The Simple Serial

Yet another letter to Obama

2012-01-06T21:20:00.000-08:00

Dear President Obama,

As election season starts to loom and the array of Republican presidential candidates jockey for position, many of us Democrats have been wondering where you are and where the Democratic party is. I’ve been wondering, where are the Democratic presidential debates? Who are the other Democrat candidates running for president? Why should I prefer one Democrat over another? Why is no one giving me a choice of candidates, instead assuming that I would want to vote for the current president just because he’s the current president?

Now I don’t want to say you’re such a bad person or a bad president because I don’t really know. Every once in a while, I hear rumors about something good that happened because of something you did, but, man, I’m lucky if I hear those rumors, let alone any remotely solid, reliable information. For example, I heard something about you getting Bin Laden, but a few days later it was like nothing had even happened. And then I couldn’t even ask you to prove it happened because someone thought it was a good idea to throw the guy’s body overboard. Did you ask them to do that? Man, what the hell? If it had been Bush that had found him, which would never happen because people always just told him what he wanted to hear rather than provide real, reliable information, he would have had Bin Laden’s head skewered on one of the fence posts in front of the White House, and you’d be able to see the sun-bleached skull hanging there even today with a sign hung from it, perhaps misspelled, with Bin Laden’s name on it followed by “I got him.”

And what about that war he started, based on the usual misinformation? I think I heard that maybe you ended it and brought back all the soldiers? Is that true? I have a hard time believing that, since the biggest headline on Yahoo News is about Tiger Woods’ ex-wife bull-dozing her mansion. I guess that war ending must not have actually happened. If someone like Bush had finished a war, I know I’d be seeing hyped-up stories with all caps headlines every day for several months afterwards. Man, do you guys even have a press office? What, do you not even let the reporters into press conferences anymore? Or is it that People Magazine is paying too much for paparazzi stories these days so the reporters don't even show up?

I think there was some other stuff, too. What is it...? Something like guaranteeing healthcare for everyone or something like that? Does that sound familiar? I don’t know, I’m pretty sure I misheard whatever someone said about that. You must have done something really bad and hurtful towards people with regards to healthcare. All I’ve heard lately is these stories about how you did something illegal, something so bad that a lot of people are determined to cancel whatever it was if they get into office. Man, I guess it couldn’t have been anything like what they’ve done in Massachusetts—wasn’t that some guy named Romney or something—or that other state up north there...Vermont, I think it was.

Well, damn, I don’t know what to think. I thought I was a Democrat, but, I don’t know, is there even a Democratic party out there anymore? Geez, if there was, I would expect them to be presenting me with a bunch of candidates to pick from or, failing that, at least telling me why I should vote for you, President Obama. But all I hear is Republican this and Republican that. It’s almost like that’s all that’s left out there these days. Is that true? Did the giant mouths of the Republican party just gobble up the Democrats? Or did they just absorb them through osmosis? Give me some sign that you still exist!

Sincerely yours,

C. Cue

The Life Resume—Realized

2011-05-22T17:52:00.000-07:00

C. Cue

Beantown, USA

Summary

Put money where mouth was and started ‘zine.
Orchestrated resources to produce kung-fu movie.
Proved ability to compete as ultimate frisbee player.
Defied complacency in moving cross country.
Demonstrated team spirit while playing with band.
Embodied curious nature in studying four foreign languages.
Exhibited self-reliance while traveling internationally.

Significant Life Experience

Singer/Percussionist

Subversive Rock Band (10/2002-5/2009)

Realized life’s dream to be in band.
Demonstrated tenacity in staying with band through countless personnel changes.
Proved team spirit by always showing up to practice and gigs, even when it meant standing on one leg with a crushed shoulder and a fractured hip.
Didn’t bitch too much about the fact that we weren’t playing Industrial music.

‘Zine Publisher (1987-2003)

Published ‘zine with varying periodicity and nameplate for most of adult life.
Solicited, received, and published submissions from around the world, including South America, the Middle East, and Asia.
Wrote numerous articles, designed layouts, marketed, distributed, labored with love.
Did best to get friends involved but didn’t get pissed off when things didn’t work out.

Ultimate Frisbee Handler, Mid, Long

College, Hat League, and Club League Teams (1984-2001)

Utilized fitness developed through lifting, running, and playing tons of frisbee in high school.
Improved speed to the point of “really having some wheels.”
Pissed off girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend by totally shutting him down when defending him.
Played three seasons a year for last several years, earning spot on club team.
Only ended up in hospital twice because of URIs (ultimate-related injuries).

Film Co-Producer/Actor/Translator

French Language Period Kung-Fu Film (1997-1998)

Translated script from English into really bad French.
Marshalled resources for on-site shoots.
Acted lead role of abused bad guy, soldiering on despite repeated nose injuries.

International Experience

ESL Teaching Assistant (2/2002-5/2002)

Realized goal of adult life.
Consistently drove to really shady part of town when I’d promised.
Served as tutor, teacher, and extra group discussion member when needed.

Language Student (1978-present)

Studied Chinese, French, Japanese, and Spanish.
Proved ability to speak and write French (see filmmaking section above).
Demonstrated Spanish abilities by maintaining relationship with Spanish-speaking girlfriend.
Somehow survived using rather meager Chinese and Japanese skills.

Solo Traveler

China, Japan, France, and other places (1992-present)

Planned international trips, including making reservations in other languages.
Successfully kept wallet in pocket, although duped once or twice in China into wasting money.
Proved ability to use local language primarily and English only as a backup.
Demonstrated mental flexibility and ambidexterousness in driving on left side of road in Ireland.

General

Maintained large number of friendships.
Set standard for the kick-ass 40th birthday party, renting two houses on Cape Cod.
Moved cross country and back again at advanced age.
Met and very briefly dated two soulmates.
Saw Northern Lights several times.
Helped to save drowning baby from dying under waterfall.
Nearly single-handedly put out large brush fire.
Nearly single-handedly started large brush fire.

The Life Resume (ray-zoo-may)

2011-05-17T19:53:00.000-07:00

In the old days, and I do mean old, people didn’t have business cards, they had calling cards. Perhaps that was because the people who used them didn’t have any business per se, they were just rich. Although at times such cards might actually have been exchanged between people who had mutual financial interests, they were just as likely—perhaps more so—to be given for purely social reasons. In those days, you gave your card to say “Remember that I was quite a whist player but let the hostess win most of the time” or “I made witty jokes and was a bit of a rascal while we conversed in the drawing room.” If Merchant Ivory is to be believed, one gave one’s calling card to the butler when arriving at someone’s house so the butler could present it to the master or mistress of the household for approval, but I imagine they were exchanged in other social situations as well.

Anyway, in that spirit, and with a nod to Pagan Kennedy’s “Relationship Resume,” I’m of the opinion that it makes just as much sense to have a sort of “calling card” version of your resume or, if you will, a life resume. As a person who has suffered through far too many rounds of job hunting over the years, and who has edited a number of resumes for other job hunters, I’m well aware of the amount of agonizing that goes on over creating the perfect resume. You need a resume that communicates everything that’s great about you, says why you would be the best for any position, and makes that potential employer unable to resist picking up the phone and calling you in for an interview. Of course, 95% of the time, you never have any idea what response your resume evinces, because you never hear back one way or the other, so you assume the worst, and you revise and revise and revise and revise.

I’ll always remember this one day when I was walking down Cambridge Street in Allston towards Union (Twin Donuts) Square. I was doing freelancing at the time but was preparing to once again launch myself into the hunt for full-time work. As I walked, I reviewed the standard litany of idiotic corporate interview questions and how I was supposed to answer each one, of course in the end dwelling on the one about my one fatal flaw that I could somehow triumph over to become the ultimate corporate worker ant. But as I was about to walk past the Big A deli and pizza restaurant, another thought came barreling in, stopping me in my tracks: “If I’m willing to go through this much agony and work so hard that I overcome my professional shortcomings, why am I not willing to do the same with regard to my personal life?” From that moment, I resolved that my life was going to change. I resumed my walk, and before I got to Gordon Street, I had transformed from an INFP to an ISTP.

Much has changed since then, and I’ve probably slid back into INFPness in the process, but I do still think one’s personal life is at least as important as one’s professional life. In keeping with that, people really should get recognition for their personal accomplishments. These days far too many people get isolated, uncommunicative, or battered (I was baking a cake when I wrote this) by low self-esteem. As a result, or just through the vagaries of who talks more during conversations, other people might not know much about what a person has experienced or accomplished in life. To remedy that, I’m suggesting we should all have life resumes that we can provide to others on appropriate occasions.

Out on a first date but not making a good impression? Whip out your life resume and point out the part about traveling across Europe to show him or her you’ve got potential. Getting hassled by your roommate for leaving the apartment too cluttered? Have him review the description of that day you volunteered for river cleanup so he’ll cut you some slack. Mechanic trying to ream you again on some car repairs? Show him the part about five years’ training in Tae Kwon Do.

Just as supposedly everyone’s got a book in ‘em, everyone’s accomplished a lot in their lives of one sort of another, be it smoking 10,000 cigarettes, walking 10,000 miles, or washing 10,000 socks. And I would say that we all would be far more respectful and admiring of each other if we all had a life resume that showed what we’ve accomplished and would communicate those things to the people around us.

Coming Soon: The C. Cue Life Resume

What's The Difference?

2011-04-14T16:59:00.000-07:00

How L.A. Differs from That Bastion of Puritan Conservatism, Boston

As a recent transplant from the Allston borough of Boston, Massachusetts, to sunny West Hollywood, an independent city within the embrace of the city of Los Angeles, California, I have been struck by the many differences between the two metropolitan areas. The obvious differences of weather and general lifestyle are joined by variations in pricing and selection of goods, people, the arts, taste in personal expression, and other intriguing aspects of existence.

Before I moved to California, a friend of mine who was born here often talked about how conservatively people in Boston dressed, as compared to people in his hometown of San Francisco. Well, I would say that goes for L.A. too. As I have walked and driven around West Hollywood and the rest of this gritty burg, I have learned that people here dress not only differently, but uniquely. My research has shown that in L.A., people will resort to looking ghastly or even ludicrous just to differentiate themselves from the person walking—or driving—next to them.

Why, just the other day I saw a man who must have been in his late 30s walking around in British schoolboy shorts and a tucked-in collarless dress shirt buttoned up to his adam’s apple. Based on his general demeanor, it was evident that he was wearing his staple outfit, and he did not seem too poor to afford others. In the grocery store I saw a woman who obviously had a hard time finding enough clothes to fit her all red, white, and blue motif—including white hair stained with red and blue and thigh-high red- and white-striped stockings. Her outfit showed signs of excessive repeated wearings. These are only two examples of the hundreds of bizarrely clothed individuals I’ve seen hereabouts.

To continue in the physical appearance realm, nearly everyone here has at least one tattoo, and a pretty large percentage of tattooed people have tattoos that cover large parts of their anatomy. At times I feel self-conscious walking around with my pristine, unneedled skin. I’ll admit that at times my embarrassment has caused me to consider the merits of possibly having an anchor buzzed into my bicep. On the other hand, I’ve noticed that here, fewer people have piercings than do in Boston. Perhaps that’s because while most tattoos are a pretty permanent commitment, most piercings can be allowed to heal up, for those who plan to end up in conservative East Coast corporate jobs.

Which brings me to another difference. In L.A., an inordinate amount of people get by on almost no income for years at a time. I don’t know how they do it. Things certainly aren’t especially inexpensive here. About the only thing you save money on is heating your house in the winter. But somehow a lot of folks I’ve met pay rent and buy food even though they’re earning eight bucks an hour and working twenty hours a week, or seemingly not working at all. It makes me think maybe there’s some sort of monetary fountain of youth hidden here that people aren’t telling me about.

Furthermore, hardly anyone lives here without a car, and car insurance ain’t cheap, so it’s not like these folks are saving tons of money by taking public transportation. True, some are supported by their parents, but most seem to get by on ether or maybe solar power. Although a certain percentage of these folks are beach bums, most of those just getting by are actors and screenplay writers hoping to make it big. The equivalent and, per capita, much smaller group in Boston is composed of mostly trust fund babies, band members, or aging hipsters.

