Sometimes the message your inner voice is shouting is "shut up and listen."
I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to write here, and all that came out was this.
You haven't truly experienced the post-modern professional business model, until you've stood between two executives having a staring contest – each hoping the other will suddenly become competent.
A flash of tit can turn even the crappiest day around.
There are days when I'm just out of tune, like an old guitar in cold weather.
I own about thirty blank notebooks – each one I purchased, thinking "I wonder what I'll write in this one." Then I blogged.
------------------------------
A few things you'll never read on a tombstone:
"I wish I'd spent more time at work."
"Jogging was totally worth it."
"I ate all my veggies."
"He knew every knock-knock joke."
------------------------------
RETURN OF THE DAMN POETRY CORNER
Little Johnny Harmon, he went to town,
loaded up with water balloons, to make folks frown.
That night Johnny Harmon lay in his little bed,
Next morn, police found Johnny with concave head.
The meat wagon pulled up to carry him away,
The cops asked his parents had they anything to say.
"When was the last time you saw the little sport?"
"Hopefully just now," was their thoughtful retort.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
One Thing I Like About The Media: Nothing
I'm not sure if this ranks a "coming of age" story, or merely one of waking up. I can say for certain that a paradigm shift has taken place in the last fifteen years, between me and the newspaper business.
Part of this tale is truly sad, for as I've become more aware, others in the print industry have only increased their denial – arrogantly so, in some cases. Arrogance, as a defense mechanism, is not that surprising if you've been around the various personality types who populate this self-gratified media world as long as I have.
First, a reality check – if you've paid attention to business news at all lately, you know that the newspaper industry is currently trudging through shit. It held its own against its chief rival, television, when the two believed they were the only dogs in the fight. They scuffled, routinely, like pro-wrestlers re-fighting the same match night after night along a tour circuit, to an entertaining but intentional draw. They shared the mass audience to mutual benefit, under the guise of competing for it.
Just as the big three terrestrial networks fought a naive ratings game with cable only to become subservient to it, the news-pulp empire has too become an Alamo, fending off the ever proliferating Internet – like survivors holed up in a barricaded shopping mall against the growing zombie horde.
The immense torrents of misinformation, rumor and jabbering opinion that masquerade as "news" online, combined with journalism's own inner decay, have resulted in an intellectually barren media landscape. Viral video-casts and ethics-free satellite broadcasting, where it's more important to work an F-bomb into a sentence than a truthful noun or adjective, have opened the bombay doors beneath us. Self-abandonment is the new "freedom" – a free-fall that looks just like flying, until the nasty old ground rises up and spoils it.
What I've encountered – and kept a running mental tab of for nearly two decades – has been astonishing, and not in a good way.
When I first got into newspapers many years ago as a young compositor – what graphic artists were called then, and when I was genuinely young – I was put through the standard gauntlet of passive-aggression. I took my turn in Intimidation-101, which I learned each newspaper had its own spin on. There is no official "paying of one's dues" in the paper business. When you move to a different job at another newspaper, there is no acknowledgement of anything you endured at the offices of your former one. You are expected to run the gauntlet once more – be fresh meat again and prove yourself against another pack of cronying, self-distracted little-bigshots.
The only rule that all newspapers have in common is that they have each established their own constantly evolving – if improvised habituation can be classified somehow under 'evolution' – "system" for getting a new edition out every morning. And squeezing as much work out of their staffs for as little compensation as can be gotten away with – even when labor knows it's over a barrel because of the strapped economy, and management knows that labor knows, and proceeds to pump the dildo harder anyway.
There are very few businesses where so many disparately tasked departments work side-by-side under one roof, and care less about each other's welfare. Each faction does its job with as little regard, or more and more, with as little competence as necessary, and escapes home to leave someone else holding the bag.
A surefire trick to going home on time is to con another department's workers into believing that some of your duties actually belong to them instead. I've never had the privilege, but it must be sweet.
Management are the people who've mastered the art. They talk all day, and little else. They unctuously discuss what "needs" to be done, until the subject bores them, or the phone interrupts – another discussion concerning some other unctuous "need." The urgent business is ushered out the door with a wave, for the drones to worry about, with a vague notion that their meager livelihoods are at risk.
Some quick definitions.
Management: The ones who get to go home early, even at the outset of apocalypse.
The crisis: Your problem, not theirs. The only upside is that it only lasts until tomorrow, to be replaced by another crisis even more dire. If it isn't taken care of, they get to complain about YOUR incompetence. You get to complain about the length of the unemployment line.
If your faith already wanes regarding our journalism media, you probably don't want to be a fly on the wall for a meeting of your local paper's editorial board. You'll come away looking for either a razor for your wrists, or the nearest gun shop to get on the waiting list.
A quick revelation, in case you were still wondering: Media people hate you.
Once a day they gather around a conference table to discuss which of us on the outside world is most deserving of their everything-but-objective spotlight. If they deem you foolish enough, you'll be tomorrow's featured player at the circus.
The generic, categoric reference to those of us toiling to survive in the real world boils down to "Looks like old Shit-for-brains is at it again."
They decide each afternoon how to repackage a product that we civilians will pay to have thrown at our doors, one more time, tomorrow morning. In short, newspaper people are celebrities. Their names, after all, appear in print regularly.
What today's journalists and media people practice is more accurately the progressive spin of elitism, which balances out the elitism of the corporate right. Haven't you noticed? We, bound to lives of day-to-day survival, are the ideological "middle class." The corporate moneychangers and media trendsetters are the ones enjoying actual "options" in life. The ones whose incomes are not completely consumed by monthly bills and playing by the rules. Journalists used to report what's happening, but now "review" it. Many young journalists enter the industry precisely because they've been taught it is salaried activism. Activism for their own shit. Political. Trendy. Cool. Whether or not it's relevant.
So too is advertising a collusion of loose cannons presented to resemble a disciplined business. Some of the reasons modern advertising gnaws at most people's sanity are actually not too sublime. The ad industry doesn't try to bombard your id with hidden messages in ice cubes anymore – it has adopted the sledge hammer approach. Relentless, repetitive, aggressive behavior modification.
By simple contemplation, nearly anyone who reads a print ad, watches a TV commercial, or pays vague attention to a car radio will perceive a brazen con being pitched. The era of an earnest business "getting its message out," is long over.
Some might label it all an indictment of capitalism, but it's more accurately the sublime triumph of greed. The cure is not socialism – the system where private sector greed is outlawed so that government greed can enjoy impunity. The only thing worse than the maddening caterwaul of advertising, would be an enslaving federal mandate that you MUST buy a bigscreen TV and a smartphone with a government surveillance chip – which is likely coming.
So smoke 'em while you got 'em. You're already surrounded by folks who think you don't deserve 'em – even though you planted 'em, grew 'em, rolled 'em and then paid for 'em, too.
Part of this tale is truly sad, for as I've become more aware, others in the print industry have only increased their denial – arrogantly so, in some cases. Arrogance, as a defense mechanism, is not that surprising if you've been around the various personality types who populate this self-gratified media world as long as I have.
First, a reality check – if you've paid attention to business news at all lately, you know that the newspaper industry is currently trudging through shit. It held its own against its chief rival, television, when the two believed they were the only dogs in the fight. They scuffled, routinely, like pro-wrestlers re-fighting the same match night after night along a tour circuit, to an entertaining but intentional draw. They shared the mass audience to mutual benefit, under the guise of competing for it.
Just as the big three terrestrial networks fought a naive ratings game with cable only to become subservient to it, the news-pulp empire has too become an Alamo, fending off the ever proliferating Internet – like survivors holed up in a barricaded shopping mall against the growing zombie horde.
The immense torrents of misinformation, rumor and jabbering opinion that masquerade as "news" online, combined with journalism's own inner decay, have resulted in an intellectually barren media landscape. Viral video-casts and ethics-free satellite broadcasting, where it's more important to work an F-bomb into a sentence than a truthful noun or adjective, have opened the bombay doors beneath us. Self-abandonment is the new "freedom" – a free-fall that looks just like flying, until the nasty old ground rises up and spoils it.
What I've encountered – and kept a running mental tab of for nearly two decades – has been astonishing, and not in a good way.
When I first got into newspapers many years ago as a young compositor – what graphic artists were called then, and when I was genuinely young – I was put through the standard gauntlet of passive-aggression. I took my turn in Intimidation-101, which I learned each newspaper had its own spin on. There is no official "paying of one's dues" in the paper business. When you move to a different job at another newspaper, there is no acknowledgement of anything you endured at the offices of your former one. You are expected to run the gauntlet once more – be fresh meat again and prove yourself against another pack of cronying, self-distracted little-bigshots.
The only rule that all newspapers have in common is that they have each established their own constantly evolving – if improvised habituation can be classified somehow under 'evolution' – "system" for getting a new edition out every morning. And squeezing as much work out of their staffs for as little compensation as can be gotten away with – even when labor knows it's over a barrel because of the strapped economy, and management knows that labor knows, and proceeds to pump the dildo harder anyway.
There are very few businesses where so many disparately tasked departments work side-by-side under one roof, and care less about each other's welfare. Each faction does its job with as little regard, or more and more, with as little competence as necessary, and escapes home to leave someone else holding the bag.
A surefire trick to going home on time is to con another department's workers into believing that some of your duties actually belong to them instead. I've never had the privilege, but it must be sweet.
Management are the people who've mastered the art. They talk all day, and little else. They unctuously discuss what "needs" to be done, until the subject bores them, or the phone interrupts – another discussion concerning some other unctuous "need." The urgent business is ushered out the door with a wave, for the drones to worry about, with a vague notion that their meager livelihoods are at risk.
Some quick definitions.
Management: The ones who get to go home early, even at the outset of apocalypse.
The crisis: Your problem, not theirs. The only upside is that it only lasts until tomorrow, to be replaced by another crisis even more dire. If it isn't taken care of, they get to complain about YOUR incompetence. You get to complain about the length of the unemployment line.
If your faith already wanes regarding our journalism media, you probably don't want to be a fly on the wall for a meeting of your local paper's editorial board. You'll come away looking for either a razor for your wrists, or the nearest gun shop to get on the waiting list.
A quick revelation, in case you were still wondering: Media people hate you.
Once a day they gather around a conference table to discuss which of us on the outside world is most deserving of their everything-but-objective spotlight. If they deem you foolish enough, you'll be tomorrow's featured player at the circus.
The generic, categoric reference to those of us toiling to survive in the real world boils down to "Looks like old Shit-for-brains is at it again."
They decide each afternoon how to repackage a product that we civilians will pay to have thrown at our doors, one more time, tomorrow morning. In short, newspaper people are celebrities. Their names, after all, appear in print regularly.
What today's journalists and media people practice is more accurately the progressive spin of elitism, which balances out the elitism of the corporate right. Haven't you noticed? We, bound to lives of day-to-day survival, are the ideological "middle class." The corporate moneychangers and media trendsetters are the ones enjoying actual "options" in life. The ones whose incomes are not completely consumed by monthly bills and playing by the rules. Journalists used to report what's happening, but now "review" it. Many young journalists enter the industry precisely because they've been taught it is salaried activism. Activism for their own shit. Political. Trendy. Cool. Whether or not it's relevant.
So too is advertising a collusion of loose cannons presented to resemble a disciplined business. Some of the reasons modern advertising gnaws at most people's sanity are actually not too sublime. The ad industry doesn't try to bombard your id with hidden messages in ice cubes anymore – it has adopted the sledge hammer approach. Relentless, repetitive, aggressive behavior modification.
By simple contemplation, nearly anyone who reads a print ad, watches a TV commercial, or pays vague attention to a car radio will perceive a brazen con being pitched. The era of an earnest business "getting its message out," is long over.
Some might label it all an indictment of capitalism, but it's more accurately the sublime triumph of greed. The cure is not socialism – the system where private sector greed is outlawed so that government greed can enjoy impunity. The only thing worse than the maddening caterwaul of advertising, would be an enslaving federal mandate that you MUST buy a bigscreen TV and a smartphone with a government surveillance chip – which is likely coming.
So smoke 'em while you got 'em. You're already surrounded by folks who think you don't deserve 'em – even though you planted 'em, grew 'em, rolled 'em and then paid for 'em, too.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Yuletide Yammer: The Sins of a Santa
I was amazed recently by a story of "dueling Santas." Two guys – one maybe a bit pathological – who identify so intensely with Santa Claus that their very lives are dictated by assorted Kringle-isms.
Both are naturally roly-poly, sport real snowy beards, and make all or part of their respective livings portraying The Jolly Old Elf. A special breed of men who need nothing, save to dawn the red coat and cap, to create the illusion – no extra padding or fake facial hair required.
As well it so happens, though they may brighten the days of the children they encounter, they apparently hate each other's living guts the rest of the time.
"Patho-Santa" is one of those fellas written about or featured on the local news from time to time, who's turned it into a lifestyle. In Santa drag 24/7, living in an ornately festooned house – even his casual-wear is all reds and greens. And his wife rues the day she said her wedding vows unawares that she'd be drafted into "Mrs. Claus" duty, fleshing out the fantasy; powdering her hair, wearing wire-framed specs and baking gingerbread men for the next thirty years.
The other Saint Nick keeps his fetish in check, wearing normalized clothing on weekdays. He keeps a bag of candy treats or trinkish giveaways stashed in his car, however, in case he's, say, out grocery shopping and some kid "recognizes" him – in which case the astute tike wins a prize. Oh yes, this "Real Santa" has also unionized all the other Real Santas; men like himself, who stay fat, grow genuine Santa beards and earn money with it come the holidays.
Fulltime Santa, meanwhile, has come out as verbosely unimpressed by these organized "once-a-year" Bitch-Kringles, has bucked their union, and has so earned their collective ire.
It all brought back to mind a time years ago, when I too earned a little extra holiday cash as Big Red – though technically a minor-leaguer in false whiskers.
Portraying Santa, done long enough, can become a nerve-racking ordeal requiring steely patience and a willingness to turn a blind eye to candid, random evil. Santa is either highly revered, or utterly hated – and no one in either camp is willing to dampen their feelings simply for the sake of social grace. Both forms of attention can get scary. It's astonishing to me that a Mall Santa is a minimum wage gig, considering what they endure, and how strong the urge must be, for some, to go home, shooter an entire bottle of NyQuil, and leave a churlish suicide note written in crimson from a raggedly opened vein.
No wonder they unionized!
One year, working Fisherman's Wharf, dressed in the furry red-n'-whites, with a bag of peppermint candy, I met everyone that most people might assume would avoid hassling poor Santa.
... No, Santa doesn't want to pet your pit bull – especially when dogs aren't allowed on the wharf. If I don't pet him, you'll sic him on me? Fantastic! And if I do pet him, those strolling cops who've just spotted you will cuff me too? Awesome. Thanks for giving me options...
... Oh hi, ho ho ho, you work at the Wharf too? You're the stinky-pored rummy caricature cartoonist? You belong to what union?? No, I'm not a member. My name is SANTA CLAUS, and that's all the I.D. you get. My real name? Kris Kringle – there, happy? Your semi-drunk handshake is turning into a vice-grip. If you don't let go, Santa's free hand will drop the candy sack, become a fist, and make you spit your teeth out – all six of them...
... I mean it, pal. You'll find out why Santa wears RED. The stains don't show. That's right, go draw someone. Goodbye. And next bath, put some actual water in the tub, you smell like ranch dressing on ass...
... Hello. Santa's your "homie?" Is that right? Take a picture with you? And your posse... who all wanna flash their semi-automatics for the camera? You're kidding. No, you aren't. Holy muther of gawd. Quick, snap the damn thing before the coppers walk by – or a rival group who wants a picture too. Sure, hey, Santa loves everyone. I'm glad I'm loved back, at the moment. Red flannel doesn't do diddly-jack against a 9mm...
... Ma'am, will you please NOTICE that your 4-year-old won't leave me alone? Santa's getting really bugged. She wants to hug me continuously, but her head only comes to my waist, and well, yeah... it looks EXACTLY like THAT. Another few minutes and Old St. Nick will have a bunko squad tailing him with a video-cam. Here come those wharf cops again. Guys, I'm aware what this must LOOK like, but really it isn't – and no, I'm not enjoying this underneath the beard. I think her parents are glad Santa apparently has NOTHING ELSE TO DO and is willing to babysit their LITTLE PERVERT while they waddle, windowshop and slurp down fried squid...
... Whadda ya know, the fat kid who wants 17 peppermints is also a junior conspiracy buff – he's shouting that I'm NOT REALLY SANTA! Of course he waited until he got both sticky paws full of candies before he commenced tattling. That's right, tell everyone I'm punking them. What's wrong, can't cram your cheeks full fast enough and still yell? Spewing wet peppermint rubble every time you exhale? Right, move in closer, thinking you can snag another mit full – while I aim for your chubby little sausage toes with my size 13 boot. You'll tell your parents? But you ditched your parents back at The Lobster Mill stuffing their own gullets to bursting, so you could wolf free candy off of Santa...
Sometimes, you either have what it takes to be Santa, or you find out the hard way that you're ill-equipped emotionally. I had one of those, too.
One holiday, the company I worked for at the time, "adopted" an impoverished family for a surprise visit from Santa, along with a cadre of company elves, delivering a Christmas bounty of clothing, necessities, toys for ten children (all born a year apart in their parents' ten-year marriage), and a holiday feast with enough food to make leftovers until well past New Year's. I had Santa duty.
They were working-poor, in a house with no heat. Some windows had wooden planks to replace broken glass.
We were on a tight schedule, because we couldn't start until Dad left. According to Mom, he was yet still a man of overruling pride who would not have allowed us entrance. It would be easiest if everything were already in place, and we were gone, before he returned – thereby sidestepping any proud, knee-jerk anger – making rejection pointless. Yes, she was pulling one over on her husband, for his own good, and the good of her children. The oldest child of the ten would not come out of his room, overcome by a like sense of self-induced humiliation. Their mother told us not to worry, that he'd eventually get in the spirit and come out.
As Santa, I determined to play it to the hilt – go the extra mile. I set about to memorize all ten names, and what was on each of their wish-lists (Mom had secretly spilled the beans beforehand) so when I met each child in turn, I'd seem to "know" them, just like Santa Claus would – and that would clinch the deal for these kids to hang on to hope somehow, that the joy of the holidays was theirs as much as anyone else's. Yes, I was so darn noble!
Full of myself. Stupid. Still believing I made a difference by putting on a fake beard. Miracle on 34th Street! Tch.
Well, there's nothing that'll melt your heart and numb your senses quicker than kids who've spent their entire young lives in a state of "without" – who suddenly see SANTA CLAUS paying a personal visit to their run-down little shack of a house.
My "Santa voice" turned into a cross between Julia Child, and... Julia Child. The next-to-next-to littlest (3-years old?) hugged my knees and wouldn't let go. The 9 and 8-year old daughters were as smart as 20-somethings, and helped hand out toys. Mom never had to raise her voice once. Angels all. Little angels, I tell ya, every one of 'em. I'm misting up just writing about it, two decades later.
The oldest peaked through an ajar door. I saw it, and motioned for him to come out and join us. The door drew closed. I whispered to a company "elf" that they needed to get me out of there, because I was maybe two heartbeats away from dropping character – becoming very worthless very quickly. The kids didn't want me to go, but I had to. And Dad was due home soon, so we all had to scram anyway. It was too much. Back at work, I got out of that red get-up as quickly as I could – before I turned into a quivering lump.
