun in his hand.