Speaking of band members, overall the quality and variety of bands in the L.A. area cannot compare to Boston bands. It’s hard to believe, but there are probably as many musicians in Boston as there are in L.A., a city twenty times larger. Along with the disparate numbers come disparate goals. A pretty large percentage of the bands here seem to exist solely “to make it,” rather than to make good music. Often at clubs you’ll hear music that’s saleable but not necessarily listenable. Perhaps that’s why “L.A. sound” bands have been few and far between, with The Doors, Van Halen, and Guns and Roses the only names that immediately come to mind.

Punk sympathizer that I am, my apologies for almost leaving good ol’ California hardcore out of the equation. That’s a whole other ball of wax. A disproportionately large number of great hardcore bands came out of Los Angeles. And the scene here is still alive, albeit much quieter overall than it was at its peak.

Boston, on the other hand, has spawned an immense music scene and tons of great bands, including the “Boston Sound,” which accounts for so much of the aggressive music playing on the radio today.
Perhaps it’s just a matter of shifting heydays. L.A. was ripe back in the early 80s with hardcore, then Boston kicked in in the late 80s and early 90s with the Boston sound. And, of course, somewhere in there was that Seattle grunge thang.

As I mentioned earlier, I don’t know how people pay the rent around here when they earn so little. One obvious explanation is that rent is a lot cheaper than what us Boston expatriates are used to. True, you’re not going to get an ocean view apartment in Santa Monica for less than a few grand, but overall, rent is cheaper here than in Boston. My place in West Hollywood with two beds, two baths, two balconies, and two garage parking spaces would easily cost $800 more in Boston, and half of that increase would be for the parking. If I moved to Hollywood or North Hollywood, I could even pay a couple hundred less than my WeHo rent—the sort of price that would stir the envy of any Bostonian renter.

For that other eschelon of society, the homeowner, the newspapers around here are always hyping how high housing prices are. “Ooh, the median cost of a house in Malibu is now over a million dollars.” Ooh…big deal! How much does it cost to buy an actual house in, say, Harvard Square? Of course houses are expensive in exclusive areas—duh! No matter how high prices are supposed to be here, really they’re about the same as they are in Boston. In fact, in some ways it’s probably easier to buy a house here. In the Boston area you can expect to spend about $350,000 for your average starter house in a ho-hum suburb. That’s comparable in price to a similar house here. However, out here they have a lot of smaller houses with only one or two bedrooms. So if your goal is just to get into any house at all, you can probably find one here that’s cheaper, albeit smaller.

Of course, putting another twist on the earlier topic, the demand for cheap places is pretty high here because most people here not only don’t earn much, they earn nothing—even if they work full time! I had no idea, as I packed my bags for the land of silicone implants and sunshine, that I would be moving to a city where people do professional work for no pay for companies that make insane profits. What I would normally get paid $20 or more per hour for in Boston, people here do for free just to get “industry experience.”

Secretaries, administrative assistants, production assistants, personal assistants, film editors, video editors, script readers, script editors, audio engineers, camera operators—the list of people who go unpaid for what they do is staggering. And employers who take advantage of these poor folks range from producers to directors, agents, managers, post production houses, film studios, television studios, recording studios, distributors, effects houses, record labels—this list, too, goes on and on.

Therefore, the already super high unemployment of California is compounded by super high payless employment in L.A. Facing the prospect of paying me a living wage instead of paying some movie industry wannabe nothing, employers were understandably reluctant to hire me during my first eight months of job hunting here. In Boston, companies can only get away with paying some people less because they’re students or they have sponsored immigrant visas. Here in L.A., it’s open season on paying everyone nothing. Sheesh, I wonder what those jobless MBAs have resorted to out here—corporate vice president internships for “industry experience only?”

Obviously that’s a sore spot with me, so let’s move on to something a bit more savory: food.

Here I am. I’m in California. In this state, farmers grow more fruits and vegetables than in any other state in the country. So you’d think that the broccoli you’d normally pay $1.29 for in Boston would cost, what, 49 cents here, right? Companies have to save an awful lot of money by not having to ship food 3,000 miles, right? Well, sure, at the very height of the season that broccoli may be a little bit cheaper here—say 99 cents, never 49—but during the rest of the year, for some reason it costs $1.49. In general, most fruits and vegetables are priced the same or higher here most of the time.

The situation gets a whole lot worse when you move to packaged products. I was in shock when I found out that my favorite cheapo gourmet mustard that I used to buy for $1.49 in Boston costs $2.99 here! Oh my god! Looking around my local supermarket, which was actually the cheapest in the area, I noted that nearly all of my favorite packaged products cost 40-100% more than they do in Boston. The effect of this discovery was so crushing that I stooped so low as to sign up for that supermarket’s shopping club card. Although, true, that brought my expenditures down to within 20% of what I used to pay in Boston (after some tough choices to eliminate some of my fave products), now someone knows how many rolls of toilet paper I use every month. And I’m a little uncomfortable about that. I mean, they could do some awful things with that sort of information.

What compounds the impact of the higher prices of goods in L.A., perhaps not so much on groceries but on durable goods, is the sales tax. It’s a big shock when everything you buy for $10 is $11, when a $100 walkman comes out as almost $110, a $10,000 car is $11,000—you get the picture. The jump from Boston’s 5% sales tax to L.A.’s 8.25% can be a real shock. If you’re from New York City, on the other hand, everything seems perfectly normal.

Aside from prices, the other variation between supermarkets here and in Boston is selection. I’m not saying the selection is better in one place or another, just that it differs. Inexplicably, I was nearly unable to find elbow macaroni in my preferred supermarket here. I ended up having to dig around on the bottom shelf, and even then all I could find was “Large elbow macaroni” (and it did turn out to be quite large when cooked) from some company I had never heard of. Whatever happened to Prince? I mean, they have Wednesdays out here too, just like on the East Coast, don’t they?

Also, even though the store had a sale on hummus, the only pita bread I could find in the whole store was Sara Lee about five aisles away, and I’m pretty sure they didn’t even call it pita bread. I’m sorry, but that’s just weird. And, finally, though on the East Coast cumin and coriander are like two peas in a pod, out here coriander is some exotic and obscure spice (even though for some reason everyone has cumin) and, hence, is hard to find.
On the other hand, in supermarkets here you can buy large pieces of edible cacti, probably a dozen varieties of hot peppers, and all sorts of super cheap Mexican food items in bulk. Also, baby bok choy is ubiquitous and you can buy weird sodas such as Cactus Cooler, which actually has nothing to do with cacti, being pineapple-orange flavored.

Another food benefit here is that you can go to a farmers market in the L.A. area almost 365 days a year. Unlike at Boston’s Haymarket, where you’ll find a bunch of half-rotting produce dug out of distributors’ expired and reject piles, at L.A. farmers markets you can get tons of fresh fruit and vegetables grown by area farmers. The prices aren’t especially cheap for the most part, since much of the produce consists of specialty items or stuff grown organically, but the chance to buy really fresh and ripe fruits and vegetables is a boon for this smoggy metropolis. The selection rivals that of even the largest supermarkets, and seasonal special harvests are joined by a year-round steady supply of the essentials.

Aside from being the fruit and vegetable basket of America, California is also the land of the automobile, and L.A. its dubiously distinctive capital. In the realm of the auto, our two towns exhibit many differences. For one, on the streets of L.A. it’s not at all unusual to see people driving cars that are 20 or 30 years old or older. Aside from the general enthusiasm here for car culture, an important factor accounting for these cars’ longevity is the fact that nothing rusts here. Or, at least, it takes a damn long time. If for some reason you wanted your car to rust, you’d basically have to sand the paint off it, leave it outside for about five years, and cross your fingers.
As a result, the ten-year-old car I bought has no rust on it whatsoever. An unfortunate consequence of rustlessness, however, is that used cars here tend to cost 15-25% more than they do in Boston. The benefit though is that you basically don’t have to worry about the body of your car. All you have to do is maintain the engine, so you can save a lot of money…or at least you will experience a greater feeling of well-being driving around in something that’s not a rust bucket.

I will note that, because of the dry conditions, rubbery parts such as CV boots deteriorate more quickly in L.A. Although you might think that would increase your expenses greatly, it’s not so bad. For example, garages here are used to replacing just the boots, whereas Boston garages almost always force you to replace the whole CV joint if your boot is torn, and that costs at least five times as much.

Also, though they have a bad reputation, California drivers—and California pedestrians—are maddeningly cautious in some ways. For example, say you’re in a situation where you want to turn left across several lanes of traffic. A Bostonian driver would do the following:

1. When a break opens up in the first lane, nose your car into it so no one can get by in that lane.
2. When a break opens in the second lane, nose into that lane so your car prevents traffic from passing in both lanes going in that direction.
3. When a break opens in the third lane, turn left, releasing the previous two lanes of traffic.

For the Californian driver, it’s a one-step process:

1. Wait, oh, ten minutes, until, by some miracle, there is a long break in all three lanes so you can turn left.

Pedestrians here are similar. L.A. residents are mortally afraid of doing anything that could be construed as jaywalking. On the other hand, half the people in Boston probably don’t even know what the word means. So in L.A., people will actually walk hundreds of feet down the road to one of the few and far between crosswalks and then walk hundreds of feet back on the opposite side to someplace they could have just jogged across to. At first I thought that maybe this behavior was just ingrained communist conditioning, since most of the people in my neighborhood come from Russia, but no, I have seen people act this way throughout L.A. Hell, even when there is a crosswalk with a traffic light across a side street with no traffic, pedestrians will wait until they get the walk signal—what freaks! No Bostonian would stand for that. I just waltz right past them.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t this seem like pretty puritanical behavior? I mean, people here will have there bodies carved full of tattoos but they won’t cross the street? Maybe those movies about carjacking, parties serving bowls full of illicit drugs, and playboy mansions were all just made up to get people like me to move to California. I think those recent news stories about partner-swapping parties in Simi Valley are just publicity stunts.

Although I’ve been disappointed at not finding the sort of debauchery I was looking for out here, I have not been disappointed about the weather. However, it has been slightly different from what I expected. What kind of weather do you think of when you think of L.A.? Sweltering heat, those weird watery distortions coming off the pavement, and the whole thing locked in by a hot, smoky layer of smog, right? People here kept telling me “Wait until August,” but August has come and gone with no real heat in sight. As far as I can tell, the weather here for eleven months of the year is 75 degrees (+/- 5 degrees) and sunny with a cool breeze out of the west.
My poor loved ones back east slogged through a couple weeks of 100-degree heat with 85% or more humidity this summer. I’m glad I live out here in the desert where it’s cool.

Well, if you’re unfortunate enough to live over the hill from my place in The Valley, it can get really hot sometimes, and when it’s really hot, who wants to cook? In the L.A. area, you can find an amazing array of fast food joints to keep you out of that hot kitchen. The other day, a friend was talking about how, in fact, several of the major fast food chains, most notably McDonald’s, started here in California. Supposedly car culture and drive-in restaurants—a la American Graffiti—were the roots of what eventually became the international institution of the fast food joint.

But here in L.A. we don’t just have McDonald’s and Burger King, we have In ’n’ Out Burger and Fatburger, seemingly the top two favorite burger chains among locals. We have Tommy’s Burgers and its competitor/knockoffs Tommie’s, Tomy’s, Tom E.’s, and Tom’s Burgers. We have AstroBurger, Pink’s, Oki Dog, Mo Better Meaty Meat Burgers, Jodi Maroni’s Sausage Kingdom, Carl’s Jr., Jack In The Box, Rally’s, Taco Bell, and Del Taco, just to name a few.