In stark contrast, there were times I worked as a Renta Claus for various corporate holiday events, in the ritzy Carmel/Pebble Beach country club zip codes. Able to buy Santa's workshop a thousand times over, some of these well-off folks wouldn't be so pitiful in spite of themselves were they not such walking clichés.
How many 80-year old men really NEED perfectly quaffed hair? And gleaming mani-pedis. Trust me, the ONLY reason that old men this rich wear sandals, is to show off pedicures. Yes, at that mere notion, the back of Santa's beard nearly became drenched with vomit.
Some of the women were no doubt sizzling mamasitas once, with their big bling and holiday-red cowboy booties. When Eisenhower was in office. Ma'am, Santa doesn't intentionally harbor rude thoughts, but what you've got below-neckline no longer qualifies as "cleavage," and should be covered up.
There was that time I waited for my entrance cue in utter darkness, in a parking garage, at the wheel of an idling tool cart draped with a ton of holiday lights, wreathery and other yuletide objects. Upon hearing my official introduction out on the event grounds, I gunned it and burned rubber around a long swoopy corner, from behind a giant hedge, and into triumphant view of a hundred cheering children.
One problem. Someone at the event wasn't aware that Santa was scheduled to appear that night. Tight on my butt around the swoop, honking horn, flashing highbeams, was some drunken James Bond wannabe, late for an orgy, aboard a thundering Hummer SUV. And in no patient mood for some guy in a Santa suit driving a tool cart between his Hummer's front grill and the exit gate he was aiming for.
Even pedal-to-metal, a weighed-down, maybe 12-horsepower tool cart can only – just barely – break a meager parking-lot speed limit. But, believe me – I know – it increases speed if rammed from behind by a Hummer. Enough "oomph" anyway to get THE DAMN THING CORNERING ON TWO WHEELS; wholly Mother Teresa on rubber crutches munchin' Snickers bars!!
Santa made quite an entrance that night, to be perfectly damned sure.
Another occasion, out on the walkway to the club, past the putting green, Santa gets ready for his entrance. Nearby, within shouting distance: Tub o' Lard. Super Golf McDude. $800 cowboy hat. $300 sunglasses. Rolex. Stuffing a silvery polished golf iron into a huge leather quiver already crammed solid with an arsenal of similar Back-9 Warrior's weaponry. "Hey Sanna," he burps! "You BLEW IT last year, I din't get anytheen I even wanned! You better shape up THIS YEAR, you (slurred, trailing-off) sonuvabitch."
And pray tell, what is it you possibly wanted last Christmas, that you don't already have, buddy? Another layer of blubber? A fatter head? 70 more golfclubs? 24-karat gold wheelrims for your SUV? A slobbery blowjob from Carrot Top? (Before he hit the gym and got all way-too manly, of course?)
How about if Santa uses his special Facebook status with God, to have your dead father claw himself out of the grave and sucker-punch some manners into you, like he should have in life, but obviously forgot? Santa's big red mitten shields your eyes from a stiffly-burdened middle finger, sir. Happy Holidays.
One thing I learned while doing country club Santa gigs, is that not all the traditional assumptions about moneyed-peeps are accurate, or at least not universal.
At the Pebble Beach Lodge (yes, I'll name names) I had one of the most gratifying experiences of my Santa career. A huge easychair by a fireplace, on the end of a long plush green carpet, and nearly 200 kids lined up to meet and greet – all well-mannered, all delightful – and those just old enough to know, were willing to play along that I was "really him" for the sake of the tiniest in line. I got kid-scribbled wish-lists, and warm, bright-eyed smiles. We sang a carol or two together. I found myself becoming genuinely jolly and merry, my Ho-Ho-Ho's increasingly heartfelt. And I was ushered away at the conclusion of the event by employee "helpers" who knew Santa had a schedule to keep, and needed to have the all-day crotch-huggers gently pried off – for the sake of their parents' – and Santa's – mental unease, embarrassment, and reputation.
A quick golfcart ride away, waited the Inn at Spanish Bay. Which rhymes with "night and day." What a different story.
It was there that I encountered Mr. Lardass Ingrate of the Fairways, mentioned above. What followed, I imagine, would cause even a soul as forgiving as St. Nicholas to pound his forehead against the nearest wall in a spontaneous meltdown of blazing Torrettes.
Here Santa was hired help, nothing more. I had to do what is known in the "Rentertainment" biz as a walk-around. You go from table to table attempting to grab someone's attention away from something else they'd rather be doing, and inflict your shtick on them. It is utterly degrading for the performer, annoying to the customer, and leaves everyone in general with a disturbed awkwardness which colors the memory of the evening for all involved, ever after.
Once is painful enough. But then those paying for your services insist you revisit the same tables twice, three and even four times – feeling not just uncomfortable, but like an enormous idiot-whore – plus royally pissing off the patrons you are now technically "stalking;" well, it's enough to make one quit the racket for good, no matter what the money is. Which is exactly what I did.
It went down thus...
First, the tables were crowded not with adults, but their self-distracted, snot-nosed blueblood spawn, who cared about as much for Santa's presence as they did for their own untied shoelaces. They already had everything at home that a crassly wealthy set of parents could dump on them. The fuzzy old man in red was probably an abstract concept, amid all the holiday indulgences lavished in their greedy little honor.
That year's toy-to-top was called the American Heritage Forever Doll. An assuredly expensive, life-size plastic neo-mannequin, customized to look exactly like the child who would own it. Imagine for Christmas receiving a mirror-image replica of your privileged self, for you and your parents to build an altar to. Even the janitor emptying the wastebaskets of a Psyche 101 class would spot the raging dysfunction at work there.
Other toys were present, sure. There were large stuffed animals, one of which each and every child in the official "holiday playroom," was given. The left-over stuffed animals – about ten of 'em – were locked back up securely in a metal cabinet, in plain view of three children who happened to be standing in an open doorway. Gazing longingly. Apparently not allowed in. Denied even toy left-overs, which were in such abundance, that three would hardly be missed.
Who were these poor kids?
Exactly. They were the poor kids. The kids of the custodial help. A cook's two. A busboy's one. Their parents weren't clubmembers.
Now Santa was getting pissed.
If that weren't enough, one of the other Rentertainers, a juggling, balloon-twisting elf, decided that he hated Santa, and made no attempt to hide it. I was informed, under his breath, that I could go "find a chimney to stuff myself into." Great. A merry'n to you too, freak.
In the years since, I've surmised that Bad Elf must've been up for the Santa job, and lost it to me. Well, they didn't invite me back the following year (and you're about to read why) – so I'll bet Chuckles eventually got his wish.
Then came the coup de grâce.
For what follows to make sense, I must first explain one of the foremost rules of Santa Clausing. When you are fully in Kringle gear, red fur, boots, beard and cap in place, and emerge from the dressing area with toy sack in tow, you are required to ASSUME CHARACTER. The very first set of eyes that witness your arrival, even if it's the coat-checker, must get a HO-HO-HO, and not in nasally practice mode.
If you give anyone an impression that you're just a hired Shmuck-In-A-Santa-Suit, it's over. Any pro-wrestler worth his paycheck knows exactly what I'm talking about; if you're billed as Santa Claus, or Chainsaw McGuirk, bro, that's who you BETTER BE when you hit the entrance to the gig. Even fellow performers who know it's just you, must see a transformation as soon as that beard is cinched. It's just a long-held rule of Santa School.
So you can imagine my utter, soul-crushing angst, as I finally encountered one of the world's rudest, most ill-informed event planners, mid-gig.
Two of the waiter staff, a man and young woman, brought Santa a small cup of cold water to sip. They then assured Santa that they knew his big fur coat might be a tad too warm in the climate-controlled environment, so they had adjusted the A/C just a tad. Santa thanked them in his cherubic, traditionally jolly fashion, and gave them a ho-ho-ho of approval. Enter Clipboard Bitch.
Clipboard Bitch, in perfect hair, nails, gold accessories and smart concierge's color-coordinated jacket and skirt, took Santa by the arm, led him aside and announced loudly, "Alright? Santaaaaa? I need you to FOCUS ON THE CHILDRENNNNN."
Need I spell out how woefully uncool this was?
You don't SCOLD SANTA. You especially don't SCOLD SANTA in front of kids, even hyper, mis-parented, over-indulged ones. Santa decided at that moment, that he didn't need the gig fee that bad.
I was doubly insulted, because as far as outward presentation goes, I approached these jobs as a pro. I knew exactly why I was there wearing that big red fur coat. I knew exactly who the "clients" were, and was still willing to turn the aforementioned blind eye to what they'd apparently felt comfortable revealing to a "nobody" in their world, like Santa Claus.
If this individual-of-importance accomplished anything meaningful in her – hopefully – very short career, it was to mark this indelible image into my memory. I still got paid. But if I could have done it to their faces, I'd have torn up their check into paper snowflakes. Instead I was shown the door, which slammed immediately after I exited through it. So I rode Rudolph to the bank. Again, that was The Inn at Spanish Bay, in case you'd like to take note for future reference.
No, not very Santa-like of me, either. One more testimony to my being done, to closure, with the Jolly Fatman. Just for the record, I never took issue with whether a parent allowed a Santa Claus to exist in a child's mind, or never at all. I refuse to call Santa a myth, because Saint Nicholas was indeed a real historical figure – the watered-down commercialized trappings that repackaged him in early America are hardly fodder for indignation. Santa is one way, in the past we provided, and in some ways still provide, children with a few joyous seasons of innocence before the real world's coldly calculated manipulation colors their lives – much faster now than when I was a kid – and technology jades them all too soon away from the wonders of their own imaginations. My opinion.
I'm past him now, anyway. Years later, I'm trimmed down, and greatly resemble Vincent Price. I'm looking for an agent.
Both are naturally roly-poly, sport real snowy beards, and make all or part of their respective livings portraying The Jolly Old Elf. A special breed of men who need nothing, save to dawn the red coat and cap, to create the illusion – no extra padding or fake facial hair required.
As well it so happens, though they may brighten the days of the children they encounter, they apparently hate each other's living guts the rest of the time.
"Patho-Santa" is one of those fellas written about or featured on the local news from time to time, who's turned it into a lifestyle. In Santa drag 24/7, living in an ornately festooned house – even his casual-wear is all reds and greens. And his wife rues the day she said her wedding vows unawares that she'd be drafted into "Mrs. Claus" duty, fleshing out the fantasy; powdering her hair, wearing wire-framed specs and baking gingerbread men for the next thirty years.
The other Saint Nick keeps his fetish in check, wearing normalized clothing on weekdays. He keeps a bag of candy treats or trinkish giveaways stashed in his car, however, in case he's, say, out grocery shopping and some kid "recognizes" him – in which case the astute tike wins a prize. Oh yes, this "Real Santa" has also unionized all the other Real Santas; men like himself, who stay fat, grow genuine Santa beards and earn money with it come the holidays.
Fulltime Santa, meanwhile, has come out as verbosely unimpressed by these organized "once-a-year" Bitch-Kringles, has bucked their union, and has so earned their collective ire.
It all brought back to mind a time years ago, when I too earned a little extra holiday cash as Big Red – though technically a minor-leaguer in false whiskers.
Portraying Santa, done long enough, can become a nerve-racking ordeal requiring steely patience and a willingness to turn a blind eye to candid, random evil. Santa is either highly revered, or utterly hated – and no one in either camp is willing to dampen their feelings simply for the sake of social grace. Both forms of attention can get scary. It's astonishing to me that a Mall Santa is a minimum wage gig, considering what they endure, and how strong the urge must be, for some, to go home, shooter an entire bottle of NyQuil, and leave a churlish suicide note written in crimson from a raggedly opened vein.
No wonder they unionized!
One year, working Fisherman's Wharf, dressed in the furry red-n'-whites, with a bag of peppermint candy, I met everyone that most people might assume would avoid hassling poor Santa.
... No, Santa doesn't want to pet your pit bull – especially when dogs aren't allowed on the wharf. If I don't pet him, you'll sic him on me? Fantastic! And if I do pet him, those strolling cops who've just spotted you will cuff me too? Awesome. Thanks for giving me options...
... Oh hi, ho ho ho, you work at the Wharf too? You're the stinky-pored rummy caricature cartoonist? You belong to what union?? No, I'm not a member. My name is SANTA CLAUS, and that's all the I.D. you get. My real name? Kris Kringle – there, happy? Your semi-drunk handshake is turning into a vice-grip. If you don't let go, Santa's free hand will drop the candy sack, become a fist, and make you spit your teeth out – all six of them...
... I mean it, pal. You'll find out why Santa wears RED. The stains don't show. That's right, go draw someone. Goodbye. And next bath, put some actual water in the tub, you smell like ranch dressing on ass...
... Hello. Santa's your "homie?" Is that right? Take a picture with you? And your posse... who all wanna flash their semi-automatics for the camera? You're kidding. No, you aren't. Holy muther of gawd. Quick, snap the damn thing before the coppers walk by – or a rival group who wants a picture too. Sure, hey, Santa loves everyone. I'm glad I'm loved back, at the moment. Red flannel doesn't do diddly-jack against a 9mm...
... Ma'am, will you please NOTICE that your 4-year-old won't leave me alone? Santa's getting really bugged. She wants to hug me continuously, but her head only comes to my waist, and well, yeah... it looks EXACTLY like THAT. Another few minutes and Old St. Nick will have a bunko squad tailing him with a video-cam. Here come those wharf cops again. Guys, I'm aware what this must LOOK like, but really it isn't – and no, I'm not enjoying this underneath the beard. I think her parents are glad Santa apparently has NOTHING ELSE TO DO and is willing to babysit their LITTLE PERVERT while they waddle, windowshop and slurp down fried squid...
... Whadda ya know, the fat kid who wants 17 peppermints is also a junior conspiracy buff – he's shouting that I'm NOT REALLY SANTA! Of course he waited until he got both sticky paws full of candies before he commenced tattling. That's right, tell everyone I'm punking them. What's wrong, can't cram your cheeks full fast enough and still yell? Spewing wet peppermint rubble every time you exhale? Right, move in closer, thinking you can snag another mit full – while I aim for your chubby little sausage toes with my size 13 boot. You'll tell your parents? But you ditched your parents back at The Lobster Mill stuffing their own gullets to bursting, so you could wolf free candy off of Santa...
Sometimes, you either have what it takes to be Santa, or you find out the hard way that you're ill-equipped emotionally. I had one of those, too.
One holiday, the company I worked for at the time, "adopted" an impoverished family for a surprise visit from Santa, along with a cadre of company elves, delivering a Christmas bounty of clothing, necessities, toys for ten children (all born a year apart in their parents' ten-year marriage), and a holiday feast with enough food to make leftovers until well past New Year's. I had Santa duty.
They were working-poor, in a house with no heat. Some windows had wooden planks to replace broken glass.
We were on a tight schedule, because we couldn't start until Dad left. According to Mom, he was yet still a man of overruling pride who would not have allowed us entrance. It would be easiest if everything were already in place, and we were gone, before he returned – thereby sidestepping any proud, knee-jerk anger – making rejection pointless. Yes, she was pulling one over on her husband, for his own good, and the good of her children. The oldest child of the ten would not come out of his room, overcome by a like sense of self-induced humiliation. Their mother told us not to worry, that he'd eventually get in the spirit and come out.
As Santa, I determined to play it to the hilt – go the extra mile. I set about to memorize all ten names, and what was on each of their wish-lists (Mom had secretly spilled the beans beforehand) so when I met each child in turn, I'd seem to "know" them, just like Santa Claus would – and that would clinch the deal for these kids to hang on to hope somehow, that the joy of the holidays was theirs as much as anyone else's. Yes, I was so darn noble!
Full of myself. Stupid. Still believing I made a difference by putting on a fake beard. Miracle on 34th Street! Tch.
Well, there's nothing that'll melt your heart and numb your senses quicker than kids who've spent their entire young lives in a state of "without" – who suddenly see SANTA CLAUS paying a personal visit to their run-down little shack of a house.
My "Santa voice" turned into a cross between Julia Child, and... Julia Child. The next-to-next-to littlest (3-years old?) hugged my knees and wouldn't let go. The 9 and 8-year old daughters were as smart as 20-somethings, and helped hand out toys. Mom never had to raise her voice once. Angels all. Little angels, I tell ya, every one of 'em. I'm misting up just writing about it, two decades later.
The oldest peaked through an ajar door. I saw it, and motioned for him to come out and join us. The door drew closed. I whispered to a company "elf" that they needed to get me out of there, because I was maybe two heartbeats away from dropping character – becoming very worthless very quickly. The kids didn't want me to go, but I had to. And Dad was due home soon, so we all had to scram anyway. It was too much. Back at work, I got out of that red get-up as quickly as I could – before I turned into a quivering lump.
In stark contrast, there were times I worked as a Renta Claus for various corporate holiday events, in the ritzy Carmel/Pebble Beach country club zip codes. Able to buy Santa's workshop a thousand times over, some of these well-off folks wouldn't be so pitiful in spite of themselves were they not such walking clichés.
How many 80-year old men really NEED perfectly quaffed hair? And gleaming mani-pedis. Trust me, the ONLY reason that old men this rich wear sandals, is to show off pedicures. Yes, at that mere notion, the back of Santa's beard nearly became drenched with vomit.
Some of the women were no doubt sizzling mamasitas once, with their big bling and holiday-red cowboy booties. When Eisenhower was in office. Ma'am, Santa doesn't intentionally harbor rude thoughts, but what you've got below-neckline no longer qualifies as "cleavage," and should be covered up.
There was that time I waited for my entrance cue in utter darkness, in a parking garage, at the wheel of an idling tool cart draped with a ton of holiday lights, wreathery and other yuletide objects. Upon hearing my official introduction out on the event grounds, I gunned it and burned rubber around a long swoopy corner, from behind a giant hedge, and into triumphant view of a hundred cheering children.
One problem. Someone at the event wasn't aware that Santa was scheduled to appear that night. Tight on my butt around the swoop, honking horn, flashing highbeams, was some drunken James Bond wannabe, late for an orgy, aboard a thundering Hummer SUV. And in no patient mood for some guy in a Santa suit driving a tool cart between his Hummer's front grill and the exit gate he was aiming for.
Even pedal-to-metal, a weighed-down, maybe 12-horsepower tool cart can only – just barely – break a meager parking-lot speed limit. But, believe me – I know – it increases speed if rammed from behind by a Hummer. Enough "oomph" anyway to get THE DAMN THING CORNERING ON TWO WHEELS; wholly Mother Teresa on rubber crutches munchin' Snickers bars!!
Santa made quite an entrance that night, to be perfectly damned sure.
Another occasion, out on the walkway to the club, past the putting green, Santa gets ready for his entrance. Nearby, within shouting distance: Tub o' Lard. Super Golf McDude. $800 cowboy hat. $300 sunglasses. Rolex. Stuffing a silvery polished golf iron into a huge leather quiver already crammed solid with an arsenal of similar Back-9 Warrior's weaponry. "Hey Sanna," he burps! "You BLEW IT last year, I din't get anytheen I even wanned! You better shape up THIS YEAR, you (slurred, trailing-off) sonuvabitch."
And pray tell, what is it you possibly wanted last Christmas, that you don't already have, buddy? Another layer of blubber? A fatter head? 70 more golfclubs? 24-karat gold wheelrims for your SUV? A slobbery blowjob from Carrot Top? (Before he hit the gym and got all way-too manly, of course?)