Earlier on in my L.A. residency I had the naivete to think I might write an article comparing standard burger meals at all of the L.A. chains. But, after about five tests, my stomach had other ideas, and it seemed unlikely I’d be able to stay out of the hospital if I actually ate at the fifteen or so other places on my list. I guess I’m thankful that I didn’t have to relive my experience of several years ago eating a Tommy’s chili cheeseburger—Oof!

That said, in stark contrast to the messy experience of eating a Tommy’s chili cheeseburger, I experience no end of pleasure when I am using California’s signature mess-reduction wrapper. Yes, at most of the burger joints in Los Angeles, burgers come with a wrapper of white paper neatly folded around one half of the sandwich. At first it seems strange and perhaps too much like hospital sterilization-level paranoia, but I have become quite used to this extra consideration given customers by burger servers. It’s a real boon to be protected from my habitually overzealous application of ketchup. I applaud the L.A. fast food industry.

Oh yeah, speaking of food, L.A. has a Dairy Queen that’s five minutes from my apartment. Man, if you live in Boston you have to drive at least a half an hour to get to a Dairy Queen. Having fast access to a peanut buster parfait makes any disadvantages to living in L.A. seem much less important.

So there you have it, a somewhat random sampling of what would make most Bostonians feel like they were in an alternate dimension if they were to visit L.A., which most of them never will. Stay tuned to the pages of Immanent Face for further updates to the unfolding saga of what makes the town of Los Angeles tick.

Boston Public Transit Experiment #1

2009-05-29T21:40:00.000-07:00

Origin: Union Square, Somerville
Destination: Hudson, MA
Modes: Subway, Commuter Rail, Bus, Taxi
Intended Departure Time: 11:05 a.m.
E.T.A.: 2:30 p.m.

According to my original plan, I would have shouldered my luggage and walked three-quarters of a mile, or taken a bus, to the Sullivan Square Orange Line subway station. Then I would have had to switch to the Red Line train so I could get to South Station to catch the Commuter Rail. Fortunately, my host, Adam, was in a generous mood and offered to drive me to the Porter Square Red Line station, hence eliminating a couple of steps in the process (which was already going to be pretty long regardless). He dropped me off at about 11:05, and I was off.

The Red Line toward Braintree arrived fairly soon, and I made it to South Station and up into the Commuter Rail area by 11:45. I had a little time before the 12:10 departure, and the track number was still TBD, and was pleased to find they had a ticket window for the Commuter Rail. Normally one would just buy a ticket on the train, but in this case I needed to ensure I had sufficient small bills and change for the subsequent stages of my journey. I was more comfortable using a large bill and asking for specific change at the ticket window, where I assumed they'd have a greater variety of monetary resources to choose from, than on the train.

I watched the big board until the track number came up--#2--then boarded, ascended to the upper level of the car, and settled in for a relaxing ride. The only substantial criticism I should mention is that many of the windows are so worn that it's impossible to see details through them, and as a result you can miss out on seeing some of the nice scenery that's so much a part of taking the Commuter Rail. Oh, and, as on many public transit trains everywhere, it was really hard to hear the names of the stops when they were announced. It's a good idea to know where you're going beforehand, or pick up one of the schedules/maps for the line, so you can follow along.

Earlier that day, when I had asked where to catch the #7 bus in Framingham, the MWRTA representative on the phone had said "Oh, it's just up on Concord Street there. When you get off the train, just ask anyone and they'll be able to tell you where it is." So when I arrived in Framingham and disembarked, I walked back east up the tracks and took a left onto Concord. A ways up on the right, there was a bus shelter with some laminated 8-1/2 x 11-inch schedules hanging on one wall. Scanning the schedules, all I could see was 6, 8, 9, 10, and 11--no 7--although there were a couple of obviously empty 8-1/2 x 11-inch voids where once other schedules may have stuck.

I wasn't sure if I should risk staying or risk going, but I had a half an hour before the bus was scheduled to arrive, so I continued into downtown Framingham, hauling my bags, hoping I would find a shelter displaying an actual #7 schedule. After what felt like five minutes but was probably two, I wasn't seeing any other shelters at all, so I turned around and went back to the first one.

Seeing as how the MWRTA guy had painted all Framingham residents as being so knowledgeable and helpful, I went ahead and asked the first woman at the shelter if the #7 stopped there. "Well, there's the 2 and the 3 and the 4, and they don't stop here. Now, I'm going to Kohl's, Kohl's store. Don't know how to get there though." That's all she seemed to have to say. Hm--this didn't seem to be getting me anywhere. A few minutes later, she started talking again, as if she was bringing up her own new topic. "Well the 7 comes here, and I think maybe the 8 and 9..." she trailed off. Okay, I didn't know if I should trust her, as she seemed a bit batty, but I had a little more confidence that I might be in the right place.

That confidence started to wane as time passed. I watched a #7 bus approach us from across the way on a side street, but it crossed the main thoroughfare, not turning left to pick us up but continuing straight to stop about thirty feet away, then continue away behind us. Two other buses--a #2 and a #3--followed in the same fashion, making me paranoid that the unmarked spot on the side street was somehow where I was supposed to be, even though no one else was standing over there either. My trepidation increased as the 1:32 time slot passed, and still not a single bus had stopped at our shelter.

While I waited, I watched my sheltermates, out of the corner of my eye, and the folks passing on the sidewalk and in cars. My sheltermates were causing me some existential consternation. It was a young white couple, obviously low income and, from all appearances at first, on the edge of homelessness. They were both dressed in hooded sweatshirts--the national costume of low-income Massachusetts--but with hoods off, they revealed a long blonde head of hair on the girl and a punky half mohawk on the guy. What struck me as bizarre, though, was that the guy spent at least half an hour (continuing onto the bus) dipping a small dipstick into a bottle of hair conditioner, wiping the conditioner on the girl's hair, and combing the stuff through to the tips. By the time he was done..., that hair must have been seriously saturated, although I will admit that it had a healthy look to it....

Most of the people that drove by were in beat up old American cars. It was almost all guys, and most of them were unshaven and wearing trucker hats and earrings. There was a lot of spit coming from drivers, walkers, and my mohawked sheltermate, and spattering on the street and sidewalk. Of course this all had me thinking that maybe I'd find myself an apartment around there, when it comes time to settle down.

Finally the bus arrived, eleven minutes late, and the driver confirmed that it was going toward Solomon Pond Mall, the right direction for me. As the guy continued the endless conditioning of his girlfriend, I observed the driver and our route as we passed through small towns and suburbs. Intriguingly, the bus route seemed to consist of the driver turning and stopping where he felt like or where people asked, in a sort of aimless amble. It was rare for us to stay on a main road for more than a few minutes before turning off onto lesser ones, some of which seemed to have been paved only recently. He dropped one guy off in the middle of nowhere, with no bus stop sign in sight; another he continuously negotiated the stop with until leaving him within a foot of the precise desired location.

Surprisingly, I did make it to my destination--City Hall, Marlborough, MA--and we'd actually made up two minutes of lost time, so I got off only nine minutes late. Prudently, the day before I'd called the local taxi company that serves Hudson and Marlborough, and they'd told me the ride would cost about $12. Before continuing my journey, though, I had to answer the call of nature, and I was pleased to find that the City Hall had public bathroom facilities.

It was a fairly chilly day for late May--upper 40s, lower 50s--and a light drizzle had started to fall as I rang the taxi company.

"American Way Taxi."
"Yes, hi, I was wondering if I could get a taxi?"
"Oh, well, where you going?"
"Marlborough City Hall to Hudson."
"Oh, well, when do you want it?"
"Well, now, or sometime soon if possible."
"Oh, well, we don't have anyone right now. Tell you what, let me give you a call in about ten minutes. I'll call you back."
I waited in the cool drizzle. Five or ten minutes later, a call came in from a different number.
"Hello?"
"Yeah, I got a call from [incomprehensible] saying someone needed a taxi?"
"Yes, I could use a taxi."
"And you're going from Marlborough City Hall to Hudson?"
"Yes."
"Okay. A car will be there in about 10 minutes. Oh, it's a silver minivan, so watch for a silver minivan."

I continued waiting, as the drizzle kept drizzling, fortunately very lightly. About ten minutes later, I saw a silver minivan approaching and, so, girded myself for departure. But the minivan went on by without slowing. Over the next fifteen minutes, I saw five or six more minivans that could be construed as silver, but none of them seemed to want to pick me up.

The cold started sinking in. I gave up on seeming presentable and pulled my sweatshirt hood over my head. Finally, a silver minivan passed, slowed, and turned around, and I saw the driver toss a handmade white sign--American Way Taxi--onto the dashboard.

The driver, an elderly man with liver spots, was slumped in his seat as if he were watching TV on his couch. His copilot, who was playing games on a DS and was obviously his grandson, said hello as I seated myself behind them in the second row of seats. Obviously this was just the family van. I noticed that on the other side of the "taxi" sign, the man had inked "American Way Courier." Hudson is a small town.

Less than fifteen minutes later, I was back at my home base. The fare was $12 as stated, and I gave the guy a $3 tip, for which he was effusively grateful, offering to come by anytime if I needed a ride.

Summary: Cost $2 for subway, $6.25 for commuter rail, $1.50 for bus, $15 for taxi; total $24.75. Time 11:05 until 3:15; total four hours and ten minutes. The equivalent trip by car would reportedly be 41 miles in 54 minutes.

Boston-L.A.-Boston

2009-05-13T17:14:00.000-07:00

I left Boston for L.A. seven years and seven months ago to seek my fortune, change, and challenge. I loved my life in Boston then, but I felt like I was getting complacent and was about to start repeating the things I'd already done. I needed to throw myself a curveball to see if I could do as well in an environment less familiar.

Strike One

The fortune was slow in coming. It took just over a year to find a full-time job, and during that year my already high credit card debt ballooned from $4,000 to $14,000. The dream version of achieving my fortune had included quickly finding a more high-paying job than I'd been able to in Boston, working and saving a healthy amount of money, and returning after five years with the cash for a down payment on a house in Vermont. Obviously my reality didn't match. It took just over five years to get back up to zero—I guess only four years of working time—and when I finally called it quits, the total cash I'd saved hit only about half of what I'd planned to be bringing back.

As for change, well, that's not a hard thing to achieve. You just flip the switch, and life has changed. First of all, I was on the other side of the country. Second? Unemployed. Third? Sleeping on someone's floor. Fourth? Within a month or two I'd broken up with my girlfriend when the long-distance dynamic took a turn for the worse. So there I was: relocated, jobless, homeless, and mateless. Clean slate.

A Kinder Kind of Change

Challenge also wasn't hard to come by, but the circumstances overall ran a bit more positive than the change part. The first problem of course involved finding a job. I came out to L.A. in the latter days of the Internet bubble's bursting and had watched most of the dot.coms lay off all of their editors in recent months. So it wasn't exactly prime time for seeking employment. However, I'd seen some jobs available, and I commenced a campaign of job hunting eight hours a day, five days a week. Writing cover letters, customizing resumes, meeting with agencies, and plowing through every job listing I could find—that was my full-time, unpaid, job.

I'd told my friend I'd be crashing on his floor for only two or three weeks (see "dream version").... Seven months later, a roommate appeared, an apartment was found, and a man had a bed...of sorts. In the meantime, I'd tired of my "job" and its fruitlessness, so I thought it'd be nice to give some of my time to others, face a new challenge, and achieve a goal I'd had for years. So it was I found myself going to one of the poorest parts of town to a Christian school to teach ESL. It wasn't too hard to find this opportunity, and the effects of my terror were somewhat ameliorated by the smiles and appreciation shown by the room full of Mexican immigrants I faced each day. So, lo!, a challenge was met and a goal achieved without incurring debt or emotional trauma. All hail the challenge!

The good karma must have set something off, because soon I found myself in a sweet-deal, decent-paying summer contract job that involved sitting on my ass and chatting with my hilarious female contracting counterpart for hours on end. Okay, not much of a challenge, but I deserved a break.

The Big, uh, Break

Towards the end of that, finally there was a break in the employment market, and two jobs came up that I was actually able to elicit a reply for. One was a pretty straight editing job for some legal company that I'd actually applied for twice during the previous year, once while I was still in Boston. The other was a very interesting journeyman writer job for a university. As the summer contract had done little to extricate me from my debt, I thought it best to pursue both equally, though I preferred the university job by a wide margin. When the university job packet arrived with its sample-writing tests, I threw myself into the project and sent back what I felt was my best effort.

In the meantime, I was actually called in for interviews for the other position. The first several interviews went well, and so I was put at ease, but the last was with this guy I left calling The Iceman. He was just full of some weird corporate indoctrination and for some reason wanted me to spout the same claptrap. But I could not figure out what he wanted, and it was incredibly frustrating that he didn't seem to understand or believe what I was saying. Getting through that one—now that was a challenge. Of course, the Iceman part of that was my assumption that basically it was his job to "break" the candidates, and I had been broken and was therefore out. Though the interview had been traumatic, I was a bit relieved in a way as it made me focus more on the potential of the cool job.

But I didn't hear anything from the cool job over the next week, while, surprisingly to me then, I did hear back from the uncool one. I was flabbergasted to hear that they were calling me because The Iceman felt we hadn't "connected" and wanted me to come in again, to interview, with him. Say what? Well, still not a peep from the cool job, so I agreed to go talk to the guy, though it seemed to me ludicrous.

Back with The Iceman, same scene, nothing changes, he gives up on the indoctrination part but says they want to hire me anyway, tells me that normally the CEO interviews everyone but this time they'd skip that. So there I was with an uncool job offer from The Iceman, $14,000 in credit card debt, and failing hopes for the cool job. What could I do—I accepted the job, feeling downtrodden and demoralized but knowing I'd bail in a second if the cool one came through.

Six and a half years later, debt resolved, 401k fully vested, soul crushed, and entire being burnt out, I quit.

Ironically at almost the same time an alternate reality formed in which I was a rock star. Literally within a week of the job offer, a guy who had met me and forgotten my name a dozen times finally had a reason to remember my name—so he could invite me to join his band. Join I did, and I played with them for the next six and a half years. Another checkmark: played in a band. Seemed L.A. was doing all right by me, overall, in the challenge department.

Wish They All Weren't...L.A. Girls

Next challenge: dating. Well, as noted, my relationship that had started as a late summer/early fall fling but been extended into L.A. time ended up being not sustainable for me at a distance. And one of the big issues had been my girlfriend's anxiety over all the "beautiful women" in L.A. who might steal me away. As I'd predicted at the time, she needn't have worried. During the next seven years, I spent the majority of the time alone, with a few dating blips that lasted a month or maybe a few and one long-distance relationship I'd never wanted to start and ended up having to end painfully. None of the women I dated were "L.A. women"—that was a challenge for which I seemingly never had a chance. And in the end, that's what really tipped the balance.

Having extricated myself from job, apartment, car, and L.A. life, I boarded my plane, heading back to a smaller pond where I'd felt a bigger fish years ago. I was sad about leaving the close friends I made and knew I'd miss a thing or two about L.A.—read "Mexican food"—but overall I was happy to get out. As we jetted off the runway out over the Pacific, I found myself saying "Goodbye L.A.," and the next words that came to mind were "What a fucking hellhole." I guess that was my id talking, but, I have to admit, at least some of the sentiment was conscious as well.

Epilogue

It turned out my nonstop flight was actually a one-stop flight in disguise, so I had to deplane in Minneapolis and walk halfway across the fucking airport to get on another plane with the same flight number. Though this was bad news to my still recovering upper body, I had this odd but positive feeling that I'd run into someone I knew there. Well, I made it all the way to my gate—five miles, by my estimation—but nary a familiar face, except this one woman who looked familiar because I'd seen her ten minutes before. Ah well, I knew I needed food, so I went and grabbed some at Burger King.

I got my food and was about to sit down at a counter facing out onto the walkway through the terminal when, hey, I did recognize someone. Somehow I wasn't really surprised, I was just pleased and...a little turned on. After a few seconds, she realized someone was looking at her, so she turned toward me. It was a tall, slim woman with long, straight dark hair, cool glasses—my ex-girlfriend from fall of 2001, the one I'd left behind in Boston. We hugged and started to talk, but she had to run, as she was late for her flight to Hartford—alas, not my destination—so we continued our quick chat while motoring down the hallway to her gate. While she rifled through her stuff to find her boarding pass, I entered my number in her cell phone, then she was off.

I guess things have come full circle.

What did I tell you?

2009-05-11T00:45:00.000-07:00

As a sort of post script, I should mention that the company I used to work for--I quit because I couldn't take it anymore--just laid off 1/3 of its workers. Who did it lay off? It laid off all of its senior-level employees with experience. Not managers (for the most part), mind you, but the people who actually did the hands-on work and knew everything cold. These were the people who, if you had a question, were *the* person to ask and would have a guaranteed answer. Literally within the same announcement as the layoffs, the company announced to its employees that it was, however, expanding its capacity in India. That is, it was directly transferring the jobs of experienced, vital, American workers to an overseas office where it would be able to have the same work done, albeit at a much lower level of quality, for 1/10 or less of the price of the American employees. Of course, in the same breath it discussed adding more high-paid VPs.... Guess the folks in India will be paying for their salaries.

Layoffs a reflection of greed

2008-12-01T22:51:00.000-08:00

As you all know, now that we're in difficult times, companies have started laying off record numbers of people. You hear 1,500 here, 40,000 there, 14,000 some other place. How can they do this? Why are they doing this? Has the bottom suddenly dropped out of everything in existence? Are people suddenly starving themselves and not buying food? Have they given up their iPhones and their $100+ monthly cell phone account fees? Stopped watching incredibly overpriced cable? No, not really. Spending may be down a few percentage points, but it's not like the world has stopped moving.

What has happened, and this has seemed to accelerate every year since I was born, is that companies have become more and more focused on eking out tinier and tinier extra percentages of profit. Some companies, like Walmart for example, have even made it their policy that they must pay less and less each year for everything they buy, or they will move to another seller that they can get the product more cheaply from. That means that they are trying to guarantee that every year their profits will increase, even if they sell the exact same amount of worthless shit...I mean, merchandise.

And this is happening everywhere. It started with the industrial revolution, but for the longest time after that, it was just simmering away. Over the last 25 or so years, it's been boiling over. Companies have become overly focused on expansionism and empire building. It's not enough for them to be profitable enough to be rich. It's not enough for them to do really well year after year at the same level. No, they want to be richer than they are now, and they want to steamroll into the future up a mountain of profit, squooshing whatever may be in the way. Not only is that greedy, at times it borders on ridiculous lemminglike madness. I mean, people can only drink so many cups of coffee--geez! Eventually, they're going to get tired of it, or at least reach a steady state of saturation. Or maybe they'll decide the price of insulin is too high.

All right, maybe I was digressing there a bit, but it is all related to the fact that many of these companies are not laying off people as a matter of corporate survival. They're laying off people to maintain profit margins. Some of these companies may even have millions or billions of dollars in the bank, but they have totally lost sight of reasonable behavior in their obsession with eking. Even if a few of them are actually somewhat in danger, they give no consideration whatsoever to the people that they're laying off, which proportionately puts the laid off people in far greater danger than the lameass company that wants to ditch them.

There is an alternative. The companies could cut a few expenses here and there on stuff they really don't need, pare down those ridiculous executive wages--heck, how many employees could you keep afloat on something like $60 million a year? I bet you the thousand or so people could get a whole lot more done than that old has-been CEO. They could work on internal initiatives to improve processes and develop new products--do some R&D when they have a little bit more time on their hands. They could make your company a gleaming model of efficiency and have new ideas and products ready to go. I mean, try to actually care for people for once, and maybe do yourself a favor at the same time.

You know that if things get better later on, you're going to have to go to a ridiculous amount of trouble to hire those people back anyway. Why not just keep them around and save yourselves the hassle? Oh, I know, you want to lay them off because your hope is that when you hire new people they will be different ones that you can pay less and won't have to provide good benefits to. But have you really done the math? All that recruiting and paperwork and negotiating cut-rate worthless insurance, the cost and time involved has to add up a bit if you take a real look at it. And you'll also have to train all those people, or be willing to accept their mediocre performance until they finally figure things out, if they even stick around long enough. If you kept the employees you already have, they'd be ready to rock as soon as the opportunity arrived. Heck, they could spend the downtime learning new things and getting even better at their jobs.

Geez, you guys are so short-sighted. By being greedy, you're dooming yourselves and the poor employees that are your victims. And I would have to guess that you're helping to bring our whole global economy down. I mean, who's going to have any financial confidence in themselves, and moral confidence in you, and want to patronize your business if you're laying people off like that?

Bailing Out the Irresponsible

2008-11-25T19:23:00.000-08:00

Although I can see some advantages to bailing out some folks that are in trouble, all of these huge government plans to spin us into even huger debt have me wondering something. How should I feel as a person who very responsibly worked hard for years to raise himself out of debt, when people who were totally irresponsible and unrealistic get tons of money handed out to them, as if legitimizing their mistakes? I mean, where's the consideration for responsible people? Shouldn't we get some help, too, so we can even better enjoy the fruits of our responsibility?

Audience of zero

2008-11-25T01:08:00.000-08:00

It's late, true, and I'm feeling punchy, but I'm getting a big kick out of the fact that probably no one reads my blog. Ha ha!

I'll pay more taxes!

2008-11-25T00:59:00.000-08:00

My dear friend Barrack,

I'm serious, I would be happy to pay more taxes, even though I'm not considered rich. Of course, the tax increase you proposed wouldn't even affect me, but if it did, I would be fine with that. I'm not one of those people who thinks we can save the country by just printing more money, I know that tax money is required to support our infrastructure and fund programs. It really bothers me that rich people would complain about paying more taxes--they're rich for chrissake! Geez, don't be selfish. As hard as you think you've worked for your millions, I bet you I've worked just as hard for my thousands, maybe more. Therefore, logic says, you should be the one footing the bill for, you can call me, your financial little brother.

So please, dude, don't delay the tax increase. And please don't believe that rather doubtful theory of trickle-down economics. Man, what nutcase thought that up?

Yours truly,

The Cue

Lasagna--Italian-American Style

2008-11-23T13:15:00.000-08:00

2 Tbsp Olive Oil
3 Cloves Garlic
1 Onion
1 lb. Ground Beef
2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Pepper
1/2 tsp Rosemary
1/2 tsp Oregano
1/2 tsp Parsley
2 6-oz cans Tomato Paste
2 cups Water, Hot
1/2 lb. Lasagna Noodles
1/2 lb. Cottage Cheese
1/2 lb. Shredded Mozzarella Cheese

Chop onion and crush and mince garlic. Saute in ollive oil in large sauce pan over medium heat until onions are translucent. Push onions and garlic to the side and press hamburger out, spreading to fill the rest of the pan. Heat until juice starts coming out of the top, then turn over hamburger. While the other side cooks, chop with spatula into crumbly bits. When hamburger is done, add salt, pepper, rosemary, oregano, and parsley and mix everything with onions and garlic. Add tomato paste and stir. Add hot water and stir. Simmer uncovered, stirring periodically, for 30 minutes on low heat--a spatter shield is recommended.

In the meantime, bring a large pot of water to a boil and boil lasagna noodles for 10 minutes. Drain noodles in colander and rinse with cold water so they won't stick together.

In a 13x9x2-inch pan, first spread a thin layer of the sauce mixture. Cover this with half of the noodles, followed by the cottage cheese, followed by half of the mozzarella. Add a second layer by using half of the remaining sauce, followed by the remaining noodles, followed by the rest of the sauce, and finally topped with the rest of the mozzarella. Bake in 350º oven for 30 minutes or more--until sauce is bubbling. Remove from oven and let stand for 15 minutes to set before serving. Serves 6.