How about if Santa uses his special Facebook status with God, to have your dead father claw himself out of the grave and sucker-punch some manners into you, like he should have in life, but obviously forgot? Santa's big red mitten shields your eyes from a stiffly-burdened middle finger, sir. Happy Holidays.
One thing I learned while doing country club Santa gigs, is that not all the traditional assumptions about moneyed-peeps are accurate, or at least not universal.
At the Pebble Beach Lodge (yes, I'll name names) I had one of the most gratifying experiences of my Santa career. A huge easychair by a fireplace, on the end of a long plush green carpet, and nearly 200 kids lined up to meet and greet – all well-mannered, all delightful – and those just old enough to know, were willing to play along that I was "really him" for the sake of the tiniest in line. I got kid-scribbled wish-lists, and warm, bright-eyed smiles. We sang a carol or two together. I found myself becoming genuinely jolly and merry, my Ho-Ho-Ho's increasingly heartfelt. And I was ushered away at the conclusion of the event by employee "helpers" who knew Santa had a schedule to keep, and needed to have the all-day crotch-huggers gently pried off – for the sake of their parents' – and Santa's – mental unease, embarrassment, and reputation.
A quick golfcart ride away, waited the Inn at Spanish Bay. Which rhymes with "night and day." What a different story.
It was there that I encountered Mr. Lardass Ingrate of the Fairways, mentioned above. What followed, I imagine, would cause even a soul as forgiving as St. Nicholas to pound his forehead against the nearest wall in a spontaneous meltdown of blazing Torrettes.
Here Santa was hired help, nothing more. I had to do what is known in the "Rentertainment" biz as a walk-around. You go from table to table attempting to grab someone's attention away from something else they'd rather be doing, and inflict your shtick on them. It is utterly degrading for the performer, annoying to the customer, and leaves everyone in general with a disturbed awkwardness which colors the memory of the evening for all involved, ever after.
Once is painful enough. But then those paying for your services insist you revisit the same tables twice, three and even four times – feeling not just uncomfortable, but like an enormous idiot-whore – plus royally pissing off the patrons you are now technically "stalking;" well, it's enough to make one quit the racket for good, no matter what the money is. Which is exactly what I did.
It went down thus...
First, the tables were crowded not with adults, but their self-distracted, snot-nosed blueblood spawn, who cared about as much for Santa's presence as they did for their own untied shoelaces. They already had everything at home that a crassly wealthy set of parents could dump on them. The fuzzy old man in red was probably an abstract concept, amid all the holiday indulgences lavished in their greedy little honor.
That year's toy-to-top was called the American Heritage Forever Doll. An assuredly expensive, life-size plastic neo-mannequin, customized to look exactly like the child who would own it. Imagine for Christmas receiving a mirror-image replica of your privileged self, for you and your parents to build an altar to. Even the janitor emptying the wastebaskets of a Psyche 101 class would spot the raging dysfunction at work there.
Other toys were present, sure. There were large stuffed animals, one of which each and every child in the official "holiday playroom," was given. The left-over stuffed animals – about ten of 'em – were locked back up securely in a metal cabinet, in plain view of three children who happened to be standing in an open doorway. Gazing longingly. Apparently not allowed in. Denied even toy left-overs, which were in such abundance, that three would hardly be missed.
Who were these poor kids?
Exactly. They were the poor kids. The kids of the custodial help. A cook's two. A busboy's one. Their parents weren't clubmembers.
Now Santa was getting pissed.
If that weren't enough, one of the other Rentertainers, a juggling, balloon-twisting elf, decided that he hated Santa, and made no attempt to hide it. I was informed, under his breath, that I could go "find a chimney to stuff myself into." Great. A merry'n to you too, freak.
In the years since, I've surmised that Bad Elf must've been up for the Santa job, and lost it to me. Well, they didn't invite me back the following year (and you're about to read why) – so I'll bet Chuckles eventually got his wish.
Then came the coup de grâce.
For what follows to make sense, I must first explain one of the foremost rules of Santa Clausing. When you are fully in Kringle gear, red fur, boots, beard and cap in place, and emerge from the dressing area with toy sack in tow, you are required to ASSUME CHARACTER. The very first set of eyes that witness your arrival, even if it's the coat-checker, must get a HO-HO-HO, and not in nasally practice mode.
If you give anyone an impression that you're just a hired Shmuck-In-A-Santa-Suit, it's over. Any pro-wrestler worth his paycheck knows exactly what I'm talking about; if you're billed as Santa Claus, or Chainsaw McGuirk, bro, that's who you BETTER BE when you hit the entrance to the gig. Even fellow performers who know it's just you, must see a transformation as soon as that beard is cinched. It's just a long-held rule of Santa School.
So you can imagine my utter, soul-crushing angst, as I finally encountered one of the world's rudest, most ill-informed event planners, mid-gig.
Two of the waiter staff, a man and young woman, brought Santa a small cup of cold water to sip. They then assured Santa that they knew his big fur coat might be a tad too warm in the climate-controlled environment, so they had adjusted the A/C just a tad. Santa thanked them in his cherubic, traditionally jolly fashion, and gave them a ho-ho-ho of approval. Enter Clipboard Bitch.
Clipboard Bitch, in perfect hair, nails, gold accessories and smart concierge's color-coordinated jacket and skirt, took Santa by the arm, led him aside and announced loudly, "Alright? Santaaaaa? I need you to FOCUS ON THE CHILDRENNNNN."
Need I spell out how woefully uncool this was?
You don't SCOLD SANTA. You especially don't SCOLD SANTA in front of kids, even hyper, mis-parented, over-indulged ones. Santa decided at that moment, that he didn't need the gig fee that bad.
I was doubly insulted, because as far as outward presentation goes, I approached these jobs as a pro. I knew exactly why I was there wearing that big red fur coat. I knew exactly who the "clients" were, and was still willing to turn the aforementioned blind eye to what they'd apparently felt comfortable revealing to a "nobody" in their world, like Santa Claus.
If this individual-of-importance accomplished anything meaningful in her – hopefully – very short career, it was to mark this indelible image into my memory. I still got paid. But if I could have done it to their faces, I'd have torn up their check into paper snowflakes. Instead I was shown the door, which slammed immediately after I exited through it. So I rode Rudolph to the bank. Again, that was The Inn at Spanish Bay, in case you'd like to take note for future reference.
No, not very Santa-like of me, either. One more testimony to my being done, to closure, with the Jolly Fatman. Just for the record, I never took issue with whether a parent allowed a Santa Claus to exist in a child's mind, or never at all. I refuse to call Santa a myth, because Saint Nicholas was indeed a real historical figure – the watered-down commercialized trappings that repackaged him in early America are hardly fodder for indignation. Santa is one way, in the past we provided, and in some ways still provide, children with a few joyous seasons of innocence before the real world's coldly calculated manipulation colors their lives – much faster now than when I was a kid – and technology jades them all too soon away from the wonders of their own imaginations. My opinion.
I'm past him now, anyway. Years later, I'm trimmed down, and greatly resemble Vincent Price. I'm looking for an agent.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Another Year Come And Gone of Being Harmless, Industrious and Adorable
The first decade of the 21st century will soon be just a reference point, and it's about time for one of those damned end-of-year "wrap-up" newsletters that some people – like me – insist on inflicting on the rest of us. This one, however, may read a tad raw. I woke up grumpy in 2010, and its blessings were decidedly mixed.
My greatest gift of 2010 is that so far I've managed to get through it... just a few more days left until it won't qualify for the end-date on my headstone. Yet it's hardly a small wonder, the way some select forces in life united in collusion, my own stubbornness and stupidity, regarding my health, chief among them.
I finally went to the doctor in 2010, to find out what I already suspected but was in blissful denial about – I'd been committing slow suicide for five years. Type-2, known as "adult onset" diabetes, has manifested as neuropathy – nerve damage. I can't always feel the sun's – or an electric blanket's – warmth. It means I'll be one of those doddering morons whom you've occasionally seen dressed for autumn in July, and wondered about the number of cards in their mental deck.
I've still got both Jokers, that's all I'll say.
For some reason I just brain-shifted onto politics.
I voted democratic in the last presidential election, but didn't at the mid-term. Our local house-rep here on the central coast is a typical political career-cretin who's never punched an honest timecard in his pink, tubby, over-privileged life – Spanky with a prostate. I can hardly believe he was granted another term to keep waddling to the bank. He happens to be a democrat.
On the other hand, our nation's book buyers gave a hardy middle-finger to Karl Rove, and that warms my heart. The only difference between Rove and Luthor, is Lex's cooler hairstyle. Our aching sphincters haven't shrunk to normal yet, Karl, so it's a little soon to bum a post-coital cig.
Speaking of which, let's outlaw tobacco... please... let's. But by all means, keep Big Tob in business, by replacing their landscape of croplands with industrial sized pot farms. No jobs need be lost. They can go on raking in profits, and being taxed and regulated. Smokers can go on smoking. Keep various no-smoking areas in place, though, because I personally don't care for even THAT kind of second-hand smoke.
No, I don't buy nature's perfect bullshit about marijuana – nothing that is lit on fire and inhaled is ultimately good for you. The human body isn't designed to huff smoke. Period. Any substance that becomes a LIFESTYLE is not exactly going to make you a pillar of virtue. Tobacco, however, is so utterly evil that grass wins by default. Yes, I'd much rather sit in a room full of potheads than one full of tar-suckers, or boozehounds.
I'd feel much safer, and much less annoyed. I come from a family whose main goal in life was once to cover the globe with empty beer cans and cigarette butts – nothing good ever came of it.
I have no argument against pot's power to ease pain. If my mother had smoked pot, she'd probably still be with us today. Morphine eases pain too... after all the pot on Earth won't help.
We lived next door to a family of elderly Filipinos, who grew – literally – an acre garden of pot, cleverly disguised by a surrounding perimeter of less suspicious looking shoulder-high shrubbery. Guarded by a doberman pinscher and a marmaduke mastiff whose powerful jaws once bit through a 3-inch-thick grappling chain, just so he could trot up and greet the mailman.
They were such happy people. So pleasant. Shriveled old Mr. Cabbatic, all T-shirted 5-feet, 2-inches of him, and his 300-lb. mail-order bride from Manilla, Eleanora, who was a loyal wife, and outlived him. I can close my eyes now and still see their joyous, serene, humble – wise – smiles.
In our garden, my mother and grandmother grew everything from berries to pomegranates to squash and corn – but no pot. It was a different brand of wisdom.
My dad built a patio onto our house with a roof made from cheap aluminum siding – he was a rough-hewn genius like that. He loved Mr. Cabbatic so much that he took what was left over and used it to build an identical patio onto his house... for free. My dad was a contractor, but we were paupers, because he kept giving work away. I hope the Cabbatics let dad have an occasional toke. He was home alone a lot toward the end, in pain, and would've appreciated it. If he did, none of us ever found out. He died sitting at the kitchen table. His last words were "I feel great."
Their pot-garden patio was quiet, shady, an alternate universe from our patio; the scene of a few nicotine fueled, liquored-up Jerry Springer-worthy family blow-outs. And amazing, scarily-huge swarms of houseflies in the summer.
Thirty years later, that silver-topped patio on our old house can still even be seen by the Google satellite. I've looked.
All of them are gone. All belong completely to the 20th century.
All the old secrets are meaningless. Any illegalities have by now certainly fallen to a statute of limitations. Even the police who once cruised our neighborhood, if still alive, are sitting in rest homes talking about those mean streets of three decades ago, chalking the tires of the potato-chip man's delivery truck, or staking out the 7-11 for Sunday morning hair-of-the-doggers.
2010 was not a year of nostalgia for me, but writing about it has certainly stirred up a dust-devil of memories. In many ways I long to return home, but that's the one thing I can never do – the 21st century is one of forward motion, and gazes fixed upon horizons, not glancing back over shoulders.
The holidays approach, and I've come to know this certain time of year as one of inner calm. Unsure how accurate "inner peace" would sound, I'll play it safe. I enjoy the exciting, yet also soothing, space of days between Halloween and Christmas. Sure, I see and detest all the rampant commercialism and chaotic self-distraction as much as anyone. I once regarded Halloween as my favorite holiday, but have come to see a new truth there as well – its pagan self-indulgence is even a bit more dangerous than Christmas's, because it masquerades as ancestral virtue. At Christmastime we've come to make no pretensions about brazen selfism – that at least is an attempt at honesty.
The ancients had no monopoly on wisdom. They swilled just as hard, smoked whatever they could manage to roll and light, and were every bit as pleased with themselves. We just do it all better and faster because we enjoy modern time-savers like bottle openers and lighters, and our vice substances come conveniently pre-packaged.
I think Halloween began its descent on my personal score card when I noticed it had ceased being a kids' celebration of fun dress-up and candy, and become an adult altar-day for boozing and soullessness. I believe a certain contingent of people subconsciously use Halloween to let their pathologies breathe, or flesh out long-held secret yearnings, with a superficial belief that they are mocking something. What does that really say about modest girls who dress as sluts, butch girls who go as nurses and Little Bo-Peeps. The mama's boys as vampires. The geeks as powerful sci-fi warriors. The jokesters who become transvestites, never clowns. The bullies who morph into doctors, or hobos (there's a psychology term paper in the making). At least one slacker or hipster obligates himself to show up as a priest, or even more hardcore... Jesus.
Maybe that's the "honesty" I thought I was missing. I stopped dressing for Halloween, and stopped formalizing for Christmas, a long time ago. Maybe I finally got to a place where I figured I am all I wish to be, and don't need to keep feeding my subconscious. I'm not better than you, I'm just up late over-thinking it all.
I still miss the kids dressed up, out having fun. That's what Christmas once was too. Parents and kids enjoying some common ground. Halloween. Christmas.
Now my candy is sage stuffing, pumpkin pie, and good coffee. And I have an excuse to, sparingly, fall off my own wagon. 2010 was the year I got serious about The Wagon. The year I admitted there was a Wagon. And that I'd fallen off of it, and had been tangentially jogging along behind it.
I let undeserving people tighten my jaw in 2010. I lost some battles in 2010. I let good things slip by me in 2010. I had to resign myself to a few not-so-nice paradigm shifts in 2010. But I made new friends in 2010. I embraced my responsibility for my own health, finally, in 2010. I took steps forward, and stopped my whining by a degree in 2010. I became – as a result of my illness – worthless below the waist in 2010... but perhaps a better man between the ears in 2010.
I've wasted years of my life being harmless, fooled myself being industrious, and denying of myself by trying to be adorable to everybody. If I prove to be less cute and cuddly in 2011, just chalk it up to my nearness to 50 – what I can only hope is a halfway mark.
I do not wish to offend, but neither do I wish to defend. If you want Happy Holidays, have them by all means. If you celebrate something else besides Christmas, do. I'll say Merry Christmas, and when it arrives may it find you merry, and well, feeling joy and love. Some of that love... will be from me. Thank you for your presence. Among my life's ups and downs, you're in the "up" column. Trust me on that.
My greatest gift of 2010 is that so far I've managed to get through it... just a few more days left until it won't qualify for the end-date on my headstone. Yet it's hardly a small wonder, the way some select forces in life united in collusion, my own stubbornness and stupidity, regarding my health, chief among them.
I finally went to the doctor in 2010, to find out what I already suspected but was in blissful denial about – I'd been committing slow suicide for five years. Type-2, known as "adult onset" diabetes, has manifested as neuropathy – nerve damage. I can't always feel the sun's – or an electric blanket's – warmth. It means I'll be one of those doddering morons whom you've occasionally seen dressed for autumn in July, and wondered about the number of cards in their mental deck.
I've still got both Jokers, that's all I'll say.
For some reason I just brain-shifted onto politics.
I voted democratic in the last presidential election, but didn't at the mid-term. Our local house-rep here on the central coast is a typical political career-cretin who's never punched an honest timecard in his pink, tubby, over-privileged life – Spanky with a prostate. I can hardly believe he was granted another term to keep waddling to the bank. He happens to be a democrat.
On the other hand, our nation's book buyers gave a hardy middle-finger to Karl Rove, and that warms my heart. The only difference between Rove and Luthor, is Lex's cooler hairstyle. Our aching sphincters haven't shrunk to normal yet, Karl, so it's a little soon to bum a post-coital cig.
Speaking of which, let's outlaw tobacco... please... let's. But by all means, keep Big Tob in business, by replacing their landscape of croplands with industrial sized pot farms. No jobs need be lost. They can go on raking in profits, and being taxed and regulated. Smokers can go on smoking. Keep various no-smoking areas in place, though, because I personally don't care for even THAT kind of second-hand smoke.
No, I don't buy nature's perfect bullshit about marijuana – nothing that is lit on fire and inhaled is ultimately good for you. The human body isn't designed to huff smoke. Period. Any substance that becomes a LIFESTYLE is not exactly going to make you a pillar of virtue. Tobacco, however, is so utterly evil that grass wins by default. Yes, I'd much rather sit in a room full of potheads than one full of tar-suckers, or boozehounds.
I'd feel much safer, and much less annoyed. I come from a family whose main goal in life was once to cover the globe with empty beer cans and cigarette butts – nothing good ever came of it.
I have no argument against pot's power to ease pain. If my mother had smoked pot, she'd probably still be with us today. Morphine eases pain too... after all the pot on Earth won't help.
We lived next door to a family of elderly Filipinos, who grew – literally – an acre garden of pot, cleverly disguised by a surrounding perimeter of less suspicious looking shoulder-high shrubbery. Guarded by a doberman pinscher and a marmaduke mastiff whose powerful jaws once bit through a 3-inch-thick grappling chain, just so he could trot up and greet the mailman.
They were such happy people. So pleasant. Shriveled old Mr. Cabbatic, all T-shirted 5-feet, 2-inches of him, and his 300-lb. mail-order bride from Manilla, Eleanora, who was a loyal wife, and outlived him. I can close my eyes now and still see their joyous, serene, humble – wise – smiles.
In our garden, my mother and grandmother grew everything from berries to pomegranates to squash and corn – but no pot. It was a different brand of wisdom.
My dad built a patio onto our house with a roof made from cheap aluminum siding – he was a rough-hewn genius like that. He loved Mr. Cabbatic so much that he took what was left over and used it to build an identical patio onto his house... for free. My dad was a contractor, but we were paupers, because he kept giving work away. I hope the Cabbatics let dad have an occasional toke. He was home alone a lot toward the end, in pain, and would've appreciated it. If he did, none of us ever found out. He died sitting at the kitchen table. His last words were "I feel great."
Their pot-garden patio was quiet, shady, an alternate universe from our patio; the scene of a few nicotine fueled, liquored-up Jerry Springer-worthy family blow-outs. And amazing, scarily-huge swarms of houseflies in the summer.
Thirty years later, that silver-topped patio on our old house can still even be seen by the Google satellite. I've looked.
All of them are gone. All belong completely to the 20th century.
All the old secrets are meaningless. Any illegalities have by now certainly fallen to a statute of limitations. Even the police who once cruised our neighborhood, if still alive, are sitting in rest homes talking about those mean streets of three decades ago, chalking the tires of the potato-chip man's delivery truck, or staking out the 7-11 for Sunday morning hair-of-the-doggers.
2010 was not a year of nostalgia for me, but writing about it has certainly stirred up a dust-devil of memories. In many ways I long to return home, but that's the one thing I can never do – the 21st century is one of forward motion, and gazes fixed upon horizons, not glancing back over shoulders.
The holidays approach, and I've come to know this certain time of year as one of inner calm. Unsure how accurate "inner peace" would sound, I'll play it safe. I enjoy the exciting, yet also soothing, space of days between Halloween and Christmas. Sure, I see and detest all the rampant commercialism and chaotic self-distraction as much as anyone. I once regarded Halloween as my favorite holiday, but have come to see a new truth there as well – its pagan self-indulgence is even a bit more dangerous than Christmas's, because it masquerades as ancestral virtue. At Christmastime we've come to make no pretensions about brazen selfism – that at least is an attempt at honesty.
The ancients had no monopoly on wisdom. They swilled just as hard, smoked whatever they could manage to roll and light, and were every bit as pleased with themselves. We just do it all better and faster because we enjoy modern time-savers like bottle openers and lighters, and our vice substances come conveniently pre-packaged.
I think Halloween began its descent on my personal score card when I noticed it had ceased being a kids' celebration of fun dress-up and candy, and become an adult altar-day for boozing and soullessness. I believe a certain contingent of people subconsciously use Halloween to let their pathologies breathe, or flesh out long-held secret yearnings, with a superficial belief that they are mocking something. What does that really say about modest girls who dress as sluts, butch girls who go as nurses and Little Bo-Peeps. The mama's boys as vampires. The geeks as powerful sci-fi warriors. The jokesters who become transvestites, never clowns. The bullies who morph into doctors, or hobos (there's a psychology term paper in the making). At least one slacker or hipster obligates himself to show up as a priest, or even more hardcore... Jesus.
Maybe that's the "honesty" I thought I was missing. I stopped dressing for Halloween, and stopped formalizing for Christmas, a long time ago. Maybe I finally got to a place where I figured I am all I wish to be, and don't need to keep feeding my subconscious. I'm not better than you, I'm just up late over-thinking it all.
I still miss the kids dressed up, out having fun. That's what Christmas once was too. Parents and kids enjoying some common ground. Halloween. Christmas.
Now my candy is sage stuffing, pumpkin pie, and good coffee. And I have an excuse to, sparingly, fall off my own wagon. 2010 was the year I got serious about The Wagon. The year I admitted there was a Wagon. And that I'd fallen off of it, and had been tangentially jogging along behind it.
I let undeserving people tighten my jaw in 2010. I lost some battles in 2010. I let good things slip by me in 2010. I had to resign myself to a few not-so-nice paradigm shifts in 2010. But I made new friends in 2010. I embraced my responsibility for my own health, finally, in 2010. I took steps forward, and stopped my whining by a degree in 2010. I became – as a result of my illness – worthless below the waist in 2010... but perhaps a better man between the ears in 2010.
I've wasted years of my life being harmless, fooled myself being industrious, and denying of myself by trying to be adorable to everybody. If I prove to be less cute and cuddly in 2011, just chalk it up to my nearness to 50 – what I can only hope is a halfway mark.
I do not wish to offend, but neither do I wish to defend. If you want Happy Holidays, have them by all means. If you celebrate something else besides Christmas, do. I'll say Merry Christmas, and when it arrives may it find you merry, and well, feeling joy and love. Some of that love... will be from me. Thank you for your presence. Among my life's ups and downs, you're in the "up" column. Trust me on that.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Random Briefs
There is only one idiot you'll never meet: the last one.
I watched an HD online trailer for the latest sci-fi blockbuster, "Skyline," tonight. The aliens are bigger, louder, more inescapable than in any previous billion-dollar special effects blow-out. Yet the surf tonight, pounding the beach just blocks from my window, sounds like it's right outside, more real and more awesome than anything CGI artists could ever conjure up.
Some people will spend a year on the toilet just to shit a pile big enough from which to stand on and look down on people.
The more I hear candidates talk, the more it sounds like kids trying to talk their parents into getting them bikes. The more I hear elected officials talk, the more it sounds like kids trying to explain to their parents how "monsters" wrecked the bike.
It's one thing to see people taking the low road. It's another to see people setting their ambitions toward it.
I watched an HD online trailer for the latest sci-fi blockbuster, "Skyline," tonight. The aliens are bigger, louder, more inescapable than in any previous billion-dollar special effects blow-out. Yet the surf tonight, pounding the beach just blocks from my window, sounds like it's right outside, more real and more awesome than anything CGI artists could ever conjure up.
Some people will spend a year on the toilet just to shit a pile big enough from which to stand on and look down on people.
The more I hear candidates talk, the more it sounds like kids trying to talk their parents into getting them bikes. The more I hear elected officials talk, the more it sounds like kids trying to explain to their parents how "monsters" wrecked the bike.
It's one thing to see people taking the low road. It's another to see people setting their ambitions toward it.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Guess Who I Met!
No, my "Met A Celebrity" stories are not better or worse than anyone else's. Anyway, I happen to know a few people whose interactions with the famous and infamous make mine – and trust me, yours too – seem like accidental run-ins with the meter reader. So I simply can't portray myself as some kind of star-magnet.
My stand-outs, the ones I find the most amusing in hindsight, are those that weren't according to a traditional "script." I didn't own all their CDs. In some cases I hadn't seen all, or even a single episode, of their hit show. Their films weren't exactly on my must-see list.
We crossed paths, and I either knew vaguely who they were, or just happened to figure it out later.
I myself, on the other hand, meant absolutely nothing to them. They were at least on a "list" with an actual letter designation – A, B, C... H.
Some are mere single sentences in length. Like the time Larry King brushed me aside with what was probably his standard duck-n-cover line for strangers: "Hey-how-are-ya-dere."
Think a gravel-throated New-Yawker gurgle of, "I'm not stopping, I don't know you, please be nice and get lost."
There was that magical moment I found myself holding a door for Mary Tyler-Moore, mentally stunned by how impossibly petite she is – like watching a 5-foot-tall animated pencil with perfectly coifed hair, drawing a line out of the building, unaided by any push from some gigantic etherial hand. I could only grin politely, unworthy of actual speech in such close proximity to her awesomeness. I imagine she was used to it.
I've written before of my surreal encounters with Judge Lance Ito and CIA Director Leon Panetta.
There was one instance in which my long held perceptions of a particular famous person were altered 180 degrees, simply by a chance meeting as brief as a gasp. I was standing in the right office at the right time, at the newspaper where I worked, when Julia Child ambled in to hand-deliver a copy of her own press release for an upcoming culinary event in town.
My mind made the connection that I assume most minds would (you may even be doing it now) – a vision of Dan Aykroyd in drag as Julia, inadvertently slicing open a vein on Saturday Night Live.
Just the short batch of minutes I spent in the actual Julia's presence eradicated from my soul the premise of that cruel skit. She was everyone's grandmother – as warm as a cup of hot cocoa to the palm of a hand just in from a winter morning – as sweet as a box of chocolate cordials – as honest and earnest as a summer rain amid a dry spell. It was difficult to forgive Aykroyd after that, for a very long time, about a piece of TV comedy that had once brought laughter. Once.
Some encounters weren't as personal, but equally as touching – as the one in 2002, when on the catering crew for the Latino Film Festival in Los Angeles, I watched Edward James Olmos help his mother around a salad and dessert bar, holding her plate, describing each item for her.
At the same event, I was elected "Honorary Righthand Man" by the late legendary character actor Vincent Schiavelli. The caterer employing me that night made a spiced tortilla wrap that Schiavelli became addicted to. Upon serving him his second platter, I made the standard Waiter 101 comment that if he needed more, to just let me know. He took it literally, and whenever his plate became empty, he had a way of focussing a laser-like gaze at me from across the expansive dining room and drawing me to him – with a smile, and a fresh plate of tortilla wraps in hand.
I'll never forget the visage of a man whose hawkish face graced the screen in so many cherished films, mouthing from a distance with great urgency shaping his brow: "Rob! More!"
The most surreal meet-ups happen in places one would least suspect, but in retrospect suddenly reveal themselves as completely natural. In 2004, I was producing and co-starring in a stageshow about the iconic comedian Lenny Bruce. On our second weekend we arrived at the theater to find another event just concluding, with various crew packing up equipment and cleaning up a lavish hospitality area. We couldn't begin the set-up for our own show until after this group had finished.
During the wait, I stood around with a cup of their caterer's leftover coffee in hand, shooting the breeze with one of the people in charge of that earlier event. We chewed the fat about the combined hardships and joys of producing, and the general rollercoaster ride that show business can become. He asked me about the show we were about to set the stage for, and when I described for him our bio-play tribute to Bruce, he was intensely interested.
"You ought to stick around and see it," I said. He answered that it was a tempting offer, but he was expected at another social gathering elsewhere that evening. "Well," I replied, "if you're back in town the next three weeks or so."
We shook hands, and said our "see-ya's." He left with his crew and cadre of pals, and I went about my own tasks at hand to prepare that night's show. It had been refreshing to talk shop with someone else in "the business," especially someone who made it a full-time living – a trick I hadn't quite mastered.
Not long after, the CD for which that other group's event had been a "release party" hit the retail shelves. It was Brian Wilson's "Smile." The person I had chatted up in the theater kitchen weeks prior, was the man himself. Somehow within the context of a local hospitality event, and a personable conversation so casual, I had distracted myself from recognizing him.
One of the biggest clichés in Hollywood, is that when you meet a star, your "big break" is near. More often than not, it's exactly the opposite. If they are indeed real persons beneath the hoopla and sparkle, their meeting you is a much needed "break" – from their entrapment by the public spotlight – a moment to disengage from the pressures of stardom and allow their very-human real selves to breathe.
If you want to be a celebrity's instant ally, the surest way is to be the kind of person who allows them that freedom.
My stand-outs, the ones I find the most amusing in hindsight, are those that weren't according to a traditional "script." I didn't own all their CDs. In some cases I hadn't seen all, or even a single episode, of their hit show. Their films weren't exactly on my must-see list.
We crossed paths, and I either knew vaguely who they were, or just happened to figure it out later.
I myself, on the other hand, meant absolutely nothing to them. They were at least on a "list" with an actual letter designation – A, B, C... H.
Some are mere single sentences in length. Like the time Larry King brushed me aside with what was probably his standard duck-n-cover line for strangers: "Hey-how-are-ya-dere."
Think a gravel-throated New-Yawker gurgle of, "I'm not stopping, I don't know you, please be nice and get lost."
There was that magical moment I found myself holding a door for Mary Tyler-Moore, mentally stunned by how impossibly petite she is – like watching a 5-foot-tall animated pencil with perfectly coifed hair, drawing a line out of the building, unaided by any push from some gigantic etherial hand. I could only grin politely, unworthy of actual speech in such close proximity to her awesomeness. I imagine she was used to it.
I've written before of my surreal encounters with Judge Lance Ito and CIA Director Leon Panetta.
There was one instance in which my long held perceptions of a particular famous person were altered 180 degrees, simply by a chance meeting as brief as a gasp. I was standing in the right office at the right time, at the newspaper where I worked, when Julia Child ambled in to hand-deliver a copy of her own press release for an upcoming culinary event in town.
My mind made the connection that I assume most minds would (you may even be doing it now) – a vision of Dan Aykroyd in drag as Julia, inadvertently slicing open a vein on Saturday Night Live.
Just the short batch of minutes I spent in the actual Julia's presence eradicated from my soul the premise of that cruel skit. She was everyone's grandmother – as warm as a cup of hot cocoa to the palm of a hand just in from a winter morning – as sweet as a box of chocolate cordials – as honest and earnest as a summer rain amid a dry spell. It was difficult to forgive Aykroyd after that, for a very long time, about a piece of TV comedy that had once brought laughter. Once.
Some encounters weren't as personal, but equally as touching – as the one in 2002, when on the catering crew for the Latino Film Festival in Los Angeles, I watched Edward James Olmos help his mother around a salad and dessert bar, holding her plate, describing each item for her.
At the same event, I was elected "Honorary Righthand Man" by the late legendary character actor Vincent Schiavelli. The caterer employing me that night made a spiced tortilla wrap that Schiavelli became addicted to. Upon serving him his second platter, I made the standard Waiter 101 comment that if he needed more, to just let me know. He took it literally, and whenever his plate became empty, he had a way of focussing a laser-like gaze at me from across the expansive dining room and drawing me to him – with a smile, and a fresh plate of tortilla wraps in hand.
I'll never forget the visage of a man whose hawkish face graced the screen in so many cherished films, mouthing from a distance with great urgency shaping his brow: "Rob! More!"
The most surreal meet-ups happen in places one would least suspect, but in retrospect suddenly reveal themselves as completely natural. In 2004, I was producing and co-starring in a stageshow about the iconic comedian Lenny Bruce. On our second weekend we arrived at the theater to find another event just concluding, with various crew packing up equipment and cleaning up a lavish hospitality area. We couldn't begin the set-up for our own show until after this group had finished.
During the wait, I stood around with a cup of their caterer's leftover coffee in hand, shooting the breeze with one of the people in charge of that earlier event. We chewed the fat about the combined hardships and joys of producing, and the general rollercoaster ride that show business can become. He asked me about the show we were about to set the stage for, and when I described for him our bio-play tribute to Bruce, he was intensely interested.
"You ought to stick around and see it," I said. He answered that it was a tempting offer, but he was expected at another social gathering elsewhere that evening. "Well," I replied, "if you're back in town the next three weeks or so."
We shook hands, and said our "see-ya's." He left with his crew and cadre of pals, and I went about my own tasks at hand to prepare that night's show. It had been refreshing to talk shop with someone else in "the business," especially someone who made it a full-time living – a trick I hadn't quite mastered.
Not long after, the CD for which that other group's event had been a "release party" hit the retail shelves. It was Brian Wilson's "Smile." The person I had chatted up in the theater kitchen weeks prior, was the man himself. Somehow within the context of a local hospitality event, and a personable conversation so casual, I had distracted myself from recognizing him.
One of the biggest clichés in Hollywood, is that when you meet a star, your "big break" is near. More often than not, it's exactly the opposite. If they are indeed real persons beneath the hoopla and sparkle, their meeting you is a much needed "break" – from their entrapment by the public spotlight – a moment to disengage from the pressures of stardom and allow their very-human real selves to breathe.
If you want to be a celebrity's instant ally, the surest way is to be the kind of person who allows them that freedom.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Up Yours
I'm a very permissive guy, despite my inner code of ethics. As long as you're not intentionally trying to bug me, harm me (or someone else), or engaging in some self-indulgent distraction with no regard for anyone else's risk of arrest for simply being in your vicinity, I'm pretty much okay with whatever it is you do.
Just because I will rarely verbally reflect upon or complain about your behavioral choices, enlightened or stupid, please don't assume that I embrace them myself. If I want a beer, I'll order one. You haven't ordered for both of us just because you've bought a pitcher. It's all yours – go for it, Wundergut, I'll watch. And the next one is on you, too, just like the first.
But there is one act that makes me cringe when I see it done incorrectly. I cringe because it is one of the few social body language cues meant to be pretentious, and in that regard, requires purity. And it's so simple, that to botch it is to shout to the world of one's lack of competence – with a misguided enthusiasm for its pretension. Like driving a racecar into the wall while waving victory to the crowd, on the NEXT-TO-last lap.
It's the "thumb-up" sign. It was invented by the ancient Romans, to communicate to the emperor from the back row how much blood and carnage was needed down in the arena to sate their dark loveless hearts. And in its original form, the "up" sign meant death. There was no "down."
The Upward Thumb underwent a transformation in World War I, used by the then-new breed of warrior, the fighter pilot, to let his crewmen know he was ready to hit the throttle – "Outta the way, I'm headed upward!" He used it to encourage his fellow fliers from across the airfield. And in the air, to reassure them from great distances, that he'd survived a barrage of enemy bullets. It was even used to salute a particularly brave or talented combatant of the other side – the first-generation sky soldiers actually revered each other, regardless of tail insignia.
The tradition continued in World War II, only reserved for one's own, not freely exchanged with those shooting at you.
So this is a hand gesture with a formidable history. Its pretension is counter-balanced by an unwritten résumé of gallantry and emotion. There is just one solemn rule regarding the thumb-up: it's sublimely masculine.
Sure, a woman can do it. A child can do it. There's no restriction as to who may give or receive a thumb-up signal. Roger Ebert considers it his all-but-legally copyrighted trademark, despite being a roly-poly moviehouse nerd his entire life.
The thumb-up is all-inclusive, and universally understood across most every creed and culture around the globe. A few cultures may consider it an insult via symbolic rectal indiscretion, but they are a definite minority.
It is ultimately a manly gesture to be sure. Its heart is hetero, yet that doesn't mean alternate-lifestyled individuals are denied from it. A drag queen managing a beauty salon in an orange-sherbet colored jumpsuit, pumps and painted toenails is totally welcome to utilize a thumb-up to approve the completion of a customer's handsomely worn beehive – no problem.
But the classic execution of a thumb-up... is macho. Despite the irony, it's like ballet: you either point your digits correctly and do it absolutely, or you're a pretender, and even those unschooled in its nuance can spot you.
The fay thumb-up, fraudulent and disgraceful, used by people who lack its implied self-confidence, is a feeble handshake pantomimed. Make a soft fist with your fingers, but poke your thumb out like a meerkat from a dirt hole.
It's holding an unused spatula in cooking class. It's making the head of a hand-turkey with watercolor.
A real thumb-up is a solid fist, with thumb held aloft. Hitchhiking in Death Valley. Popping off a rattlesnake's head. Make it look like your thumb's mere downturn will transform your hand into a pain-dealing flesh hammer. Your intensions need not be ruffian, and ideally shouldn't, but the true thumb-up is a rude buddy. Its message should be the exact polar opposite of the flip-off, but its intensity should be similar.
Just get it right. Regardless of your gender, orientation or circumstance, either do it like a man, or kindly mince your candy-ass out of the room.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
I Want Your Blood
I was at a nearby medical center very early in the morning, to have blood drawn for some tests my doctor ordered. Before I could hand my paperwork to the old male nurse, who looked just a little too satisfied leaned back in his creaky office chair, he informed me that he could not accept me just yet. I was required to backtrack across the medical center commons to another office and "register." My name on my paperwork matched the name on my driver's license – not good enough? It was the rule.
Another man, sitting in the waiting area, yelped "do I have to, too?"
"Did you already," the nurse grunted?
"No," the man said, like a command, his face already purpling.
"Then you hafta."
I and this angry fella walked together back to the registration office that we'd apparently skipped over so nihilistically in our earlier haste. "That guy really burns me up," he sputtered. "This here crap. I sat there a good fifteen minutes and he knew it, before you walked in. I could'a done had this crap overwith."
I responded sheepishly, in an acquiescent attempt not to egg him on. Jeans, boots, plaid workshirt, bulging veins – a loaded shotgun I reasoned was close by, in his parked vehicle just an extra minute's walk farther.
"Yeah," I breathed, with a sufficient pause, then committed myself to a complete statement. "He seems pretty comfy in there." What the hell did THAT mean? I didn't know, but my big mad buddy found a grain of mysterious wisdom in it.
"Cushy-jobbed needle-pokin' ... whatever!" I imagine the word "whatever" was meant as a generic stand-in for the epithetic pronoun of one's choice.
When we arrived at the Registrar's desk, she shuffled us off to another waiting area, larger, more nebulous, easier to become lost and forgotten in. My new pal was just getting warmed up. "I sure don't appreciate this," he fumed lowly. "I sat in that other room for fifteen minutes with that nurse sittin' in there, and he knew all the time he was gonna make me walk over here."