All Ages

2008-11-22T23:29:00.000-08:00

I watch you with 16 year old eyes
as you lace up your combat boots

I watch you with 21 year old eyes
as you wait to get into the bar

I watch you with 27 year old eyes
as you really listen for the first time

I watch you with 30 year old eyes
as you look in the mirror and think

I watch you with 35 year old eyes
as you shake the hand of an old friend

I watch you with 39 year old eyes
as you react to reality sinking in

I watch you with 42 year old eyes
as you turn and look away

Feliz Cumpleaños a Blanca Nuñez

2008-08-31T14:37:00.000-07:00

It's August 31st, Blanca's birthday. I don't know where she is or even if she survived Katrina, but I hope that she's alive and well and having a lovely day, safely out of the way of Hurricane Gustav.

L.A. Public Transit Experiment #2

2008-08-23T21:18:00.000-07:00

Parameters

Origin: Palms, near Motor and Venice
Destination: Warung Cafe, downtown L.A.
Mode: Bus
Intended Departure Time: 7:00 p.m.
E.T.A.: 8:00 p.m.

Description

Just a few days after the Toluca Lake party, another friend was a having a party downtown at this place called Warung, a sort of fusion of Asian, Latin, and traditional western haute cuisine in tapas-sized servings. Although I had had a bad experience on Saturday, my confidence was fairly high with regard to this trip. It would only require one bus, leaving from the same stop I'd started at before, and would drop me off only a short block from my destination.

Once again, just after 7:00, I descended to street level from my apartment to begin my mini odyssey. This time, however, when I arrived at the Motor intersection, I saw that a bus was about to arrive. Unfortunately, the timer on my green light to cross was already ticking away. What should I do? As an injured person hampered by having to use a crutch to get around, my first thought was one of resignation, that I'd miss that bus and would have to wait and probably arrive late, and it would be at least partially my own fault. But on second thought... I picked the crutch up off the ground and surreptitiously skittered across the road, hoping no one would notice, and resumed crutch use once I got to the other side. Who was I kidding, really? I didn't even *have* to use the crutch physically speaking--I could walk totally fine--but I'd vowed to stay on the crutch for a full month from the date my doctor had told me to.

Anyway, I made it onto the 33 bus, and it was refreshingly only about half full, leaving enough room for everyone to have a double seat. The bus was peaceful, the night was cool and flowing through the bus' open windows, and we cruised along, only picking up a few more passengers before doling all of them out along our way to downtown.

I was the last passenger to get off, at the Winston street stop, just before 4th. I made it to the restaurant within a few minutes, and opened the door five minutes before my E.T.A., at 7:55. It was a marked contrast to my previous journey. Added to that, the food was delicious, the company marvelous--quite a success.

I recommend trying Warung sometime.

Stay tuned for L.A. Public Transit Experiment #3, the last of the trilogy.

L.A. Public Transit Experiment #1

2008-08-22T23:09:00.000-07:00

Parameters

Origin: Palms, near Motor and Venice
Destination: Toluca Lake, residential neighborhood on Camarillo
Mode: Multimode including bus, metro train, and taxi
Intended Departure Time: 7:00 p.m.
E.T.A.: 9:00 p.m.

Description

Being temporarily disabled with a broken arm and a slightly fractured hip and hence unable to drive, when a friend in Toluca Lake (a wealthy neighborhood nestled between NoHo and Burbank) invited me to a party, I thought it would be a good opportunity to try an L.A. public transit experiment. Could I get from my house to his house entirely by public transportation, and, if so, within a reasonable amount of time?

Delving into the public transit web site, www.metro.net, I discovered that it was quite doable to take relatively cheap public transit to within a couple of miles of my friend's house. It was even possible to get within a mile or so by connecting to one particular bus, but the schedule for that bus was extremely limited, and I had no interest in hobbling a whole mile with a crutch anyway even if the timing did fit my plans. So the plan worked out such that I could get to his house by taking two buses, the red line subway, and a taxi for the remaining short distance from the metro station. Given the schedules for these four modes of transportation, I arrived at a conservative estimate of two hours door to door, allowing some room for error and traffic.

I hobbled out of the house at about 7:05, down Venice a ways, and across at Motor to the south side bus stand for the 33/333 bus. At that time, the buses were supposed to be running approximately every 17 minutes. Just past 25 minutes later, by which time I'd stopped bothering to peer back down the road for buses, the other guy who was waiting with me said "A bus comes." As we readied ourselves, he added "I hope it's not full. I'd really like to sit down." He appeared to be an auto mechanic, and it looked quite likely that he'd been working since 7:00 that morning, not to mention however much commuting time to get there. I hoped for his sake there were seats open.

Well, when the bus pulled up, it was obvious that he wouldn't be sitting down--the bus was jammed full. I feared for my own chances, in fact, as I maneuvered my way up the stairs, but someone did make a space for me to sit, to my great relief. I tried not to look at the mechanic guy...felt bad.

At Fairfax I extricated myself from the masses and backtracked slightly to the bus stop for the #217. Depending on the arrival time, the expected wait would be a maximum of 17 to 23 minutes. The minutes stretched far past the maximum. I started getting anxious. A mentally infirm woman started babbling and threatening to walk off, while her companion tried to calm her and get her to stay. I was able to hold back on babbling myself, but I did end up muttering a bit. I was starting to get really hungry, and it was already almost the time that I'd expected to arrive at the party, which still lay three modes of transport away. However, overall I was remarkably zen about the situation. I can be pretty patient.

Finally, just before 9:00, over 50 minutes since I'd arrived at the stop, the bus finally pulled up. Quite a crowd had built up, and we all tumbled onto the bus, filling it about halfway. As we traveled up Fairfax, very quickly the bus was nearly full. We heard from others that they had waited for more than an hour and a half, and from the bus driver that the bus that was supposed to have come earlier (and what about the other one that was supposed to have come in between there?) had broken down. Of course L.A. had no replacement bus to fill in for it. This all came to a head when we crossed Wilshire to find more than 20 people waiting when we only had room for five. The driver let on, of course, more than the five, but eventually he had to stop people from coming on and close the doors. Man, there were some angry people left behind, yelling and pounding on the side of the bus as we pulled away.

And there were plenty more angry people as the bus driver just blew past any stops with people at them unless someone had to get off. Even then he'd go past the stop to try to let people off without letting anyone new on. Finally at the stop in front of Whole Foods at the corner of Santa Monica, enough people got off that folks could breathe and most could sit. But that wasn't the end of our tribulations. I knew we still had to get past Sunset Blvd., and having lived within a couple hundred feet of that intersection for several years, I knew that there's always some stupid shit going down there. And that night was no exception.

We pulled up to the stop next to Bristol Farms at Sunset, people got off, and people got on, three of which were the same teens I've seen selling chocolate bars on street corners around town for some school fund-raiser. For some reason, one of the teens decided to swear at the bus driver, I think because the driver wasn't sure the kid had paid the full amount. Immediately, the bus driver set the brakes, picked up the receiver, and radioed the dispatcher to call the police. A circus ensued with people getting on and off the bus, fuming, yelling, etc. The kids in question themselves actually got off the bus to the cheers of the other passengers, but the driver obsinately refused to move the bus until the police came, regardless of the kids' presence. The bus driver was heartily berated, as we sat there for 25 minutes, many people now over two hours late for whatever they were supposed to be going to, and for at least several that was their job, not a party.

Finally the police did come, and for some reason the kids had stuck around, so they were treated to a talking to on the sidewalk as the driver gave in and started the bus moving. Many of the passengers cheered, but I couldn't really see any reason for it--the driver was still a dickhead, even if the bus was back in action.

Having not eaten or drank a thing for hours, nor used a rest room, once off the bus I went straight into McDonald's. The cashiers and the bathroom both had lines, but I was kind of past caring, and the food line was longer, so I just made the bathroom stop then three-legged myself as quickly as possible out of there, across the street, and down into the bowels of the red line station at Hollywood & Highland.

It was such a relief to reach a mode of transportation that was reliable! I wasn't thrilled that I had to wait another 10 minutes for a train, but it did seem miniscule in comparison to the ordeal I'd already suffered...and it was. So in about 15 minutes I was at the Universal City metro stop and making my way above ground to call a taxi a little after 10:00.

As I'd discovered that United Taxi was the best service on the West Side, I'd naturally looked up their number in The Valley. Every time I'd called a taxi in L.A., someone had always picked up immediately. This time, however, I was sent into an undefined waiting queue listening to hold music and taxi ads over and over again for about five minutes. Finally I gave up, hung up, and called again. I was put back into the queue, but in about a minute a dispatcher answered, asked me where the pickup was, and said a taxi would be there in five to fifteen minutes. He didn't ask me my name or phone number, but I didn't think much of it--I actually thought they were being extra efficient and pulling my number off caller ID or something.

As I waited, I saw dozens and dozens of taxis come out of or go by Universal Studios, but nearly every single one was a City Cab. In fact, I only saw one United taxi, and that one flew right past me and onto the highway. I guess that wasn't mine.

About 25 minutes later, it was seeming that they hadn't been *extra* efficient. I called again, and this time a different dispatcher picked up immediately. I told him about my previous call and the waiting, and he checked, and in fact there was no record of it--no taxi would have come. So I had to wait, yes, again, "5 to 15 minutes," and about 15 minutes later *my* taxi finally arrived. Of course the guy seemed totally out of his element and didn't know the neighborhood that well, so, not surprisingly given the way the night had gone, he ended up missing the turn onto Cahuenga and went totally out of the way on Lankershim, nearly doubling the distance and, surprise, the fare to get to a certain spot on Camarillo. I really hate taxi drivers who don't know where they're going. I mean, it's their friggin' job! It'd be like me not knowing the English language but being an editor.

So approximately four hours after my departure from my West Side apartment, I arrived at my friend's Toluca Lake condo fashionably late and with an extra story to tell along with the one about my broken bones.

Stay tuned for L.A. Public Transit Experiment #2!

Yes!

2008-03-05T01:14:00.000-08:00

Vermont towns vote to arrest Bush and Cheney

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080305/us_nm/usa_politics_vermont_dc

Don't f*** with Vermont!

Proud to be a Vermonter,

The Cue

A quote about relationships

2008-01-16T19:14:00.000-08:00

Tis true, I am wont to enjoy a French roman now and then, and in Andre Gide's Strait is the Gate I recently found a quote that expressed both one way I see relationships in general and how it is that relationships between people who don't natively speak the same language can actually be strong despite (or because of) the difficulty of communicating.

He says:

I used to like learning the piano, because it seemed to me that I was able to make some progress in it every day. That too, perhaps is the secret of the pleasure I take in reading a book in a foreign language; not, indeed, that I prefer any other language whatever to our own, or that the writers I admire in it appear to me in any way inferior to those of other countries—but the slight difficulty that lies in the pursuit of their meaning and feeling, the unconscious pride of overcoming this difficulty, and of overcoming it more and more successfully, adds to my intellectual pleasure a certain spiritual contentment, which it seems to me I cannot do without.

Peter Shneidre, In Memoriam

2007-10-07T00:10:00.000-07:00

I met Peter almost exactly five years ago when he interviewed me for the job I still have today. I remember being intimidated as the interview started—more by the situation than by the person sitting across from me—and I sat there wondering just what this bewhiskered fellow in a rumpled suit was going to ask me.

But as soon as Peter started talking, I relaxed. He wasn't a corporate spy out to trick me into saying the wrong thing, he was a writer passionate about the written word and eager to discern my passions in that area. He put me at ease, got me to talk about things I love to talk about, encouraged me, and ultimately, I guess, decided I was right for the job.

It seemed like Peter did a lot of that sort of thing in his life. He pursued his passions of music and writing, brought others in to share those passions, found out what they loved or what they were good at, and encouraged them to fully realize that love or talent. What made it easy to love and respect Peter was that he showed love and respect for others. Beyond that, as far as I could see, he always seemed to treat others as peers, even when they might not consider themselves such.