The lady behind the computer terminal nodded, with a bent brow and a sympathetic curl at one corner of her scarlet-painted lips. "We're trying to get a sign made," she said, "so people will know to come here first. We sincerely apologize." She'd undoubtable repeated that a hundred times, it sounded so rehearsed. The building looked brand new, spotless and expensive – with no sense that any signage was intended that would lower its real estate value. Without question a recited apology was cheaper than hiring a sign maker.
"He could'a told me right off, but no, he let me sit there fifteen whole minutes."
Whole minutes, not just any. What could she say? He was right. I'd be a little insulted myself. Slowly he resigned himself to sit across the desk from the kind computer woman, who glanced over his paperwork, asked if the contact information on it was correct, typed it in, and deemed him freed to go resume his place in the bloodwork office with the rude male nurse. Just like that. The look on the man's face was quite obvious now. Words he did not speak were nevertheless roiling off his crooked, reddening brow. He rose like a hungry attack dog who's just realized his collar is off. I sat next.
A minute later I was too retracing my path back to the nurse's way-station, about fifteen steps behind Mr. Congeniality. I slowed my pace a beat or two, so as not to become again a human tampon for his torrential disgust – which I could hear pouring out even at my present distance. Finally he got inside, and I was able to fain blithe disregard, and concentrate on my own need to get past this methodical phase of preliminary medical bureaucracy.
By the time I made it into the office, he had already been ushered into the nurse's realm beyond the front counter. Muffled words were being exchanged. Then a low chuckle bounced through the duct system. And all fell silent. The needle had been brought into play.
A minute later, the nurse returned to his front post. My gawd, how sitting in that deskchair had distracted from his size. He was huge. And dressed in medical greens intended to routinely endure blood spatter.
The guy you don't mess with. And keenly self-aware of it.
Mr. Unfairly Treated eventually waddled out, holding his free hand to the bend of his arm, where a mesh bandage held firm a large swab of cotton. His once fiery countenance had been erased, or perhaps, glazed over. He chuckled at me nervously as he passed. "He's really pretty good," he said, as if auditioning for a radio ad for the medical center.
And with that he was gone. Out the door. In a hurry.
The nurse leaned forward, extending his giant hand for my paperwork. I was registered. And I was next.
I attempted to make my facial expression telegraph my thoughts. "All I said was that you looked comfy."
-----------
RANDOM IS AS RANDOM DOES
Bureaucratic committees sit around creating compelling reasons not to let something happen. Let go of your "inner committee." The ego is a bureaucracy of one, with a thousand voices. How do you know "You" from your ego? That voice listing excuses is your ego, and the one listening to the voice is You. Listen to You for awhile.
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Randy Travis look like some WWII vet had two families – one in Austria, and one in Arkansas.
Overheard on the Safeway Market loudspeaker: "Bakerage, you have a phonecall. Bakerage, you have a phonecall." It must've been on purpose, she said it twice.
Another man, sitting in the waiting area, yelped "do I have to, too?"
"Did you already," the nurse grunted?
"No," the man said, like a command, his face already purpling.
"Then you hafta."
I and this angry fella walked together back to the registration office that we'd apparently skipped over so nihilistically in our earlier haste. "That guy really burns me up," he sputtered. "This here crap. I sat there a good fifteen minutes and he knew it, before you walked in. I could'a done had this crap overwith."
I responded sheepishly, in an acquiescent attempt not to egg him on. Jeans, boots, plaid workshirt, bulging veins – a loaded shotgun I reasoned was close by, in his parked vehicle just an extra minute's walk farther.
"Yeah," I breathed, with a sufficient pause, then committed myself to a complete statement. "He seems pretty comfy in there." What the hell did THAT mean? I didn't know, but my big mad buddy found a grain of mysterious wisdom in it.
"Cushy-jobbed needle-pokin' ... whatever!" I imagine the word "whatever" was meant as a generic stand-in for the epithetic pronoun of one's choice.
When we arrived at the Registrar's desk, she shuffled us off to another waiting area, larger, more nebulous, easier to become lost and forgotten in. My new pal was just getting warmed up. "I sure don't appreciate this," he fumed lowly. "I sat in that other room for fifteen minutes with that nurse sittin' in there, and he knew all the time he was gonna make me walk over here."
The lady behind the computer terminal nodded, with a bent brow and a sympathetic curl at one corner of her scarlet-painted lips. "We're trying to get a sign made," she said, "so people will know to come here first. We sincerely apologize." She'd undoubtable repeated that a hundred times, it sounded so rehearsed. The building looked brand new, spotless and expensive – with no sense that any signage was intended that would lower its real estate value. Without question a recited apology was cheaper than hiring a sign maker.
"He could'a told me right off, but no, he let me sit there fifteen whole minutes."
Whole minutes, not just any. What could she say? He was right. I'd be a little insulted myself. Slowly he resigned himself to sit across the desk from the kind computer woman, who glanced over his paperwork, asked if the contact information on it was correct, typed it in, and deemed him freed to go resume his place in the bloodwork office with the rude male nurse. Just like that. The look on the man's face was quite obvious now. Words he did not speak were nevertheless roiling off his crooked, reddening brow. He rose like a hungry attack dog who's just realized his collar is off. I sat next.
A minute later I was too retracing my path back to the nurse's way-station, about fifteen steps behind Mr. Congeniality. I slowed my pace a beat or two, so as not to become again a human tampon for his torrential disgust – which I could hear pouring out even at my present distance. Finally he got inside, and I was able to fain blithe disregard, and concentrate on my own need to get past this methodical phase of preliminary medical bureaucracy.
By the time I made it into the office, he had already been ushered into the nurse's realm beyond the front counter. Muffled words were being exchanged. Then a low chuckle bounced through the duct system. And all fell silent. The needle had been brought into play.
A minute later, the nurse returned to his front post. My gawd, how sitting in that deskchair had distracted from his size. He was huge. And dressed in medical greens intended to routinely endure blood spatter.
The guy you don't mess with. And keenly self-aware of it.
Mr. Unfairly Treated eventually waddled out, holding his free hand to the bend of his arm, where a mesh bandage held firm a large swab of cotton. His once fiery countenance had been erased, or perhaps, glazed over. He chuckled at me nervously as he passed. "He's really pretty good," he said, as if auditioning for a radio ad for the medical center.
And with that he was gone. Out the door. In a hurry.
The nurse leaned forward, extending his giant hand for my paperwork. I was registered. And I was next.
I attempted to make my facial expression telegraph my thoughts. "All I said was that you looked comfy."
-----------
RANDOM IS AS RANDOM DOES
Bureaucratic committees sit around creating compelling reasons not to let something happen. Let go of your "inner committee." The ego is a bureaucracy of one, with a thousand voices. How do you know "You" from your ego? That voice listing excuses is your ego, and the one listening to the voice is You. Listen to You for awhile.
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Randy Travis look like some WWII vet had two families – one in Austria, and one in Arkansas.
Overheard on the Safeway Market loudspeaker: "Bakerage, you have a phonecall. Bakerage, you have a phonecall." It must've been on purpose, she said it twice.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
When You Walk Through A Storm
Here I am, up very late, or very early depending on whether you watch the clock or the balance of light and dark between the blinds. Right now it is pitch black, and around three o'clock – when sleep experts tend to think most people are slumbering deepest.
I am not. I now live with a stubborn partner who loves the nightlife – neuropathy. Nerve damage in the lower legs and feet. His favorite time to party is when I'd rather be in bed, joining the rest of humanity on this side of the globe. If I'm not rested for work, keeping a roof over my head will become a bit more difficult than it already is. My pal neuropathy doesn't care.
If he were a separate person, I'd be on the web, looking up the criteria for justifiable homicide under California law.
Most times, my feet don't sense heat, and so assume room temperature. The human body's thermostat is set to run at 98.7 degrees, so room temperature translates into the sensation of standing barefoot outdoors in March before sunrise. That's while in bed with the covers pulled up.
If it were as simple as bundling up, I'd be fine. It's a kind of cold that seems to exist beyond the third dimension; my perception is wacked.
When my numb, frosty hooves aren't shut down, they are hyper. A toe will suddenly think it's just been pounded by an invisible hammer. Or a spot near my instep will at once feel a phantom wire brush being thrust into it, over and over, in rhythm with every other heartbeat.
The only real treatment is to retrain my cells, who've lived on junk for the past five years or so, to start welcoming glucose again – the kind produced by real food. I've actually starved my nerves by consuming so much wrapped and processed garbage, now they are on the brink of a systemic collapse. Only my cells have basically forgotten how to feed them... so I've got to convince them to resume their original job description, with a doctor's and a nutritionist's help.
Then I can walk in the meadow again, or at least feel like I can.
In the meantime, my nighttime companion continues to burn the midnight oil, well into the morning. I have ceased to enjoy the oncoming of bedtime, because I know I won't be alone with my thoughts, my mind free to drift off into the ether.
Well tucked in, I feel like I've been short-sheeted at a cheap motel. And a bland breakfast awaits, by prescription. There's no witty closer here... if I get this thing turned around, maybe I'll write one then.
I am not. I now live with a stubborn partner who loves the nightlife – neuropathy. Nerve damage in the lower legs and feet. His favorite time to party is when I'd rather be in bed, joining the rest of humanity on this side of the globe. If I'm not rested for work, keeping a roof over my head will become a bit more difficult than it already is. My pal neuropathy doesn't care.
If he were a separate person, I'd be on the web, looking up the criteria for justifiable homicide under California law.
Most times, my feet don't sense heat, and so assume room temperature. The human body's thermostat is set to run at 98.7 degrees, so room temperature translates into the sensation of standing barefoot outdoors in March before sunrise. That's while in bed with the covers pulled up.
If it were as simple as bundling up, I'd be fine. It's a kind of cold that seems to exist beyond the third dimension; my perception is wacked.
When my numb, frosty hooves aren't shut down, they are hyper. A toe will suddenly think it's just been pounded by an invisible hammer. Or a spot near my instep will at once feel a phantom wire brush being thrust into it, over and over, in rhythm with every other heartbeat.
The only real treatment is to retrain my cells, who've lived on junk for the past five years or so, to start welcoming glucose again – the kind produced by real food. I've actually starved my nerves by consuming so much wrapped and processed garbage, now they are on the brink of a systemic collapse. Only my cells have basically forgotten how to feed them... so I've got to convince them to resume their original job description, with a doctor's and a nutritionist's help.
Then I can walk in the meadow again, or at least feel like I can.
In the meantime, my nighttime companion continues to burn the midnight oil, well into the morning. I have ceased to enjoy the oncoming of bedtime, because I know I won't be alone with my thoughts, my mind free to drift off into the ether.
Well tucked in, I feel like I've been short-sheeted at a cheap motel. And a bland breakfast awaits, by prescription. There's no witty closer here... if I get this thing turned around, maybe I'll write one then.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Curtains!
An astounding chapter in American entertainment came to a sad, grisly end today, as the formerly deceased Oscar Hammerstein II, recently reanimated in a stunning cyrogenic laboratory experiment, had to be felled by Army snipers from a Manhattan rooftop.
The celebrated Broadway librettist and producer, once thawed, became enraged upon his first venture outdoors to experience what he slurred "my great white way today," and happened past the Lunt-Fontanne, where "The Addams Family" currently holds court starring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth.
"He turned purple," said Dr. Horgus Reem, director of the New York Cyrogenic Center for Research. "Then came a string of epithets I'd never dreamt could emanate from anyone whose been dead for 50 years – much less a showbiz legend."
A SWAT team was able to end the episode in timely fashion with a merciful bullet. All hostages were recovered with only minor injuries.
NYPD Captain Kyle Durley likened the incident to a similar past event. "It was the same when they thawed out Disney," he said. "He was really jazzed about the innovation of VHS, until someone let him see a cassette of 'The Black Cauldron,' and he went postal."
"I can still see him," continued Durley, "screaming like a wounded boar, waving the 9mm.'"
The celebrated Broadway librettist and producer, once thawed, became enraged upon his first venture outdoors to experience what he slurred "my great white way today," and happened past the Lunt-Fontanne, where "The Addams Family" currently holds court starring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth.
"He turned purple," said Dr. Horgus Reem, director of the New York Cyrogenic Center for Research. "Then came a string of epithets I'd never dreamt could emanate from anyone whose been dead for 50 years – much less a showbiz legend."
A SWAT team was able to end the episode in timely fashion with a merciful bullet. All hostages were recovered with only minor injuries.
NYPD Captain Kyle Durley likened the incident to a similar past event. "It was the same when they thawed out Disney," he said. "He was really jazzed about the innovation of VHS, until someone let him see a cassette of 'The Black Cauldron,' and he went postal."
"I can still see him," continued Durley, "screaming like a wounded boar, waving the 9mm.'"
Today... Hurray For Us!
Forty-one years today, long enough ago that some people who've just reached middle-age were not yet born, the three bravest men on the planet sat perched atop what was essentially a big metal stick of dynamite over half as tall as the Washington Monument... and lit it, bound on a journey that would have left Leif Erickson, Christopher Columbus and Magellan faint of heart, with their jaws hanging.
From when the countdown reached zero, the lives of those three intrepid souls sitting in the nosecone might be wiped out in a heartbeat, at any given moment during the next eight days. Where they were going, there would be no places to rest, rethink, or ponder turning back. Their destination offered nothing hospitable to life – not even air to breathe. They would spend nearly 22 hours there before lifting off again for the voyage home, if they made it that far.
Just the trip there might kill them. Landing might crush them. Once down, their equipment – which despite rigorous testing back on Earth, could not be tested in the actual environment for which it was designed – could fail, stranding them there to die. Merely exiting the craft, once on the alien surface, might spell doom. The blast off for home could go wrong. The trip back was just as potentially dangerous, and they'd be "landing" in the roaring Pacific Ocean aboard a craft as fatigued by the same unprecedented ordeal as they.
Again, if they made it that far. Those were all still unanswered questions in July of 1969.
The entire planet of humanity became still to watch, counting off every tiny milestone – the rocket got off the launchpad, everything worked, nothing failed.
We lost them from radio contact somewhere along the way, for an anxious interval, wondering where they could possibly be – if they were alive – up in the black unknowable cosmos. Their voices were believed lost forever until someone thought to locate them by simply pointing the radio dish in the direction of their destination, the Moon.
And there they were, still in business, hardly aware that every other human had momentarily forgotten how to breathe.
The Moon was barren, but benign, and allowed the adventurers to roam, leave bootprints, take souvenirs and plant a red, white and blue calling card... along with a plaque that spelled out our intentions. "We came in peace for all mankind."
A few days after placing his foot upon a land where none had ever before, Neil Armstrong and his fellow pioneers – the only word fully accurate but woefully impotent somehow in this case – Edward Aldrin and Michael Collins returned to the Earth. Just as John Kennedy had proposed in a famous speech nine years earlier.
There were subsequent missions, by men equally as brave, each a step further in terms of the tools and toys we took to our new big grey oceanless beach, but none of them quite matched the magic, the dread, the elation of that first time – the one you never forget.
I was not yet seven years old when we bridged the dark gulf between worlds. I remember that fuzzy grey vision on our family TV, when the moment happened. I am so grateful that this event happened in my lifetime. Today's young people, who take for granted digital technology that would have made Jules Verne rethink his every word, will never fully understand the wonder.
The personal computer was still over a decade away. We went to the Moon via analog methods. Would that fact give them even a clue, or is it lost on them as well?
There are some who claim we never did it. Others say we've never gone back for nefarious reasons of galactic intrigue. They can't both be right. Let them have the other 364 days of the year to rage at the debate table.
Today, July 20... let's remember. And if you were there to witness it live, as I was, you know what it is to look at that photo of a bulky white faceless form standing before an American flag made to "wave" artificially by a right-angled rod... and feel a tear form.
From when the countdown reached zero, the lives of those three intrepid souls sitting in the nosecone might be wiped out in a heartbeat, at any given moment during the next eight days. Where they were going, there would be no places to rest, rethink, or ponder turning back. Their destination offered nothing hospitable to life – not even air to breathe. They would spend nearly 22 hours there before lifting off again for the voyage home, if they made it that far.
Just the trip there might kill them. Landing might crush them. Once down, their equipment – which despite rigorous testing back on Earth, could not be tested in the actual environment for which it was designed – could fail, stranding them there to die. Merely exiting the craft, once on the alien surface, might spell doom. The blast off for home could go wrong. The trip back was just as potentially dangerous, and they'd be "landing" in the roaring Pacific Ocean aboard a craft as fatigued by the same unprecedented ordeal as they.
Again, if they made it that far. Those were all still unanswered questions in July of 1969.
The entire planet of humanity became still to watch, counting off every tiny milestone – the rocket got off the launchpad, everything worked, nothing failed.
We lost them from radio contact somewhere along the way, for an anxious interval, wondering where they could possibly be – if they were alive – up in the black unknowable cosmos. Their voices were believed lost forever until someone thought to locate them by simply pointing the radio dish in the direction of their destination, the Moon.
And there they were, still in business, hardly aware that every other human had momentarily forgotten how to breathe.
The Moon was barren, but benign, and allowed the adventurers to roam, leave bootprints, take souvenirs and plant a red, white and blue calling card... along with a plaque that spelled out our intentions. "We came in peace for all mankind."
A few days after placing his foot upon a land where none had ever before, Neil Armstrong and his fellow pioneers – the only word fully accurate but woefully impotent somehow in this case – Edward Aldrin and Michael Collins returned to the Earth. Just as John Kennedy had proposed in a famous speech nine years earlier.
There were subsequent missions, by men equally as brave, each a step further in terms of the tools and toys we took to our new big grey oceanless beach, but none of them quite matched the magic, the dread, the elation of that first time – the one you never forget.
I was not yet seven years old when we bridged the dark gulf between worlds. I remember that fuzzy grey vision on our family TV, when the moment happened. I am so grateful that this event happened in my lifetime. Today's young people, who take for granted digital technology that would have made Jules Verne rethink his every word, will never fully understand the wonder.
The personal computer was still over a decade away. We went to the Moon via analog methods. Would that fact give them even a clue, or is it lost on them as well?
There are some who claim we never did it. Others say we've never gone back for nefarious reasons of galactic intrigue. They can't both be right. Let them have the other 364 days of the year to rage at the debate table.
Today, July 20... let's remember. And if you were there to witness it live, as I was, you know what it is to look at that photo of a bulky white faceless form standing before an American flag made to "wave" artificially by a right-angled rod... and feel a tear form.
Friday, June 25, 2010
You Title This One
THE DAMN POETRY CORNER RETURNS
MY CUP
I broke my favorite cup today
upon the kitchen floor.
I stood in trancelike disbelief
and saddened to the core.
It wasn't done on purpose, just
a clumsy whim of fate.
It should've been that old glass jar
or tacky decor plate.
A million curses filled my brain,
I bent a mournful stoop.
A slo-mo replay of the death
went into endless loop.
So much we'd shared, this cup and I;
from demure sips to swill –
coffee, cocoa, juice and tea,
or water for a pill.
I doubt I'll find a duplicate
in fifty Goodwill shops.
A runner-up must now suffice
to slake my thirsty chops.
Nevermore to runneth over,
or sit empty vigil there.
Wait, up in the cupboard –
I forgot, they were a pair.
-----------------
Gender inequality aimed like a luger;
A man's a Rasputin, a woman's a cougar.
-----------------
RANDOM THOUGHTS FOR JUNE
Denzel Washington to star in The Gary Coleman Story? No way.
When you walk... through a storm...
Wrap your lunch... in plastic...
What I don't know about quantum physics would cover the head of a pin a thousand times over. At least.
Hammer as loud as you need to, but whatever it is, get the damn thing BUILT already!
Proportionately, the space between your ass cheeks is deeper than the Grand Canyon, only the echo doesn't last as long. Thank heavens.
MY CUP
I broke my favorite cup today
upon the kitchen floor.
I stood in trancelike disbelief
and saddened to the core.
It wasn't done on purpose, just
a clumsy whim of fate.
It should've been that old glass jar
or tacky decor plate.
A million curses filled my brain,
I bent a mournful stoop.
A slo-mo replay of the death
went into endless loop.
So much we'd shared, this cup and I;
from demure sips to swill –
coffee, cocoa, juice and tea,
or water for a pill.
I doubt I'll find a duplicate
in fifty Goodwill shops.
A runner-up must now suffice
to slake my thirsty chops.
Nevermore to runneth over,
or sit empty vigil there.
Wait, up in the cupboard –
I forgot, they were a pair.
-----------------
Gender inequality aimed like a luger;
A man's a Rasputin, a woman's a cougar.
-----------------
RANDOM THOUGHTS FOR JUNE
Denzel Washington to star in The Gary Coleman Story? No way.
When you walk... through a storm...
Wrap your lunch... in plastic...
What I don't know about quantum physics would cover the head of a pin a thousand times over. At least.
Hammer as loud as you need to, but whatever it is, get the damn thing BUILT already!
Proportionately, the space between your ass cheeks is deeper than the Grand Canyon, only the echo doesn't last as long. Thank heavens.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Before Editing...
AND THIS WAS THEATRE
by Angelica Gouté
It is with sheer delight that your humble reviewer reports cashing the advance cheque in the sum of $150 for this review article, concerning last night's premiere. I shall have dinner tonight, which is more than is deserved by the unfortunate rabble of players whose meager talents were taxed beyond their limits by an original local play at the Kiln Playhouse in downtown Oceanside less than 24 hours ago.
If there is justice in this dreary, tainted world, these languishing cretins would be banished to the dark countryside and down to the unforgiving sea. Such was there collective crime against art and mankind.
Said production, "Hathaway's Calling," by neophyte playsmith Dell Harpsham – a gurgling dullard who should have been strangled in his very crib – opens ironically on the fair morning of a baby's birth; a loud DIY affair heralded by shouts of "Push! Push!" somewhere offstage. After a thunderous scream, and tidal thrush of breaking womb water, emerges from the wings Anna, played by that wobbling birch log, local actress Kay Fong. Anna cradles the newborn in her vice-like arms, and looks decidedly unfazed for a woman who has supposedly just pumped out a greasy bald littl'n.
Ginger-haired, freckle-plagued leading man Roy Lunst, is neither pleased nor pleasing as Anna's husband, LaRue. The child is female, and LaRue's heart was set in stone in want of a son to carry on the family name.
In this reviewer's opinion, the gender of the tyke should have been the least of LaRue's concerns, as the toy doll used for the babe, bore skin a rich chocolate. This anomaly was never touched upon.
LaRue's fury threatens the sanctity of the new family, and he confesses a strange obsession with a far-off yearning, or yearning with a far-off obsession. The road beckons, and he is off, duffel in hand, in search of an unspoken dream. Anna's tears do little to douse the flame of LaRue's passion to wander – and absolutely nothing to foment audience sympathy, as said tears never truly appear – such is the girth of Fong's repertoire.
From there, the story tumbles forth like a platter of leftover lasagna thrown into a quarry.
Actress Fong's placing of her newborn in the cradle, holding it by its neck while straightening an uncooperative blanket, was certainly attention-getting. As was tossing said bassinet offstage like a sack of old workshirts, in a sudden rush of what could only be frustration – likely at her faulty memory for dialogue, which she liberally peppered with volleys of 'gawddammits,' various slang for fecal matter, and strategically placed 'f-bombs,' all seemingly aimed at the show's producers.
Geriatric dynamo Audrey Wurztram, as Anna's loyal housemaid, Opal, turns in what is arguably the most interesting performance of the show – wearing a costume that seems part period, part anachronism, and muttering "Good ever-loving gawd" under her lines, exiting with a syrupy pale orange zig-zag of urine trailing after her. Was it in the script? Writer Harpsham was unavailable for comment.
The show's director, local treasure Cleve Dozier, who boasted his pleasure during last week's rehearsal at the show's "verité and daring," seemed unable to contain himself from his choice front row seat last night, with teary raving cants of "oh mother," and "oh dear gawd, mommy!"
LaRue – Lunst running the emotional alphabet from A to B – continues on his journey, to meet Randa, a worldly wise prostitute (played by geriatric dynamo Audrey Wurztram in a quick-change dual role) who has taken a vow of silence, and Father Gullem, portrayed by area thespian and restauranteur Ford Krevich, a priest whose unbridled addiction to cabbage and asparagus threatens to unravel his faith. He speaks to LaRue in riddles, with each mystery translated into exotic dance by Randa, with all the arousing gyration of the mechanical T-Rex one sees advertised at Air Shows.
But LaRue has a riddle of his own for Father Gullem, and whispers it in his ear, which causes the pious padre to go into convulsions, bellow like a speared wildebeest, and pee-pee dance his way offstage, never to be seen again. The riddle is never revealed, though may be fairly guessed at, considering the barrage of half-muffled epithets from beyond the scrim, and what appeared to be a dog-eared, Post-it note covered playscript suddenly heaved onstage.
An unannounced intermission occurred at this juncture in the proceedings, when director-producer Dozier stood up upon his front row seat, and loudly offered to refund the audience's ticket costs, along with pleas of "Get me a rope!" and "just castrate me!" His Local Treasure-ness was just as quickly subdued by two large usherettes who punched him copiously in a headlock and dragged his limp body off into the darkness below the exit sign.
Like a three-chilidog nightmare, the show marched on.
Fortunately, the comic relief got their cue. Area theatre stalwarts Herc Jenson and Kell Harris attempted to, as usual, wow the crowd as master traveling salesmen "Jim & Jules." Sadly, it was their old standby song-and-shuffle, which perhaps they have drawn once too often from that moldy vaudevillian well:
"Hey Jules, I heard your cousin's in the hospital!"
"Yep Jim, he saw a billboard that said 'drink Canada Dry!' so he drove up there and tried to!"
I ask, how often can one gild that lillie?
The actual intermission, at the 94-minute mark, consisted of warm tap water and margarine sandwiches, sold at the downstairs snack counter for a dear five dollars. Smoking is allowed on the lobby's central aviary roof, which is constructed of half-inch thick pine planks and chicken wire. It creaks menacingly. Cigars are prohibited as the ash may actually burn through the nigh paper-thin platform, which covers not an arbor suite of our singing feathered friends, but a two-foot deep repository of their pungent droppings, which is assumed highly flammable – condemned yet strangely ignored by the City Sanitation Department.
Nothing like a billowing bird shit inferno to mark time 'tween theatre acts.
Sadly the curtain still proved operational for the commencement of Act II. And what an "act" it was!
The sullen morality yarn had suddenly become a musical extravaganza, with two dozen flower-clad maidens tap dancing their way into our lower colons. All ages of tap artisans were represented from junior high to age-spot. The song's title could only be guessed at: something akin to "I Love To Slo-Mo," or "I Lube Up Tofu." I know I'm in the ballpark.
All the more irritating was the lack of an orchestra of any kind, despite a wide, empty orchestra pit. The acapella warblings of the tap maidens, combined with a bare wooden stage pounded into toothpicks by relentless brass-studded soles, reminded me of the old joke about the man who hit himself repeatedly in the forehead with a hammer.
"Why do you do that," asked a friend?
"It feels so good when it stops."
Unfortunately it was only a fresh beginning. The hellish test was born anew as the cast reappeared to pick up where they had left off in the first act.
Once more embarked upon his sojourn of self-discovery, LaRue is again confronted by strangers bearing headachey riddles. The next encounter involves an unwashed, cauldron guarding biddy wearing shredded Goodwill attire (again, versatile senior Audrey Wurztram). "Riddle me..." I assume was the line she attempted. Instead, an electrifying nausea consumed all remaining audience, at what sounded like "Diddle me..."
LaRue's attention, or perhaps more accurately, Lunst's, suddenly is drawn to a mystery beyond the curtain. "Oh..." he grunts, and shoves the grimy witch-i-tute offstage, with a hoarsely whispered "Go go go screw it." An avant-garde scene transition to say the least.
At first the impression is that LaRue has accepted the "Diddle" invite and is hustling his gruesome paramour behind the wings to consummate the deal. If so, it is the quickest quickie of all time, for LaRue is back on the road in the next scene, which thankfully wields his third and final riddling stranger.
Returning for a bizarre encore, Herc and Kell, the former upon the latter's shoulders, beneath a 20-foot long overcoat – with Kell in a $1.75 halloween mask – enter. The "Dreaded Creature of the Lost Highway," as the character refers to itself, asks LaRue his last and ultimate riddle that will allow him passage to the "wondrous dream world" according to writer Harpsham's glorified toilet tissue.
LaRue wails defiantly his answer, which sounded like either "Tell me reality, what!" or "Hell you're really a twat!" The Kiln Playhouse's sound system truly deserves the junk heap.
At LaRue's timber-rattling retort, Kell loses his balance atop Herc beneath the "horrifying" creature outfit... which causes the macabre stage presence to appear to break in half – the top half slamming the boards with bone cracking finality, to be dragged off by two frantic stagehands who appear out of the ether. The creature's bottom half throws up its arms beneath the costume, and waddles off in grim contemplation.
The creature defeated, and all riddles answered, LaRue is granted entry into the above-mentioned "wondrous dream world," to discover it is merely his own home, with Anna and plastic brown infant waiting for him. Fong played the scene having already disengaged from her costume, wearing what could only be her personal "par-tay" attire and "stylin'" make-up. I'm willing to bet she skipped the aftershow party, nay, was the first out the door after the curtain.
She was certainly artist-absentia for the final bow. Which made the moment a tad imperfect, for the curtain descended as if completely unhinged from its moorings, knocking Lunst cold, and pinning Ford Krevich to the stage with enough gusto for him to bleat piercingly in less polite terms than used here, of a potential lawsuit. Fong's presence in this injurious turn of events was sorely missed, though intensely wished for.
Your humble reviewer, unencumbered by any remaining audience as she made her hasty exit, was waved a cheery goodnight by the theater's janitor, who seemed none too hurried to venture into the auditorium with his mighty mop and soapy suds bucket. "Fight on, brave warrior, your reward is nigh."
The final parting shot of the evening occurred outside, where local treasure Cleve Dozier, in an inebriated ecstasy, was seen with bottle of liquid freedom in hand, directing traffic at the intersection. Hazzah, sir.
"Hathaway's Calling" leaves many questions not requiring immediate answers. The first of which is, who the hell is Hathaway? As a theatrical experience, I can only site the words of LaRue: Go go go screw it.
by Angelica Gouté
It is with sheer delight that your humble reviewer reports cashing the advance cheque in the sum of $150 for this review article, concerning last night's premiere. I shall have dinner tonight, which is more than is deserved by the unfortunate rabble of players whose meager talents were taxed beyond their limits by an original local play at the Kiln Playhouse in downtown Oceanside less than 24 hours ago.
If there is justice in this dreary, tainted world, these languishing cretins would be banished to the dark countryside and down to the unforgiving sea. Such was there collective crime against art and mankind.
Said production, "Hathaway's Calling," by neophyte playsmith Dell Harpsham – a gurgling dullard who should have been strangled in his very crib – opens ironically on the fair morning of a baby's birth; a loud DIY affair heralded by shouts of "Push! Push!" somewhere offstage. After a thunderous scream, and tidal thrush of breaking womb water, emerges from the wings Anna, played by that wobbling birch log, local actress Kay Fong. Anna cradles the newborn in her vice-like arms, and looks decidedly unfazed for a woman who has supposedly just pumped out a greasy bald littl'n.
Ginger-haired, freckle-plagued leading man Roy Lunst, is neither pleased nor pleasing as Anna's husband, LaRue. The child is female, and LaRue's heart was set in stone in want of a son to carry on the family name.
In this reviewer's opinion, the gender of the tyke should have been the least of LaRue's concerns, as the toy doll used for the babe, bore skin a rich chocolate. This anomaly was never touched upon.
LaRue's fury threatens the sanctity of the new family, and he confesses a strange obsession with a far-off yearning, or yearning with a far-off obsession. The road beckons, and he is off, duffel in hand, in search of an unspoken dream. Anna's tears do little to douse the flame of LaRue's passion to wander – and absolutely nothing to foment audience sympathy, as said tears never truly appear – such is the girth of Fong's repertoire.
From there, the story tumbles forth like a platter of leftover lasagna thrown into a quarry.
Actress Fong's placing of her newborn in the cradle, holding it by its neck while straightening an uncooperative blanket, was certainly attention-getting. As was tossing said bassinet offstage like a sack of old workshirts, in a sudden rush of what could only be frustration – likely at her faulty memory for dialogue, which she liberally peppered with volleys of 'gawddammits,' various slang for fecal matter, and strategically placed 'f-bombs,' all seemingly aimed at the show's producers.
Geriatric dynamo Audrey Wurztram, as Anna's loyal housemaid, Opal, turns in what is arguably the most interesting performance of the show – wearing a costume that seems part period, part anachronism, and muttering "Good ever-loving gawd" under her lines, exiting with a syrupy pale orange zig-zag of urine trailing after her. Was it in the script? Writer Harpsham was unavailable for comment.
The show's director, local treasure Cleve Dozier, who boasted his pleasure during last week's rehearsal at the show's "verité and daring," seemed unable to contain himself from his choice front row seat last night, with teary raving cants of "oh mother," and "oh dear gawd, mommy!"
LaRue – Lunst running the emotional alphabet from A to B – continues on his journey, to meet Randa, a worldly wise prostitute (played by geriatric dynamo Audrey Wurztram in a quick-change dual role) who has taken a vow of silence, and Father Gullem, portrayed by area thespian and restauranteur Ford Krevich, a priest whose unbridled addiction to cabbage and asparagus threatens to unravel his faith. He speaks to LaRue in riddles, with each mystery translated into exotic dance by Randa, with all the arousing gyration of the mechanical T-Rex one sees advertised at Air Shows.
But LaRue has a riddle of his own for Father Gullem, and whispers it in his ear, which causes the pious padre to go into convulsions, bellow like a speared wildebeest, and pee-pee dance his way offstage, never to be seen again. The riddle is never revealed, though may be fairly guessed at, considering the barrage of half-muffled epithets from beyond the scrim, and what appeared to be a dog-eared, Post-it note covered playscript suddenly heaved onstage.
An unannounced intermission occurred at this juncture in the proceedings, when director-producer Dozier stood up upon his front row seat, and loudly offered to refund the audience's ticket costs, along with pleas of "Get me a rope!" and "just castrate me!" His Local Treasure-ness was just as quickly subdued by two large usherettes who punched him copiously in a headlock and dragged his limp body off into the darkness below the exit sign.
Like a three-chilidog nightmare, the show marched on.
Fortunately, the comic relief got their cue. Area theatre stalwarts Herc Jenson and Kell Harris attempted to, as usual, wow the crowd as master traveling salesmen "Jim & Jules." Sadly, it was their old standby song-and-shuffle, which perhaps they have drawn once too often from that moldy vaudevillian well:
"Hey Jules, I heard your cousin's in the hospital!"
"Yep Jim, he saw a billboard that said 'drink Canada Dry!' so he drove up there and tried to!"
I ask, how often can one gild that lillie?
The actual intermission, at the 94-minute mark, consisted of warm tap water and margarine sandwiches, sold at the downstairs snack counter for a dear five dollars. Smoking is allowed on the lobby's central aviary roof, which is constructed of half-inch thick pine planks and chicken wire. It creaks menacingly. Cigars are prohibited as the ash may actually burn through the nigh paper-thin platform, which covers not an arbor suite of our singing feathered friends, but a two-foot deep repository of their pungent droppings, which is assumed highly flammable – condemned yet strangely ignored by the City Sanitation Department.
Nothing like a billowing bird shit inferno to mark time 'tween theatre acts.
Sadly the curtain still proved operational for the commencement of Act II. And what an "act" it was!
The sullen morality yarn had suddenly become a musical extravaganza, with two dozen flower-clad maidens tap dancing their way into our lower colons. All ages of tap artisans were represented from junior high to age-spot. The song's title could only be guessed at: something akin to "I Love To Slo-Mo," or "I Lube Up Tofu." I know I'm in the ballpark.
All the more irritating was the lack of an orchestra of any kind, despite a wide, empty orchestra pit. The acapella warblings of the tap maidens, combined with a bare wooden stage pounded into toothpicks by relentless brass-studded soles, reminded me of the old joke about the man who hit himself repeatedly in the forehead with a hammer.
"Why do you do that," asked a friend?
"It feels so good when it stops."
Unfortunately it was only a fresh beginning. The hellish test was born anew as the cast reappeared to pick up where they had left off in the first act.
Once more embarked upon his sojourn of self-discovery, LaRue is again confronted by strangers bearing headachey riddles. The next encounter involves an unwashed, cauldron guarding biddy wearing shredded Goodwill attire (again, versatile senior Audrey Wurztram). "Riddle me..." I assume was the line she attempted. Instead, an electrifying nausea consumed all remaining audience, at what sounded like "Diddle me..."
LaRue's attention, or perhaps more accurately, Lunst's, suddenly is drawn to a mystery beyond the curtain. "Oh..." he grunts, and shoves the grimy witch-i-tute offstage, with a hoarsely whispered "Go go go screw it." An avant-garde scene transition to say the least.
At first the impression is that LaRue has accepted the "Diddle" invite and is hustling his gruesome paramour behind the wings to consummate the deal. If so, it is the quickest quickie of all time, for LaRue is back on the road in the next scene, which thankfully wields his third and final riddling stranger.
Returning for a bizarre encore, Herc and Kell, the former upon the latter's shoulders, beneath a 20-foot long overcoat – with Kell in a $1.75 halloween mask – enter. The "Dreaded Creature of the Lost Highway," as the character refers to itself, asks LaRue his last and ultimate riddle that will allow him passage to the "wondrous dream world" according to writer Harpsham's glorified toilet tissue.
LaRue wails defiantly his answer, which sounded like either "Tell me reality, what!" or "Hell you're really a twat!" The Kiln Playhouse's sound system truly deserves the junk heap.
At LaRue's timber-rattling retort, Kell loses his balance atop Herc beneath the "horrifying" creature outfit... which causes the macabre stage presence to appear to break in half – the top half slamming the boards with bone cracking finality, to be dragged off by two frantic stagehands who appear out of the ether. The creature's bottom half throws up its arms beneath the costume, and waddles off in grim contemplation.
The creature defeated, and all riddles answered, LaRue is granted entry into the above-mentioned "wondrous dream world," to discover it is merely his own home, with Anna and plastic brown infant waiting for him. Fong played the scene having already disengaged from her costume, wearing what could only be her personal "par-tay" attire and "stylin'" make-up. I'm willing to bet she skipped the aftershow party, nay, was the first out the door after the curtain.
She was certainly artist-absentia for the final bow. Which made the moment a tad imperfect, for the curtain descended as if completely unhinged from its moorings, knocking Lunst cold, and pinning Ford Krevich to the stage with enough gusto for him to bleat piercingly in less polite terms than used here, of a potential lawsuit. Fong's presence in this injurious turn of events was sorely missed, though intensely wished for.