At times I was humbled by how erudite Peter could be, how he seemed to think about things in a far more sophisticated way than I ever could. In fact, at times I felt he operated on a higher plane of reality, as if he was some sort of otherworldly being who knew more about life, art, or the spirit than meets the eye. I'll never forget this one time when he gave me something he'd written and asked me to have a look. I read the piece, thought it was kind of strange, and had a hard time figuring out what to say when I gave it back to him. At least a couple days or maybe even a week or two later, I realized that the piece was actually an elaborate and well-executed joke, and it had taken me days of subconscious processing to appreciate it. The fact that Peter had given me the piece with an air of utter seriousness made the joke just that much more funny.

But, as I suggested earlier, Peter wasn't looking to intimidate people, he was looking to enable them. So it was that on another occasion he boosted my confidence immeasurably by asking if I would help out by playing a little percussion for the CD he and Anya were making. Although in the end I felt very humbled by what I was able to contribute, Peter treated my contribution as if I were a key player, making me feel proud in spite of myself. When Peter found an opportunity to help make people feel good about themselves, he did so.

Like many who know Peter, I was shocked to hear about his sudden death, saddened at losing him, and frustrated that I hadn't been in touch with him more recently. So the other night I was lying in bed, unable to sleep and feeling very upset. Losing Peter was such a terrible thing, and that loss would affect so many people. I thought of driving to the memorial service and imagined that maybe there would be many cars. I thought of traffic being stopped to let the cars go through to the Vedanta Society, and saw in my mind pedestrian mourners waiting to cross the street to walk there. But then something happened to my sad musings—suddenly those mourners started salsa dancing in the middle of the street. That wasn't supposed to happen!

I'm not sure if that was the hand of Peter from beyond or just my own brain, but it does remind me that Peter, his life, and the things he was able to do while on this earth, are things to be celebrated. He did so much good for so many people, that we should be happy that we were able have him here with us, even if for such a short time. I am happy and honored to have been his colleague and his friend.

Helpful Hint #1

2007-08-08T23:50:00.000-07:00

How to Kill Fruit Flies

If you already know how to kill them, then you probably already know why there's a special way. If so, you can stop reading now. Go check out one of my other posts, eh?

Assuming that only those who don't know the reason why you need a special way to kill fruit flies are still reading, here's the deal. Fruit flies have a built-in turbo mechanism. That is, when they need to accelerate quickly, they can. That's the sneaky thing about fruit flies. They tend to fly pretty slowly most of the time, and their bodies are very mooshy and easily squished, so they often give the impression of being easy to kill. But then when you make a move to kill them, often you'll find yourself coming up empty handed, though you were certain you would have gotten them. What you didn't take into account was the fly's using its turbo. Fortunately, once you realize that, you can easily compensate for it.

What do you do? As usual, get a bead on the fruit fly and keep him locked in your sights. When you're ready to smack him, though, don't just whack your hands together where he is at the moment. Instead, take into account his trajectory and use of the turbo and whack your hands together a couple inches ahead of the fly in the direction it's traveling. More often than not, if you're quick, you'll be lucky enough to have a small, squished bloody mess on your palms. Most likely if you've seen one, then you'll get plenty of chance to practice, as fruit flies rarely walk alone.

As an interesting aside, I was once in a situation where my apartment was constantly being attacked by small brown ants. I found many ways to kill them with various poisons and cleaning fluids, but often enough I would just use my thumb to squish them. Unlike fruit flies and certain other insects, ants are usually pretty easy to get, and these were no exception. However, what was interesting was that over time the ants starting learning somewhat from their mistakes. I guess one of the advantages of having a hive mentality and constantly reproducing more and more members is that, in a way, such groups can actually evolve instinctually (intellectually?) fairly quickly. So eventually, after a few weeks, when the ants saw me coming they'd start running avoidance patterns, like they were a bunch of tiny football players trying not to get tackled. Of course, I still easily killed them, but it was rather impressive to have been able to observe such a phenomenon taking place in my very own apartment.

Idiocracy in action

2007-07-31T23:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was sitting at my usual post in front of UCLA having lunch when I experienced the live, in-person version of the sort of thing you'd be more likely to see in a Keystone Cops silent movie.

Directly ahead of me, on my side of the street, a good-size parking space lay open. I knew that wouldn't last for long in Westwood Village, and soon a large white passenger van zipped up, ready to take the space. Before the van was parked, though, a man opened the passenger side door and jumped out. As he stepped away from the van, it became evident that he was there to help the driver to park the admittedly unwieldy van. But the driver cut his wheels in and immediately backed up. He moved so quickly that his assistant didn't even have the time to tell him to stop before the van mashed into the front bumper of the car behind it with an audible crunch. The assistant seemed a little dismayed and seemed to be looking for damage to the parked car, but the driver just casually took the van out of reverse and pulled forward as if nothing had happened.

Van parked, the driver hopped out and came around to the passenger side to open the side door. He was a total redneck--literally--and had messed up dirty blonde hair, a terrible-fitting blazing red wife-beater T-shirt, and some kind of trucker's hat on. But soon an even bigger surprise came pouring out, small dirty blonde head after dirty blonde head, mostly girls, ranging from five to teenager, seven of them in total! And last but not least, the overweight blonde mother in an overly sparkly black sparkly outfit.

A few of them quickly glanced at the victimized car, but just as quickly glanced away and started jumping up and down in excitement. All ten of them streamed up the sidewalk to the totally innocuous UCLA sign with no view of anything and took a picture. Then the assistant guy, who seemed to be the father, with the wife beater being his idiot brother, asked one of my fellow lunch eaters which way to UCLA. The guy gestured in a broad way to encompass everything behind him as if to say, "Well, this is it right here." Then in answer to another question he gestured in a "Oh, that's over there, deeper inside the campus" kinda way.

The father's expression was one of consternation as he reluctantly led his flock back towards the van. But wait! There's the University Store selling knockoffs of UCLA memorabilia! We don't have to actually go into the university itself after all! You could see the excitement on every little face, and the adults', too.

The whole group assembled by the side of the road behind their van, a mass of blonde heads, about 25 feet from a crosswalk with a traffic light at a busy intersection. When the traffic lessened somewhat, but while there were still cars coming from not far away, the group burst out across the street. They ran pell mell in all directions only roughly approximating straight, while several cars braked to a stop, unfortunately, to keep from killing them.

Minutes later, they emerged from the store, jumping up and down gleefully, the teenager wearing a brand new UCLA knockoff sweatshirt and pulling the front of it outward with pinched fingers to show off the U-C-L-A to everyone. Mission accomplished, it was again time to cross the street. This time, the group of ten lined up side-by-side along the edge of the road, as if they were going to join hands and start singing or something. A slight lull in traffic... And they're racing across the street, presenting a broad swath of blondies ready to be squished by any number of oncoming cars! Somehow, they all made it. The various doors of the van opened, and they poured into the van, closed the doors, and pulled out so quickly that I felt like someone had just run the film in reverse.

About ten minutes later the owner of the victimized car came along, didn't even look at her bumper, hopped in, and drove away. Huh, come to think of it, it was a pretty crappy car anyway--didn't look any worse with a slightly mashed-in bumper.

Rain in L.A.

2007-07-31T22:52:00.000-07:00

A week ago when I walked out into the daylight of the living room from the cryptlike dark of my bedroom, I saw that my balcony was shining with wet. It had rained! I hadn't heard a thing, I hadn't experienced the occurrence itself in any way while it was happening, but rain had fallen overnight, and it was the first rain we'd gotten in six months. It was a Wednesday, so I'd be biking to work that day. I imagined emerging into the freshness of wet green grass, and feeling the cool moist air against my face as I sped up the street....

About half an hour later I was ready to go, grabbed my bike and my backpack, and made my way down to the street with anticipation. I also felt a bit of trepidation as I was concerned about the possibility of puddles in combination with crazy L.A. drivers, but it seemed the street was drying pretty well. As I launched myself, found the pedals, and switched from fifth into sixth, I breathed deeply and smelled...dog piss. What happens in L.A. when it doesn't rain for six months? The dog piss accumulates on everything, waiting for that day when rain will come and release the accumulated stench of the repeated sprayings of dozens of neighborhood pups.

I rode as quickly as I could out of the neighborhood and out to the main city street, relieved when I reached the unsmelling unbroken expanse of pavement and concrete.

Sicko Review

2007-07-21T02:27:00.000-07:00

This is one of those movies that should be required viewing for all Americans. The simple facts discussed in and implied by this movie are facts that everyone in the U.S. needs to be aware of. Of course, what's even more important is that people...well...just plain need to be aware!

From its roots in the Nixon administration to its current existence as a well-established factory for corruption and bilking people, the American HMO and health insurance industry is greedy and profit-mongering. At the same time, it reaches out to other greedy and profit-mongering entities--such as politicians--and uses their greed to bring the insurance industry even further riches through the double-talking deception of sham legislation.

Nearly every national-level politician benefits immensely from corporate donations from all sorts of industries, not just health insurance but pharmaceuticals, oil, utilities, automotive, mining, gambling, chemicals--you name it. It's chilling to watch, in one scene, the floating boxes showing just how much each politician in a room full of capitol hill dwellers had received from the pharmaceutical industry. I could only imagine the next step, giant photographs of the whole Senate and the whole House, bristling with tiny boxes showing the immense number and size of all the payoffs from all the industries.

We live in a land where those companies are willing to spend millions of dollars in payoffs for the sake of earning more billions of dollars in profits, yet are so stingy that they've forced doctors to limit the average time with any given patient to eight minutes and have ensured that many people won't even be able to see a doctor at all. Although perhaps some of the pictures Moore paints in Sicko are slightly too rosy, the fact remains that in the rest of the modern world, any country that's even moderately well off guarantees healthcare to all of its citizens. There may be some hassles, there may be some waiting, and the treatment might not be the absolute best available in the world, but in the end, the people in those countries know that they can count on treatment, and that that treatment will cost them either nothing or very little above and beyond the taxes they've already paid.

I for one would be happy to pay a much higher tax rate to, yes, guarantee myself healthcare, but even more so to guarantee healthcare to those who can't afford it in our current system.

As one very articulate British interviewee points out, the reason our current situation can continue in our country is that the U.S. government does its best to keep people ignorant, keep them in the dark, and make them feel powerless and politically apathetic, with the end result that they're both unwilling to try to raise a finger against the way things are and terrified about what could happen if they attempted to do so.

Its fact like these, and the huge fetid mound of other sad facts that they imply, that left me with this one question in my mind as I left the theater: "What am I doing living in this country?" Go see Sicko, show it to others, make the unwilling see it by force if need be...and then maybe we can all charter a boat or a plane to somewhere that cares about its people.

Perhaps a frugality blog

2005-05-08T23:13:00.000-07:00

will be coming this way soon.

The man can't even apologize correctly

2005-01-14T09:09:00.000-08:00

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=703&e=1&u=/ap/20050114/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_regrets

Days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Bush said he wanted to catch Osama bin Laden "dead or alive," a phrase that reinforced the U.S. president's international image as a cowboy.

Bush said his wife, Laura, disapproved and "chewed me out right after that."

"So I do have to be cautious about, you know, conveying thoughts in a way maybe that doesn't send wrong impressions about our country," he said.

Correction, not a tsunami

2004-09-30T18:47:00.000-07:00

In case any of you were worried, Japan was not destroyed by a 100-foot wave earlier this week. That was a typhoon, not a tsunami, and although it caused a lot of mud to go into unintended places, one probably couldn`t say that it destroyed the whole country.

Unfortunately, it looks like another typhoon is coming along right now and will be inundating Okinawa the whole time I`m there. Well, I`ve been saying lately that I miss the rain, so I guess I will get a healthy does of that novelty. Perhaps I will see if I can put together a three-day texas hold `em tournament, since that seems to be the thing to do these days.

Grabbing life by the balls when you`re at the airport

2004-09-30T18:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, well, I was going to be out experiencing life, rending every bit of enjoyment possible from it`s steely grasp、but I`m not sure how much rending I can do when I`m spending most of my life waiting for airplanes. Not a complaint. Rather than rending, I`ve been savoring a fresh-fried red bean paste sugar doughnut. I think this is a reasonable compromise. All is going well, I may have insulted a whole race of people countless times--albeit unknowingly--but I seem to have lived to tell the tale.　In a little while, it`s off to Okinawa for a bit of fun in the sun and typhoon avoidance behavior. Ta ta from Osaka`s Itami Airport.