Your humble reviewer, unencumbered by any remaining audience as she made her hasty exit, was waved a cheery goodnight by the theater's janitor, who seemed none too hurried to venture into the auditorium with his mighty mop and soapy suds bucket. "Fight on, brave warrior, your reward is nigh."
The final parting shot of the evening occurred outside, where local treasure Cleve Dozier, in an inebriated ecstasy, was seen with bottle of liquid freedom in hand, directing traffic at the intersection. Hazzah, sir.
"Hathaway's Calling" leaves many questions not requiring immediate answers. The first of which is, who the hell is Hathaway? As a theatrical experience, I can only site the words of LaRue: Go go go screw it.
It's Nice To Be Back, Even Randomly
Some think they're on the "A-Train," but are really just on the "Hay Train."
----------------------------
At my local supermarket I came across a cart of used books, marked at $1 each, the sale of which would benefit some charity. There was one particular book perched on the very top of the pile, which caught my eye – it seemed a bit out of place. I grabbed it and leafed through it, replaced it on the heap, and went about my shopping.
That book stuck in my noggin as I went up and down the aisles, and I decided to look at it again, if it was still there, before I headed to the checkout line. It was. I took it and flipped it into my cart. "Only a buck," I reasoned. It was a very old Bible, bended and floppy, with dog-eared pages, some scarred with penciled notations and underlines, and with a dozen or more aged Post-it notes of different colors, containing the previous owner's scribbled references to pertinent chapters, verses, etc. Said owner's name was embossed on the lower right-hand corner of the cover, in gold: Michael Scott McLean. This to me was a clue that Mr. McLean was perhaps passed away, and this was a cherished tome discarded by indifferent relatives after the house-clearing.
It seemed about twice as thick as any Bible I'd ever seen. I soon discovered why – the book contained both Old and New Testaments, a Bible dictionary, an index, the Book of Mormon, a "doctrine guide" and a map section pertaining to the Middle East of Biblical times. McLean was apparently a studious man, but not a petite one – or else had biceps like Hulk Hogan, to carry this hefty little volume around. I'm not big on the Book of Mormon, but considered the entirety of the book as something worth having, so I took it home. Inside was the most curious find of all: a Post-it, stuck on the first page of the New Testament, that contained, in scribbled pencil: "I love you. Please call me! Mary McDonough, Miss Utah 1997." I wondered if this was worth the time to Google. I did. She had indeed been whom she claimed to be. I can only conclude that if McLean really did hook up with this person, the cause of death was a heart attack.
----------------------------
Sometimes a "conspiracy theory" is the most logical answer as to why certain things have happened. It at least gives the offending party the best benefit of the doubt. Otherwise, the only alternative is incompetence and stupidity, and it would seem reassuring to think that in America even our evildoers operate based on a sliver of intellect rather than random witlessness.
Overheard at work: "Disregard what I wrote – it's just instructions."
----------------------------
I designed a program booklet for a local Wine Festival, and was given prepared text by some local PR person. It was typical Chamber of Commerce chicken scratch, not only creatively bankrupt, but a bubbling cauldron of typos and atrocious grammar. One of the articles for this program was for an oyster-themed attraction to appear at the event. A stand-out quote from their sensational ad copy runs: "Those coming to this years (sic) grand festival in search of oyster deliciousness will not be disappoint (sic) by these wonderful product's (sic) served by many fine establishments around the peninsula for those valued customer's (sic) who wish to experience a sample of gourmet excellence and perfection with every bite and/or slurp!" This PR person was paid real money for that. These are the people in charge.
----------------------------
It is just a tad bizarre to me how we can be so dependent upon foreign fuel production, and still have an oil leak just off our own shores big enough to threaten seas around the globe if it isn't contained.
I cannot help myself from staring in gentle wonder, when I see a beautiful woman walking alone, crying. A man crying makes me turn away.
Don't ask me what put this notion into my head, but I think it's notable: The people most likely to make it through a zombie plague... agoraphobes.
A Pope Benedict action figure doesn't seem all that fun, until you team him up with Batman!
----------------------------
At my local supermarket I came across a cart of used books, marked at $1 each, the sale of which would benefit some charity. There was one particular book perched on the very top of the pile, which caught my eye – it seemed a bit out of place. I grabbed it and leafed through it, replaced it on the heap, and went about my shopping.
That book stuck in my noggin as I went up and down the aisles, and I decided to look at it again, if it was still there, before I headed to the checkout line. It was. I took it and flipped it into my cart. "Only a buck," I reasoned. It was a very old Bible, bended and floppy, with dog-eared pages, some scarred with penciled notations and underlines, and with a dozen or more aged Post-it notes of different colors, containing the previous owner's scribbled references to pertinent chapters, verses, etc. Said owner's name was embossed on the lower right-hand corner of the cover, in gold: Michael Scott McLean. This to me was a clue that Mr. McLean was perhaps passed away, and this was a cherished tome discarded by indifferent relatives after the house-clearing.
It seemed about twice as thick as any Bible I'd ever seen. I soon discovered why – the book contained both Old and New Testaments, a Bible dictionary, an index, the Book of Mormon, a "doctrine guide" and a map section pertaining to the Middle East of Biblical times. McLean was apparently a studious man, but not a petite one – or else had biceps like Hulk Hogan, to carry this hefty little volume around. I'm not big on the Book of Mormon, but considered the entirety of the book as something worth having, so I took it home. Inside was the most curious find of all: a Post-it, stuck on the first page of the New Testament, that contained, in scribbled pencil: "I love you. Please call me! Mary McDonough, Miss Utah 1997." I wondered if this was worth the time to Google. I did. She had indeed been whom she claimed to be. I can only conclude that if McLean really did hook up with this person, the cause of death was a heart attack.
----------------------------
Sometimes a "conspiracy theory" is the most logical answer as to why certain things have happened. It at least gives the offending party the best benefit of the doubt. Otherwise, the only alternative is incompetence and stupidity, and it would seem reassuring to think that in America even our evildoers operate based on a sliver of intellect rather than random witlessness.
Overheard at work: "Disregard what I wrote – it's just instructions."
----------------------------
I designed a program booklet for a local Wine Festival, and was given prepared text by some local PR person. It was typical Chamber of Commerce chicken scratch, not only creatively bankrupt, but a bubbling cauldron of typos and atrocious grammar. One of the articles for this program was for an oyster-themed attraction to appear at the event. A stand-out quote from their sensational ad copy runs: "Those coming to this years (sic) grand festival in search of oyster deliciousness will not be disappoint (sic) by these wonderful product's (sic) served by many fine establishments around the peninsula for those valued customer's (sic) who wish to experience a sample of gourmet excellence and perfection with every bite and/or slurp!" This PR person was paid real money for that. These are the people in charge.
----------------------------
It is just a tad bizarre to me how we can be so dependent upon foreign fuel production, and still have an oil leak just off our own shores big enough to threaten seas around the globe if it isn't contained.
I cannot help myself from staring in gentle wonder, when I see a beautiful woman walking alone, crying. A man crying makes me turn away.
Don't ask me what put this notion into my head, but I think it's notable: The people most likely to make it through a zombie plague... agoraphobes.
A Pope Benedict action figure doesn't seem all that fun, until you team him up with Batman!
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Random Showers
Overheard today: "I wasn't busy until I started doing something."
Nothing really "makes history" anymore. The first this. The biggest that. Milestones have become cheap. Nowadays, even the once-believed unbreakable history markers are so fragile that the only thing that inspires awe anymore is the notion that the old record holders lived in a completely different paradigm. Babe Ruth's "steroids" were beer and steak. Elvis's gold records were earned by sales of 78s. Jim Brown's rushing record was accomplished with nobody blocking for him.
Here's a way that technology has changed our lives that you'll never read about. My home internet goes down, so I walk to a nearby college, where I can use their computers via a library card. I arrive to swat my own forehead in frustration at my faulty recall; the college is closed for spring break. So I figure I'll stop at the mini-mart near my home for a snack. Their ATM is down, so I have nothing to buy with. I'm on foot, so other locales around town are a bit out of the question, time-wise. I wind up back home. Nothing accomplished, and a little worn out. This is called "thwarted at every tech-turn."
I went to a drive-thru for dinner on my way home after an exhausting day of jury duty ills. The young woman at the window was bright-eyed, with a glow of youth, and an earnest smile that lifted my spirits – even as she handed me my bag of neo-synthetic, edible death. (I ordered it, don't blame her.) Before home I had an errand to run as well, at a nearby department store. On the way out I was accosted by a different kind of eager young person: A something-teen zombie with a petition for me to sign. His eyes were aglow as well, with the agenda-fueled tribal unction of his "calling." I let my sarcastic side get away with me and came off sounding like a ranting kook, when all I actually had for him was mere disagreement. I pondered this the rest of my way home. Lifted up by a young woman earning her living, and brought down by a young man biding his time with annoying activism. Some people in our current political climate would actually scoff at the cute wage earner, and cheer that sleepwalking petition-peddling shit. Someday, it's likely that the work ethic shared by both I and that pixie will be his meal ticket. Nice work if you can get it, I suppose.
The most impressive pin a pilot can earn has to be that of the "Winged Astronaut." Air Force Major General Robert M. White won it for flying his jet fighter 59 miles, straight up. It is essentially the act of reaching outer space in a craft that is not designed to do that. It is the will of a pilot overcoming the limitations of the plane, and returning to the ground alive. Indeed, there's a lesson for life in that, somewhere.
If it doesn't fit, it doesn't matter how big the discount was.
Once in a while, a single piece of music will be played, at exactly the right time of mood... and for the next few days, only that song will suffice to play, in a loop.
We choose how important yesterday was, while tomorrow is important no matter what we think.
Nothing really "makes history" anymore. The first this. The biggest that. Milestones have become cheap. Nowadays, even the once-believed unbreakable history markers are so fragile that the only thing that inspires awe anymore is the notion that the old record holders lived in a completely different paradigm. Babe Ruth's "steroids" were beer and steak. Elvis's gold records were earned by sales of 78s. Jim Brown's rushing record was accomplished with nobody blocking for him.
Here's a way that technology has changed our lives that you'll never read about. My home internet goes down, so I walk to a nearby college, where I can use their computers via a library card. I arrive to swat my own forehead in frustration at my faulty recall; the college is closed for spring break. So I figure I'll stop at the mini-mart near my home for a snack. Their ATM is down, so I have nothing to buy with. I'm on foot, so other locales around town are a bit out of the question, time-wise. I wind up back home. Nothing accomplished, and a little worn out. This is called "thwarted at every tech-turn."
I went to a drive-thru for dinner on my way home after an exhausting day of jury duty ills. The young woman at the window was bright-eyed, with a glow of youth, and an earnest smile that lifted my spirits – even as she handed me my bag of neo-synthetic, edible death. (I ordered it, don't blame her.) Before home I had an errand to run as well, at a nearby department store. On the way out I was accosted by a different kind of eager young person: A something-teen zombie with a petition for me to sign. His eyes were aglow as well, with the agenda-fueled tribal unction of his "calling." I let my sarcastic side get away with me and came off sounding like a ranting kook, when all I actually had for him was mere disagreement. I pondered this the rest of my way home. Lifted up by a young woman earning her living, and brought down by a young man biding his time with annoying activism. Some people in our current political climate would actually scoff at the cute wage earner, and cheer that sleepwalking petition-peddling shit. Someday, it's likely that the work ethic shared by both I and that pixie will be his meal ticket. Nice work if you can get it, I suppose.
The most impressive pin a pilot can earn has to be that of the "Winged Astronaut." Air Force Major General Robert M. White won it for flying his jet fighter 59 miles, straight up. It is essentially the act of reaching outer space in a craft that is not designed to do that. It is the will of a pilot overcoming the limitations of the plane, and returning to the ground alive. Indeed, there's a lesson for life in that, somewhere.
If it doesn't fit, it doesn't matter how big the discount was.
Once in a while, a single piece of music will be played, at exactly the right time of mood... and for the next few days, only that song will suffice to play, in a loop.
We choose how important yesterday was, while tomorrow is important no matter what we think.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Fab Feb
Toilet Paper – use it by the wad and need a plumber, or use it by the square and need a shower – the choice is yours.
The sideways ball caps, the pants worn down at the thighs... it was all a little odd, but trends and fads tend to be that way. I dealt with it. Today I saw a fifteen (or so) year old... with a binky. A baby's pacifier. In his jaws like a pro basketball player works a toothpick. Let me say that again: a BINKY. Now I'm just plain scared.
How come the most overpaid, least in-touch people at a business get all the perks and best vacation packages? Because if given the choice, they'd most likely return to work afterward.
SNIFFLE SNURF, HACK!!
How can something that feels so huge up my nose blow out to just be a damp spot?
I'm not necessarily that tired, it just feels so good to lay here like a sack of potatoes.
If I had a dollar for every cough, I could make your rent and mine both.
Let Hollywood teach you something about our nation's capitol: the sole purpose of all activity in that town is to generate billions of dollars to keep its own gears turning, to keep its leaders and stars wealthy and desirous of a continued career there, while the cogs who keep the machinery operating have to punch timecards and pay their own bills. A government program is no more societal betterment than a movie is tangible reality.
THE DAMN POETRY CORNER IS BACK
Thirty days has September,
April, June and November.
February showed up late,
that's why it just has twenty-eight.
The sideways ball caps, the pants worn down at the thighs... it was all a little odd, but trends and fads tend to be that way. I dealt with it. Today I saw a fifteen (or so) year old... with a binky. A baby's pacifier. In his jaws like a pro basketball player works a toothpick. Let me say that again: a BINKY. Now I'm just plain scared.
How come the most overpaid, least in-touch people at a business get all the perks and best vacation packages? Because if given the choice, they'd most likely return to work afterward.
SNIFFLE SNURF, HACK!!
How can something that feels so huge up my nose blow out to just be a damp spot?
I'm not necessarily that tired, it just feels so good to lay here like a sack of potatoes.
If I had a dollar for every cough, I could make your rent and mine both.
Let Hollywood teach you something about our nation's capitol: the sole purpose of all activity in that town is to generate billions of dollars to keep its own gears turning, to keep its leaders and stars wealthy and desirous of a continued career there, while the cogs who keep the machinery operating have to punch timecards and pay their own bills. A government program is no more societal betterment than a movie is tangible reality.
THE DAMN POETRY CORNER IS BACK
Thirty days has September,
April, June and November.
February showed up late,
that's why it just has twenty-eight.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Somebody Knew Something
This is a blog post that I sincerely hope will provoke you to think about a few things just a bit differently. It is based on first-hand witness experience, and as accurate as I can recall it. A few essential factoids were verified (if one can do that) via Google-searching – but I didn't really find enough to claim irrefutable verification about any of it. So bear with me.
Most people still brush off conspiracy theory. Even though I am a conspiracy "buff," and possibly see intricate webs of deception where others see, oh, a few extra nuts in a Snickers bar, it doesn't mean that intrigue is non-existent. Here are a couple of examples of real-life mysteries that still "haunt" me in a contemplative lunchtime kind'a way.
NO, NOT 9-11.
Try twenty-one months earlier; December 19, 1998 to be exact. For some reason out of the blue, the U.S. Military decided to hold a simulated "attack" on an American west coastline. Namely Monterey, California, where reside the Naval Postgraduate School, the Defense Language Institute (where Lee Harvey Oswald learned Russian) and the Monterey Presidio.
This "urban warfare experiment" involved squads of armed Marines and Coast Guard prowling otherwise quiet oceanfront neighborhoods, waving on old grannies and college frumpkins walking their dogs, a few FedEx trucks, and the Amway lady tootling around in her rusty Dodge Colt station wagon.
Personally, my paranoid concern, as a resident of said neighborhood, was making it to my car in the morning for work without being mistakenly strafed by rubber bullets.
In some ways the event seemed somewhat logical – the Monterey Peninsula was and perhaps still is ripe for the type of foreign assault that was only pretended at, that day. The above mentioned locales of strategic interest – back then – sat literally unguarded. The Presidio was open and free to civilian auto traffic, using it as a shortcut across town. The gates were shut tight on September 12, 2001.
Just the memory of camo-suited guards suddenly present there, just off the street, casually hefting black metal, seems a bit surreal and disconcerting.
There was a time long ago when the vast Pacific Ocean was considered adequate defense against someone else's army. We at least had the technology in place to see or hear them coming. That was yesterday's "conventional wisdom."
It became apparent that someone, somewhere, in 1998, thought it was time we reevaluated. Monterey was not the only place where simulated combat situations were staged. And yet in retrospect, something was odd.
Such training simulations, at least one on this invasive scale and far reaching magnitude, had never bothered with little old Monterey before.
Twenty-one months later... September 11, 2001, we really were attacked, on our own – east coast – soil. By air, from a foreign power, for the first time ever since Pearl Harbor.
The military has never held a simulated "invasion" here, since. Why not? Wouldn't 9-11 have ramped up the call for regular training runs?
Maybe in 1998, someone knew that something was coming. And currently they believe that nothing like it is due in the near future?
THE GHOST OF SANTEE
Now this one is even a tad scarier; a case of the jim-jams coming home to roost on a personal level. Consider it a warning.
For those who have lived on the Monterey Peninsula since the late 1990s, the name Christina Williams has a certain meaning. Her kidnapping and murder led to an exhaustive search with bizarre twists, turns and a Twilight Zone conclusion, that all served to galvanize the population in the process.
Christina was the perfect post-modern girl next door; Eurasian, raven haired, pencil-slender and of course cuter than cupcakes. Out walking her dog one evening. At just thirteen, perhaps this was not an ideal place for her; alone, out along a boulevard near a military post where lots of young men with raging hormones tend to cruise around, sometimes fueled by adult beverage. But there she was. An almost stereotypically perfect opening scene for a documentary about a kidnapping, that of course fades out with "never to be seen again."
The public notice of Christina's vanishing was immediately more than just any typical missing persons case. Fort Ord was still federal property then, and a kidnapping on government land wasn't any mere felony, but a potential breach of security. The story grabbed the front page and stayed there for weeks.
A beach-combing hobo found floating face-down in the bay would be lucky to make the next morning's police blotter.
Christina Williams became everyone's little girl as the massive search began. Celebrities like Mariah Carey, Reggie Jackson and Clint Eastwood each made public appeals for help and prayers for the Williams family.
A most bizarre twist was the sudden presence of the lowrider community, who taped photocopies in their back windows, of Christina, and the police sketches of the two individuals whose low-slung car she was seen getting into. Were they genuinely concerned about finding the girl, or was it a gesture to symbolically eliminate themselves from the suspect list?
Every inch of the Peninsula was searched, especially the trails in and around the expanse of Fort Ord – searched and searched again. And again.
About a month into the case, a body turned up fifty miles north, that seemed to match Christina's description. Tests were performed. The entire county held our breaths.
No. It wasn't Christina. It was a woman much older, but whose petite framed body gave the impression of a teenager's. Someone else's case. Though it was not exactly reassuring, it gave pause for hope; the longer Christina didn't turn up dead, there was all the more reason to believe she could still be found alive.
At this point in the story, is where the headlines crept their way into my own day-to-day life. During this time, I worked at Monterey's daily paper, The Herald, which was then owned and operated by Scripps-Howard, Inc.
I worked as an advertising designer and compositor. One morning an ad insertion order came in from a walk-in client. I was given the raw copy to typeset. It only took me a minute to realize that this was no ordinary newspaper ad.