Greetings from...

2004-09-29T14:44:00.000-07:00

LAX!

Yes, as one might surmise, my ass is stuck in L.A. Supposedly our 1:50 flight is going to leave at 5:00, but I'm not counting my yen yet. I'm betting I'm going to be calling someone in a few hours to pick me up, then I'll have to slog down here again tomorrow and pray the flight actually takes off then. Perhaps I should find myself one of those annoying forest sprites from Spirited Away and sacrifice it to the Shinto god of keeping flights on time. Well, I might not be able to do that until I get to Japan, although perhaps I could find the California equivalent of that--perhaps an errant silicone implant gamboling through the forest.

News from J-land is that a tsunami is sweeping through the country right now. It looked really cool on the weather map, this glaring fuschia knot at the center of a giant spiral turbulence that covered the whole country. If I can make it there tomorrow, though, it's expected to have run its course by then.

Ha, well, enough of my babble for now. I'm sure at this rate there will be far more to come than would be desirable anyway.

Kampai!

Getting ready for the trip

2004-09-20T01:32:00.000-07:00

If you're reading this, then very likely I'll be sending trip updates
that everyone can read as I traverse the lands of Japan and China,
after October 1. Although, truthfully, I'll try not to spend too much
time indoors on a computer, since I can do that anywhere, all the
time.
--
Save the world--Impeach Bush

Middle East Release of Fahrenheit 9/11

2004-08-15T01:08:00.000-07:00

Wow, just read a great article about what's been going on in response to the release of Fahrenheit 9/11 in the Middle East. Read it here:

'Fahrenheit 9/11' Provokes Arab Reactions

This is really a great thing.

Sorry folks

2004-07-15T00:31:00.000-07:00

The Man has been doing his best to keep me down.

But in the words of Henry

Rise above, we're gonna rise above!

Bush reelection=the draft

2004-07-01T22:49:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my Vermont friend for e-mailing me this quote:

"Pictures of dead American soldiers, including Vermonters, have become a staple of the nightly news. And Selective Service officials we’ve spoken to say privately that if Bush is reelected, the military draft will start up in 2005. Twenty-year-olds will go first, we’re told."

http://www2.sevendaysvt.com/track/2004/062304track.html

quoted from the column "The World is a Better Place"

BY PETER FREYNE

Seven Days Newspaper, Burlington, VT — published 06.23.04

See Fahrenheit 9/11 after Control Room

2004-07-01T00:16:00.000-07:00

Probably many folks out there saw Fahrenheit 9/11 and almost no one saw Control Room. I just saw the Moore film tonight, and of course I would say, everyone needs to see this film. Needs, not should. Then maybe we can squeak in a Bush impeachment before he loses the election, so he can be doubly defeated.

A woman sitting close to me was sobbing as soon as the footage of Iraq started and continued through much of the rest of the film. I wanted to comfort her, and I hope that she was with someone who actually did do so. I myself cried enough as well, but in the quiet male way.

That said, I do have to say that Control Room is a much better film, much more objective, much more mature and professional, and relies more on the irony of what was said when it was made in 2003 and how that compares to today's reality than on cheap shots and goofy stunts.

If you care about the world, though, see both films, as they definitely both serve a good purpose.

Seen Fahrenheit 9/11? Don't miss Control Room

2004-06-29T00:11:00.000-07:00

Just as Fahrenheit 9/11 is quietly being buried--Yahoo has dropped it off its initial list of movies on its movie site, for example, and most of the theaters that it was showing at will stop showing it after Tuesday--a five-day run for the top grossing movie in the country? Excuse me?--Control Room has been largely ignored and relegated to a single location in L.A. County, for example, the Cecchi Gori on Wilshire.

"What the hell is Control Room?" most of you are probably asking. Well, if I say Al Jazeera, probably most of you will also say "What the hell is Al Jazeera?" Well, first things first, Al Jazeera is the television network based in Doha, Qatar, that has been nice enough to keep us up to date on the latest beheadings. More importantly, however, before that whole debacle began, Al Jazeera has provided those who can actually receive it--that is when it's signal isn't being jammed, its web site isn't being blocked, and its offices arent' being bombed--a valuable alternative perspective on the events unfolding in the Middle East, in both Iraq and the rest of the Arab world.

Control Room is a documentary mainly focused on the operations, reporting, and staff of Al Jazeera, but partially in comparison to the American and European media stationed at the American military's media headquarters in the same city as well as to the military and political purveyors of information themselves. At times the hand of the director or the hand of those in front of the camera will tilt the perspective in one direction or other, but most of the film actually comes off as quite objective. In fact, a couple of the most suprisingly lucid and fair statements--granted, amidst many that are pure gobbledygook--come from the American military communications officer interviewed or pictured in a continuous thread throughout the film. Overall, though, the least obfuscation comes from the self-deprecating reporters and staff of Al Jazeera itself, and from such interviewees as a group of men in a local cafe as they respond in real time to Bush's 48-hour warning to Iraq.

Note that any comments you may have read regarding the filmmaker herself and her ability to speak and understand Arabic are utter nonsense. I can't remember a single moment in the film where we even see or hear her or see any reaction to her, which helps immensely to maintain the objectivity that is so valuable in a work that is so likely to be slandered by the closed-minded.

Anyway, take some of your hard-earned dollars and go see it. You'll be more informed, and you'll have plenty of opportunities to titter as you hear what our politicians were saying a year ago and how ironically it mismatches the reality of today.

Yours truly,

C. Cue

Equal air time

2004-06-26T23:55:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't it be hilarious if someone actually tried to produce a documentary to prove how great Bush was? That would be good for a laugh.

Swift reply from the honorable Senator Leahy

2004-06-16T23:15:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr. Cue:

Thank you for contacting me about the Federal Marriage
Amendment. I appreciate hearing from you.

I will oppose this amendment because I believe that states should
have the power to define marriage within their borders.

The Constitution is a sacred document and altering it is a grave
undertaking. We should only take this action in the most
extraordinary circumstances. On February 24, 2004, President
Bush announced he would support a constitutional amendment to
ban same-sex marriages. Our leaders are supposed to appeal to our
hopes and aspirations, not to our biases or fears. By endorsing this
amendment to the Constitution, President Bush has failed this test.

Again, thank you for contacting me. Please keep in touch.

Patrick Leahy
United States Senator

http://leahy.senate.gov/

Blog subscription at http://leahy.senate.gov/Subscription.html

Let's not forget...

2004-06-07T23:46:00.000-07:00

Reagan was a dickhead before he became a helpless old man.

The proposed Federal Marriage Amendment

2004-05-31T15:07:00.000-07:00

Dear Senator,

I am writing to express my opposition to the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, which may be coming up for a vote later this year.

Such reactionary legislation goes against everything we’ve achieved in the past two centuries in trying to guarantee equal treatment for every American. If we need any legislation in this area, it should be to expand the coverage of what qualifies as marriage and who qualifies for it, not to limit it.

Just as important as the rights issue is the issue of maintaining the separation of church and state. Such a separation is essential if we are to maintain another of our essential rights: the freedom of religion. The only way to maintain freedom of religion is to remove any religious considerations from government policies—that is, to create policies without religious overtones that can accommodate different beliefs. Otherwise, any law passed will risk oppressing any of those who have beliefs different from those of the lawmakers.

Although some claim that we must define marriage based on religious beliefs because it is based on a religious institution, that has not been entirely true for many years. Many Americans for many years have chosen to be married in civil ceremonies. Civil ceremonies performed by a judge or other civically licensed individual have been available for close to two centuries. And those ceremonies have always had the full force of law and have conferred a fully valid marriage license on the couple involved. These couples have not been considered any different, in name or in the eyes of the law or the majority of society, from couples married in a religious ceremony at a place of worship. One of the most happily married couples I know—together for more than 10 years and with three children—was married in a civil ceremony.

The fairest solution to the issue at hand is not to limit the definition of marriage but to maintain the separation of church and state while continuing to expand our guarantee of equality to all Americans. Any two people—of any gender—who wish to be married should be eligible to be married in a civil marriage ceremony sanctioned by the U.S. government. As citizens of the United States, this should be their right. However, to acknowledge that in America we respect all religions, it should remain up to the authorities of particular religions, or individual proprietors of those faiths, as to whether any given couple is eligible to be married in a religious ceremony. Such decisions related to religious issues should be left to the members of a religion and are not a concern of the government.

I thank you for considering my opinion in this matter, a opinion shared by many other Americans, even if you don’t see letters from each and every one.

Sincerely yours,

C. Cue

Spain pulling out of Iraq

2004-04-25T13:40:00.000-07:00

c. cue: Man, psyched about the whole Spain and Poland thing. Putting the screws to old bush.
the historian: well
the historian: I'm ambivalent about the spain thing
the historian: cannot send the message to terrorists
the historian: that their technics give results
the historian: spain should have stood fast for a few more months and then changed their support
the historian: so that it doesn't send the message out that terrorism works
c. cue: Well...acknowleding the underlying reason for the terrorism and its legitimacy is something though. Our invading someone is just heavily funded terrorism.
c. cue: I'm sure if the palestinians had real money they would just have a normal war against Israel.
c. cue: for example
the historian: well of course. .
the historian: warfare of a heavily outclassed opponent
the historian: the most effective combat technique is guerrila
the historian: and if that fails
the historian: terrorism
the historian: but the difference with terrorism
the historian: is the target of forces against noncoms and civilians
the historian: i support israel's stance
c. cue: shock without the awe
the historian: that terrorism must never be shown to be effective
the historian: because that would only encourage more terrorism
c. cue: True, I agree that can be the case. But sometimes responding early enough with a capitulation can stop terrorism, too.
the historian: I disagree
the historian: terrorism must never haveany results
the historian: unfortunately
the historian: I think the example must be set
c. cue: It's easy to deny you're wrong and to maintain the appearance of power. It takes more intelligence to be able to admit your wrong without losing power.
the historian: i mean irregardless of the cause
c. cue: So those in power rarely admit they were wrong.
the historian: well of course those in power will never admit they are wrong
the historian: with the exception of robert macnamara
the historian: who admitted the whole vietnam policy was wrong
the historian: but that was 20 years after the fact
c. cue: yeah, either when it's safe or when there is extreme pressure and solid evidence
c. cue: Well, anyway, the Polish guy I think responded in a way you'd prefer, that they think they can withdraw a little earlier next year than they planned.
the historian: yeah
the historian: at least it give an appearance that they weren't 'forced' to make a move
c. cue: As far as Spain goes, though, they made the decision because they needed to deliver on a campaign promise. Unfortunately, though, the terrorists will see it as their victory.
the historian: yeah
the historian: that's unfortunate
the historian: bush is looking bad
the historian: tho if he catches osama bin laden between now and november
the historian: he'll have a lock
the historian: which is why the afghanistan campaign is suddenly gotten new life
the historian: benefits of being the incumbant candidate
c. cue: Yeah. Kerry's being a band-wagoneer though, hoping against hope.
the historian: the thing about running a campaign in this country
the historian: is all the region stuff
the historian: I mean you talk to everyone
the historian: and most people around you hate bush
the historian: and his policies
the historian: but you are encapsulated by like people
the historian: look how polarized the last election was
the historian: with gore getting almost allthe coasts
the historian: and bush taking the middle
c. cue: yeah, totally
c. cue: Well, it reminds me of brain-drain. All the brains leave the midwests for the coasts leaving the others to hold downt the fort.
c. cue: It's like, one time a friend of mine said "Man, Chinese people are so smart!" and I said, "Well, if you go to China, I'm sure plenty of them that are still there are just as dumb as dumb people here."
c. cue: Does conservatism come from boredom?
the historian: it comes from the same attitude that created manifest destiny
the historian: it's a 'we are the chosen people' attitude
c. cue: It's so U.S.-centric. These people need to see other countries.
the historian: ironically
the historian: the republican party started as the new progressive party
the historian: I believe the parties at the time were democrats and whigs
the historian: democrats being the conservative faction
the historian: and abraham lincoln was the first republican president
the historian: on an anti-slavery platform
c. cue: Yes, the two parties--why can't we have more!--are like two sine waves offset by a half waveform.
the historian: well there is also an inherent danger of a multiparty system
c. cue: Sometimes they seem identical, then they switch places.
the historian: because then small extreme minorities can take power
the historian: when the more popular view is split between similiar parties
the historian: example being
the historian: 1930's germany
the historian: where the nazi party took over the country
the historian: with a 37% vote
c. cue: Fortunately most of Europe has been fine with multi parties though, although I guess the Italian guy is a bit dubious.
the historian: european multiparty systems
the historian: are based on a parliament form of government
the historian: where parties form coalitions
the historian: to elect prime ministers or presidents
the historian: therefore no small party can gain power
the historian: minority views can join coalitions and lobby for their interests
the historian: unfortuneately
the historian: with the american system of government
the historian: where there is a direct election of a president
the historian: the multiparty system has it's dangers
the historian: most recent and painful example
the historian: is ralph nader being the spoiler
the historian: and handing the presidency to bush
c. cue: But he didn't turn any swing states though.
the historian: the votes that were cast to the green party in florida
the historian: could have established a more clear victory in that pivotal state
c. cue: Hmm...I had heard the nearly nonexistent nader vote in florida actually made no difference
the historian: the vote difference in florida was less than 700 if i remember correctly
the historian: I think the greens had a very small percentage of the vote
the historian: perhaps 2 or 3 percent
the historian: but that would account for at least 10 to 20 thousand votes
the historian: guestimatedlyu
the historian: 700 is such a miniscule margin
the historian: that even a 1 percent swing would have made a world of difference
c. cue: but it didnt' make a difference in delegates--this isn't direct democracy
the historian: I'm not sure how it would have effected the electoral vote
the historian: but it may have
the historian: overall
the historian: I am sure nader had an impact
the historian: prime example of the well intentioned fool paving the road to hell
c. cue: idealist vs. realist
c. cue: I like the idea of rating the candidates instead of voting for one or the other.
the historian: I got into this email debate with the head of the green party in california
c. cue: Whoever gets the highest score wins.
the historian: such an inflexible idealist
the historian: I felt physically violent
the historian: debating with him
the historian: claiming that gore didn't do enough for the environment
the historian: and therefore it was justifiable to hand the country to bush
c. cue: I think I'd take gore over kerry right now
the historian: well gore is a good example
the historian: of a super bright guy
the historian: with really good intentions
the historian: but unable to communicate it to the masses
the historian: bush is a master of simplifying issues
the historian: into some sort of good ol' boy phrase
the historian: totally glossing over the whole thing
the historian: while gore tried patientlyto explain all the ins and outs of his position
the historian: and basically boring the hell out of the middle american
c. cue: That's all he can muster. Did you hear his response to the question "What do you think of Spain's decision?"
c. cue: bush that is
the historian: no
the historian: what did he say?
c. cue: Uhh. "I came here to eat."
c. cue: (he was visiting an army mess hall)
c. cue: the man can't think
c. cue: Anyway, yeah, you're right about Gore. Well, now he's hanging out being a board member for Apple. Wonder what he'll do after that.
the historian: Jimmy carter had the same problem
the historian: super bright guy
the historian: real good intentions
the historian: and couldn't communicate it
the historian: I mean
the historian: I'm sure you've experienced this phenomena in your personal life
the historian: where you are at the party
the historian: and some total idiot
the historian: with catchy catchphrases
the historian: somehow has the attention of all the chicks
the historian: that guy is bush
c. cue: and the chicks are middle america I take it
the historian: yep
the historian: not too bright
the historian: easily impressed
the historian: zones out when you try to talk about anything intellectual
the historian: gets mad when you tell them that's what they are
c. cue: Ah well. I wonder if the population in that area is decreasing.
c. cue: What with factories going out of business, farms turning into factories, etc.

The essence of freedom and openmindedness

2004-04-11T22:42:00.000-07:00

True freedom is not ruled by the majority. When we're truly free, the minority has the right to self-determination and the right to live how they want to as long as it doesn't hurt others. It is not our right or responsibility to tell people how to live their lives.

People's minds should keep expanding, instead of expanding and
contracting.

Greetings

2004-04-05T22:42:00.000-07:00

Greetings Earthlings!

Open letter to George Bush on his policies

2004-02-23T15:53:00.000-08:00

February 23, 2004

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

President Bush:

I am writing to express my opinions about policy decisions you have made, signed, or been advocating during your time in office. A few of them have seemed reasonable and necessary, but the majority of them have seemed bent on destroying every bit of progress that the United States has achieved politically, socially, economically, and environmentally in the past century.

These have been difficult times for all of us. It can’t be easy to be president these days, and it certainly isn’t easy being an average resident of the United States. Unfortunately, I’m not sure you understand or care that your policy decisions are making the life of the average American much worse now, and promise to make our lives even more full of poverty, fear, and suffering in the future. As far as I can tell, when you make policy decisions, you rarely think of how they will affect the individuals who make up this country. You only think of how they will put profits in your corporate friends’ pockets, how they will assert your power as a republican and a “world leader,” and how they will push forward your reactionary religious and “moral” agenda.

It seemed reasonable to me when you advocated extending unemployment benefits towards the end of 2001. Of course it did, because I was in the midst of spending almost a full year unemployed, during much of which I was homeless, sleeping on someone’s floor. Several of my friends who lost their jobs at the same time are still unemployed even now, some of them just scraping by as they use the last of their savings or finding only seasonal or temporary jobs that aren’t even enough to pay the rent. All the money you’re giving away to corporations and all the jobs you’re sending overseas under the guise of free trade to stimulate the economy aren’t doing them any good.

I grieve heavily even now for the deaths of those who were in the World Trade Center in September 2001. I also grieved heavily when you decided to somehow forget Osama Bin Laden and replace him with Saddam Hussein. Although Saddam Hussein may have been a ruthless despot, he had done nothing directly against the United States. Osama Bin Laden, on the other hand, had a part in ruthlessly murdering several thousand defenseless Americans. Your diversion from the quest for Bin Laden was an insult to those who had died on September 11, and their families and friends who survive them. Your invasion of Iraq was illegal and contrary to the wishes of the majority of the world and the people of the United States. Your destabilization of Iraq and, hence, the whole Middle East means only that our lives are more in danger than ever, regardless of whether you could find Saddam Hussein or not.

Of course, as soon the Americans had taken over Baghdad, you started preparing to dole out payoffs to corporations. How could you put Iraq up for bids to corporations when it was our military that had destroyed much of it in the first place? The government of the United States should be using its military personnel for construction and paying its money to make up for your mistake of invading Iraq. This is not supposed to be an opportunity for you to get more campaign contributions from corporations and to enrich the coffers of your friends.

You have been trying to do much the same thing with the beautiful and fragile lands of our national parks and wilderness. These lands are places we should be spending money to protect, providing caring park employees to nurture, cleaning up from the effects of past misdeeds by mining companies, oil companies, and other corporate interests. But instead, you are turning them into fair game for total disruption, profiteering, slaughter of animal life, poisoning of clean water, erosion of land, and extinction of endangered species. You are giving away the land that we pay our taxes for every year, and the corporations will turn around and make money that we won’t get back. In the meantime, the beauty and the direly needed positive environmental effects of these lands will be destroyed. It’s hard to believe that anyone would want to leave that legacy in his name.

I am only one man with no authority over anyone, but I do as much as I can to counteract the negative effects of your policies. The day you invaded Iraq, I started riding the bus to work to show I’m not personally dependent on oil. When I do have to drive, I don’t get into an SUV that violates what used to be clean air standards and has the fuel economy of a Mack truck. I drive a small passenger car that meets California emissions standards and averages 34 miles per gallon. I recycle everything that can be recycled even though I have to go to a recycling depot half an hour away because my city doesn’t offer home recycling. I conserve water when I shower and wash dishes, and I only wash my car a couple times a year. I care about the environment: I step carefully, I don’t litter, I encourage others to enjoy and appreciate nature, and I advocate conservation to others.

You see, everyone is this country is not like you. In fact, most of us care a lot more about the world than your actions seem to indicate you do.

Aside from international relations and the environment, you have made an assault on the character of democracy itself in the United States. You started off on the wrong foot by declaring yourself winner of an election that, when counting actual votes, you actually lost. Since then you have tried to eliminate the checks and balances that were originally established to ensure that the power of one man could never take precedence over the will of the people. You have staffed the government with people not because they are the best for the job, but because they’ll do what you say, such as encouraging companies to pay low-income employees less per hour to make up for paying them overtime. You also pushed through the Fast Track trade bill to take power away from Congress and put it into your hands, where it has turned into a record trade deficit.

In the meantime, you have also been trying to create a Church State out of the United States—a country founded on the principle of separation of church and state. Your job as president is to try to guide our country in setting and maintaining political, economic, environmental, and social policies. You weren’t elected to impose your religious agenda on the country. Do you intend to make our country like the Taliban’s Afghanistan, ruled by religion? You will find that there’s nothing in your job description or in any law of this country that says you have the right or duty to do that. America was originally settled to give people religious freedom; not the freedom to impose your religion on others, but the freedom to believe whatever you like and to live accordingly.

It’s fine for you to believe what you believe and to bring that to your family and friends, but it is inappropriate for you to force it on our country. You have no right to impose your religious agenda on teaching, family planning, a woman’s right to control her body, and people’s right to have an officially recognized committed relationship.

1. Evolution is the established scientific explanation for the origin of humanity, and we have countless pieces of evidence that we can see and touch that prove it. Families that believe otherwise can teach their children otherwise—outside of public schools.

2. No matter how much you preach to them about abstinence, people will still have sex, and condoms and other birth control methods can protect them from unwanted pregnancies and diseases—these people should be protected by the law and supplied with the information and resources they need, not punished or left ignorant.

3. When denied access to birth control, people will get pregnant, and some will even risk death to abort pregnancies when they can’t possibly take care of a child. Abortions should be available to protect the lives of these people and others who need to not have children.

4. Being gay or lesbian is just how a certain percentage of people are, not something unnatural that should be shunned or discriminated against. And if gays or lesbians want to marry legally, they should be able to get a license to marry and be given their vows by a civil authority such as a judge. If a specific church doesn’t want to marry them—which is a religious matter—then it has the right not to. But the legal marriage remains valid regardless.

Finally, the policies you have followed are what has made many of us, frankly, ashamed to be Americans. For so many years, other presidents—including your republican predecessors—worked hard to forge international agreements. Yet you dishonor those efforts and the efforts of international bodies by disregarding those agreements, refusing to sign new agreements supported by the majority of the world, and denying the authority of international bodies that, again, are supported by the majority of other countries. When you don’t respect what has come before you or the opinions of other countries, it makes you seem arrogant, and it makes people not from America believe that all other Americans must be arrogant, too. But unlike you, most Americans actually support the U.N., the authority of the world court, international agreements on global warming, and other international efforts to make the world a better place to live. Most Americans also care about the environment and distrust corporations. We want the environment protected and the corporations policed! However, we can’t help feeling guilty for your policies because we feel that somehow we haven’t done enough to stop them. So, in fact, we aren’t arrogant; we have been humbled by the disgraceful things that have been perpetrated in the name of our country.

I pray—not to any god, but to posterity—that either you will change your ways and start doing what’s right for all people, in the United States and worldwide, or we will be able to elect someone to replace you who’s willing to do what’s right. If we can’t depart from the path that you’ve put us on, the deterioration of life as we know it can only accelerate. What, then, will we be left for those children you so want us to have.

Sincerely,

C. Cue

cc: Barbara Boxer
Dianne Feinstein
Bernie Sanders