For one thing, it wasn't an advertisement for anything. A full page in size, it was a random pastiche of the client's prattling personal manifestos. A laundry list of bumper sticker "truisms."
"I won the Superbowl more times than the 49ers, so where's my money?" and "I don't waste time picking lotto numbers, I just want the girl." are two of the gems I recall from this huge, rambling "word quilt."
The sales rep handling the client excused herself. Her calm walk to the back office became a gallop once she was out of the client's eyeshot, straight to the publisher's office to scream for help.
The client refused to give his name, but insisted on being referred to as "The Ghost of Santee."
I decided I had to get a look at this person. When I walked out front, I discovered him chatting up one of the Classified Department sales reps. I chose to just observe, and moved on after a few loiterous minutes.
He was slicked back, every hair in place like a swatch of chestnut corduroy. A waxed mustache and goatee of the same color. What stood out most was his attire... a custom-looking suit with pants and coat made of the same silvery fabric, only the coat wasn't a standard suitcoat, but more of a priest's frock, with no buttons I could see.
He seemed weighed down with gold chains and various neck-worn ornamentation. Every finger had bling. A pair of highly polished snakeskin boots completed this strange "cosmic wild west chaplain" ensemble.
After he left, the publisher decreed that The Herald would not run such an ad. I wonder if the verdict would be different now, when anyone coming in with an open checkbook is treated like royalty, regardless how good-n-nutty they are.
Later, the salesperson who handled the account told me some of the off-planet comments that TGOS had made while placing his goofy ad. He tended to steer conversation toward the subject of... Christina Williams.
He was amazed that nobody else, especially at the city newspaper, already knew the identity of Christina's murderer. This was still before a body had been found, and hope still lingered that she was alive.
TGOS said that "everyone" knew who offed Christina. He then, incredibly, predicted that her body would be found in exactly a week. He left before going further with his "insider info."
Christina Williams was found... dead. A week later. Two miles from her home, on Fort Ord land, along a trail near Imjin Road – a location that had been covered, and covered again, thoroughly during the search. Who ever had possessed Christina's body for the months prior to its discovery, had recently placed it there.
It was quite easy to conclude that The Ghost of Santee was Christina's killer, coming in to place an ad that he thought would taunt authorities – like The Joker, leaving a baffling public clue to goad Batman. But strangely, nobody else involved ever mentioned TGOS afterward – as if he'd never appeared at The Herald office.
Nobody, including the editorial staff with its clan of supposed advocates and champions wanted anything to do with the incident. It became a forgotten anecdote, and nothing more.
But, I kept saying to myself, THAT had to be the guy. Am I crazy? Doesn't anyone else see it?
Out of curiosity, I wondered what hidden meaning might be contained in the title "Ghost of Santee," and Googled it. It turns out that Santee, California is a paranormal "hotspot," with ghost sightings considered somewhat of a tourist attraction. One of the most prominent ghosts of Santee is an adolescent girl who is usually witnessed before dawn, "meditating."
Over a decade later, Christina's killer is still technically considered to be at large. Marina, California rapist Charles Holifield, currently serving a life term in state prison, however, is believed by the FBI to be a suspect. They try, ongoing, to coax a confession out of him, to no avail as of this writing.
But if you take Holifield's photo, and pencil a mustache and goatee on him... well... maybe. I wonder if they'd get anything out of him if they asked "have you ever referred to yourself as a ghost?"
Most people still brush off conspiracy theory. Even though I am a conspiracy "buff," and possibly see intricate webs of deception where others see, oh, a few extra nuts in a Snickers bar, it doesn't mean that intrigue is non-existent. Here are a couple of examples of real-life mysteries that still "haunt" me in a contemplative lunchtime kind'a way.
NO, NOT 9-11.
Try twenty-one months earlier; December 19, 1998 to be exact. For some reason out of the blue, the U.S. Military decided to hold a simulated "attack" on an American west coastline. Namely Monterey, California, where reside the Naval Postgraduate School, the Defense Language Institute (where Lee Harvey Oswald learned Russian) and the Monterey Presidio.
This "urban warfare experiment" involved squads of armed Marines and Coast Guard prowling otherwise quiet oceanfront neighborhoods, waving on old grannies and college frumpkins walking their dogs, a few FedEx trucks, and the Amway lady tootling around in her rusty Dodge Colt station wagon.
Personally, my paranoid concern, as a resident of said neighborhood, was making it to my car in the morning for work without being mistakenly strafed by rubber bullets.
In some ways the event seemed somewhat logical – the Monterey Peninsula was and perhaps still is ripe for the type of foreign assault that was only pretended at, that day. The above mentioned locales of strategic interest – back then – sat literally unguarded. The Presidio was open and free to civilian auto traffic, using it as a shortcut across town. The gates were shut tight on September 12, 2001.
Just the memory of camo-suited guards suddenly present there, just off the street, casually hefting black metal, seems a bit surreal and disconcerting.
There was a time long ago when the vast Pacific Ocean was considered adequate defense against someone else's army. We at least had the technology in place to see or hear them coming. That was yesterday's "conventional wisdom."
It became apparent that someone, somewhere, in 1998, thought it was time we reevaluated. Monterey was not the only place where simulated combat situations were staged. And yet in retrospect, something was odd.
Such training simulations, at least one on this invasive scale and far reaching magnitude, had never bothered with little old Monterey before.
Twenty-one months later... September 11, 2001, we really were attacked, on our own – east coast – soil. By air, from a foreign power, for the first time ever since Pearl Harbor.
The military has never held a simulated "invasion" here, since. Why not? Wouldn't 9-11 have ramped up the call for regular training runs?
Maybe in 1998, someone knew that something was coming. And currently they believe that nothing like it is due in the near future?
THE GHOST OF SANTEE
Now this one is even a tad scarier; a case of the jim-jams coming home to roost on a personal level. Consider it a warning.
For those who have lived on the Monterey Peninsula since the late 1990s, the name Christina Williams has a certain meaning. Her kidnapping and murder led to an exhaustive search with bizarre twists, turns and a Twilight Zone conclusion, that all served to galvanize the population in the process.
Christina was the perfect post-modern girl next door; Eurasian, raven haired, pencil-slender and of course cuter than cupcakes. Out walking her dog one evening. At just thirteen, perhaps this was not an ideal place for her; alone, out along a boulevard near a military post where lots of young men with raging hormones tend to cruise around, sometimes fueled by adult beverage. But there she was. An almost stereotypically perfect opening scene for a documentary about a kidnapping, that of course fades out with "never to be seen again."
The public notice of Christina's vanishing was immediately more than just any typical missing persons case. Fort Ord was still federal property then, and a kidnapping on government land wasn't any mere felony, but a potential breach of security. The story grabbed the front page and stayed there for weeks.
A beach-combing hobo found floating face-down in the bay would be lucky to make the next morning's police blotter.
Christina Williams became everyone's little girl as the massive search began. Celebrities like Mariah Carey, Reggie Jackson and Clint Eastwood each made public appeals for help and prayers for the Williams family.
A most bizarre twist was the sudden presence of the lowrider community, who taped photocopies in their back windows, of Christina, and the police sketches of the two individuals whose low-slung car she was seen getting into. Were they genuinely concerned about finding the girl, or was it a gesture to symbolically eliminate themselves from the suspect list?
Every inch of the Peninsula was searched, especially the trails in and around the expanse of Fort Ord – searched and searched again. And again.
About a month into the case, a body turned up fifty miles north, that seemed to match Christina's description. Tests were performed. The entire county held our breaths.
No. It wasn't Christina. It was a woman much older, but whose petite framed body gave the impression of a teenager's. Someone else's case. Though it was not exactly reassuring, it gave pause for hope; the longer Christina didn't turn up dead, there was all the more reason to believe she could still be found alive.
At this point in the story, is where the headlines crept their way into my own day-to-day life. During this time, I worked at Monterey's daily paper, The Herald, which was then owned and operated by Scripps-Howard, Inc.
I worked as an advertising designer and compositor. One morning an ad insertion order came in from a walk-in client. I was given the raw copy to typeset. It only took me a minute to realize that this was no ordinary newspaper ad.
For one thing, it wasn't an advertisement for anything. A full page in size, it was a random pastiche of the client's prattling personal manifestos. A laundry list of bumper sticker "truisms."
"I won the Superbowl more times than the 49ers, so where's my money?" and "I don't waste time picking lotto numbers, I just want the girl." are two of the gems I recall from this huge, rambling "word quilt."
The sales rep handling the client excused herself. Her calm walk to the back office became a gallop once she was out of the client's eyeshot, straight to the publisher's office to scream for help.
The client refused to give his name, but insisted on being referred to as "The Ghost of Santee."
I decided I had to get a look at this person. When I walked out front, I discovered him chatting up one of the Classified Department sales reps. I chose to just observe, and moved on after a few loiterous minutes.
He was slicked back, every hair in place like a swatch of chestnut corduroy. A waxed mustache and goatee of the same color. What stood out most was his attire... a custom-looking suit with pants and coat made of the same silvery fabric, only the coat wasn't a standard suitcoat, but more of a priest's frock, with no buttons I could see.
He seemed weighed down with gold chains and various neck-worn ornamentation. Every finger had bling. A pair of highly polished snakeskin boots completed this strange "cosmic wild west chaplain" ensemble.
After he left, the publisher decreed that The Herald would not run such an ad. I wonder if the verdict would be different now, when anyone coming in with an open checkbook is treated like royalty, regardless how good-n-nutty they are.
Later, the salesperson who handled the account told me some of the off-planet comments that TGOS had made while placing his goofy ad. He tended to steer conversation toward the subject of... Christina Williams.
He was amazed that nobody else, especially at the city newspaper, already knew the identity of Christina's murderer. This was still before a body had been found, and hope still lingered that she was alive.
TGOS said that "everyone" knew who offed Christina. He then, incredibly, predicted that her body would be found in exactly a week. He left before going further with his "insider info."
Christina Williams was found... dead. A week later. Two miles from her home, on Fort Ord land, along a trail near Imjin Road – a location that had been covered, and covered again, thoroughly during the search. Who ever had possessed Christina's body for the months prior to its discovery, had recently placed it there.
It was quite easy to conclude that The Ghost of Santee was Christina's killer, coming in to place an ad that he thought would taunt authorities – like The Joker, leaving a baffling public clue to goad Batman. But strangely, nobody else involved ever mentioned TGOS afterward – as if he'd never appeared at The Herald office.
Nobody, including the editorial staff with its clan of supposed advocates and champions wanted anything to do with the incident. It became a forgotten anecdote, and nothing more.
But, I kept saying to myself, THAT had to be the guy. Am I crazy? Doesn't anyone else see it?
Out of curiosity, I wondered what hidden meaning might be contained in the title "Ghost of Santee," and Googled it. It turns out that Santee, California is a paranormal "hotspot," with ghost sightings considered somewhat of a tourist attraction. One of the most prominent ghosts of Santee is an adolescent girl who is usually witnessed before dawn, "meditating."
Over a decade later, Christina's killer is still technically considered to be at large. Marina, California rapist Charles Holifield, currently serving a life term in state prison, however, is believed by the FBI to be a suspect. They try, ongoing, to coax a confession out of him, to no avail as of this writing.
But if you take Holifield's photo, and pencil a mustache and goatee on him... well... maybe. I wonder if they'd get anything out of him if they asked "have you ever referred to yourself as a ghost?"
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Chapped By "Chopped"
I'm a little miffed by the Food Network show "Chopped," which in general, I enjoy immensely, but am irked by its panel of judges.
The show's premise is brilliantly attention-commanding. Four non-celebrity chefs are each given a "mystery basket" containing three (or four) oddball ingredients that in an ideal world would never be served on the same bill of fare, much less combined into a single entrée. Havarti, yams and eel. Tongue, rhubarb and marshmallows, etc. The chefs must then "think on their feet," and improv these nauseatingly disparate factions into a tantalizing gourmet treat within a hellishly brief 30 minutes.
The maddening preparation intervals are edited to a more reasonable chunk of time, so that the entire show isn't consumed by a single round. There are three; Appetizer, Main Dish and Dessert. With each round, the chef that conjures up the least palatable dish, is eliminated, or "chopped." By the third round, the Dessert round, the competition has been pared to two competing chefs, slugging it out for the judges' favor. The last chef standing is declared "Chopped Champion."
The judges, whom are each given brief yet epic introductions ("... the Grand Wizard of the Sauté Pan"), get to sample each chef's creation and then enjoy informing him/her what a disgusting, back-alley scavenger plate of wet garbage they've toiled upon.
Here's where I really have a problem.
Most of the time, the judges' critiques boil down to the same pair of complaints: the dish is A. undercooked, and B. weird.
Hello??? You gave them ingredients that Lizzie Borden wouldn't throw in a pot together to serve to her parents, and only 30 minutes to plan, gather additional elements from a spaceship-like "pantry," combine and cook in whichever manner the chef is proficient, and then "plate" – arrange in an esthetically pleasing presentation. Any dish birthed in this environment is bound to be somewhat rushed and a tad strange! Needless to say these chefs have bulging neck veins and soulless staring gazes after the conclusion of each round.
And the judges apparently can't discern anything out of the ordinary about this kitchen equivalent of a bad LSD trip. Maybe in their world, it's normal.
The judges, by the way, also get to watch and comment during the preparations, which I'm sure endears them to the contestants even more. Not to mention the show's host, Ted Allen, who may be a gourmet in his own right, but on this show fills the role of studious shmuck with microphone, standing in the way, asking each chef for a play-by-play. "I'm putting a lid on the sauce to simmer, bitch. What does it look like I'm doing? Get away from me!"
And just as the nightmare seems almost over, the judges ask each chef to describe – in a style not unlike a job interview – what they have cooked.
"I've seared the GORILLA THIGH in extra-virgin olive oil to offset the power of the TANG brûlée, and garnished with GUMMI BEAR wedges on a bed of chopped bacon and field greens. Enjoy."
Each judge takes a demure mouthful, with a far-off stare of contemplation... suggesting in some cases that these Master Chefs could taste-test anti-matter and savor it with professorial aplomb... then unloads on the embattled foodsmith.
"I think you're a very creative person... but in all honesty, you could have dropped trow and grunted out a butt-fudge enchilada on this plate and I'd have respected you more."
The victimized chef must keep retort to a minimum. "Ah. Umhm. Yes, I understand."
"You're a fraud and a whore. This is just a step removed from boiled vomit."
"Email that online culinary school and demand your 20 bucks back."
"Memorize this, because you're going to need it: 'Pull to the next window please.'"
I will never be on this show, because frankly, I'd lose it. I don't mean I'd lose the Championship. I wouldn't even get that far. I'd. Lose. It. With. These. People.
It would go down like:
JUDGE: "Your pasta is underdone."
ME: "And you're make-up is coming undone."
JUDGE: "Your fromage filling is running out onto the plate."
ME: "And your teeth are about to spill out onto the floor."
JUDGE: "I find this dish frankly unacceptable."
ME: "The ingredients you made me use were Whale Semen, Spinach and Mini-Butterfingers. A dung beetle would find that dish unacceptable!"
The Food Network should rename this show "Meet The Asshats."
Chef Dave, sorry, you've MET THE ASSHATS. Goodbye.
An eliminated contestant is always filmed walking down the "hallway of shame" back to the dressing rooms. I'm waiting to see when a "chopped" chef flips the bird to the camera... I'm sure the editor has a collection.
Again, I am kind of addicted to this show.
The show's premise is brilliantly attention-commanding. Four non-celebrity chefs are each given a "mystery basket" containing three (or four) oddball ingredients that in an ideal world would never be served on the same bill of fare, much less combined into a single entrée. Havarti, yams and eel. Tongue, rhubarb and marshmallows, etc. The chefs must then "think on their feet," and improv these nauseatingly disparate factions into a tantalizing gourmet treat within a hellishly brief 30 minutes.
The maddening preparation intervals are edited to a more reasonable chunk of time, so that the entire show isn't consumed by a single round. There are three; Appetizer, Main Dish and Dessert. With each round, the chef that conjures up the least palatable dish, is eliminated, or "chopped." By the third round, the Dessert round, the competition has been pared to two competing chefs, slugging it out for the judges' favor. The last chef standing is declared "Chopped Champion."
The judges, whom are each given brief yet epic introductions ("... the Grand Wizard of the Sauté Pan"), get to sample each chef's creation and then enjoy informing him/her what a disgusting, back-alley scavenger plate of wet garbage they've toiled upon.
Here's where I really have a problem.
Most of the time, the judges' critiques boil down to the same pair of complaints: the dish is A. undercooked, and B. weird.
Hello??? You gave them ingredients that Lizzie Borden wouldn't throw in a pot together to serve to her parents, and only 30 minutes to plan, gather additional elements from a spaceship-like "pantry," combine and cook in whichever manner the chef is proficient, and then "plate" – arrange in an esthetically pleasing presentation. Any dish birthed in this environment is bound to be somewhat rushed and a tad strange! Needless to say these chefs have bulging neck veins and soulless staring gazes after the conclusion of each round.
And the judges apparently can't discern anything out of the ordinary about this kitchen equivalent of a bad LSD trip. Maybe in their world, it's normal.
The judges, by the way, also get to watch and comment during the preparations, which I'm sure endears them to the contestants even more. Not to mention the show's host, Ted Allen, who may be a gourmet in his own right, but on this show fills the role of studious shmuck with microphone, standing in the way, asking each chef for a play-by-play. "I'm putting a lid on the sauce to simmer, bitch. What does it look like I'm doing? Get away from me!"
And just as the nightmare seems almost over, the judges ask each chef to describe – in a style not unlike a job interview – what they have cooked.
"I've seared the GORILLA THIGH in extra-virgin olive oil to offset the power of the TANG brûlée, and garnished with GUMMI BEAR wedges on a bed of chopped bacon and field greens. Enjoy."
Each judge takes a demure mouthful, with a far-off stare of contemplation... suggesting in some cases that these Master Chefs could taste-test anti-matter and savor it with professorial aplomb... then unloads on the embattled foodsmith.
"I think you're a very creative person... but in all honesty, you could have dropped trow and grunted out a butt-fudge enchilada on this plate and I'd have respected you more."
The victimized chef must keep retort to a minimum. "Ah. Umhm. Yes, I understand."
"You're a fraud and a whore. This is just a step removed from boiled vomit."
"Email that online culinary school and demand your 20 bucks back."
"Memorize this, because you're going to need it: 'Pull to the next window please.'"
I will never be on this show, because frankly, I'd lose it. I don't mean I'd lose the Championship. I wouldn't even get that far. I'd. Lose. It. With. These. People.
It would go down like:
JUDGE: "Your pasta is underdone."
ME: "And you're make-up is coming undone."
JUDGE: "Your fromage filling is running out onto the plate."
ME: "And your teeth are about to spill out onto the floor."
JUDGE: "I find this dish frankly unacceptable."
ME: "The ingredients you made me use were Whale Semen, Spinach and Mini-Butterfingers. A dung beetle would find that dish unacceptable!"
The Food Network should rename this show "Meet The Asshats."
Chef Dave, sorry, you've MET THE ASSHATS. Goodbye.
An eliminated contestant is always filmed walking down the "hallway of shame" back to the dressing rooms. I'm waiting to see when a "chopped" chef flips the bird to the camera... I'm sure the editor has a collection.
Again, I am kind of addicted to this show.
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