Postponement

I just got off the phone with the automated secretary for the Los Angeles Superior Court Jury Service and found out that I missed the deadline to register. That meant I had to postpone my report date, and being that I just wanted to push that responsibility as far away from myself as possible, I chose late January of next year. Why do I feel like that's not a victory?

Bureaucracy and me do not get along. I get super anxious when I go to the DMV, I can't stand the sight of a cop in my rear view mirror, and I hate filling out forms. Wow, I know, big revelation here - I know I'm not the only one. But I legitimately felt like I was getting scolded by the automated secretary for not registering in time. Do you think they somehow get the lady who they hired to record her voice to sound snooty and condescending when they determine you to be a delinquent? Isn't it telling that I just referred to myself as a "delinquent"? Man, there must be some deep seated shit that happened when I was a kid for me to feel so shameful about missing my jury duty deadline. Could I possibly be one of those "postman's kids" that everyone refers to?

I went to college and I teach for a living, yet I couldn't figure out how to properly register from the summons that was mailed to me. If you do the math, that means there are potentially many others who didn't figure it out, either. Heck, I'd venture to guess that some mofos don't even call when they get those summonses. So when I get all anxious and show up for duty, as I've done twice now since I've been living in L.A., I'm actually one of the schmucks who is doing the right thing, the kind they always place on a gnarly triple homicide case that involves aliens and shit. The kind of case that lasts ten years. The kind of case where they run out of free coffee and snacks so you have to start packing a snack to make it through the everlasting deliberations.

This date that I picked in January is now sitting in my iCal calendar, silently throbbing and pulsating with light, much like the power light on this MacBook, waiting for me to forget about it, or lose the summons the next time I clean my room. Subconsciously, maybe that's my intention. It's the only way I can send a middle finger high in the air to the Man. Hey - I pay my taxes, stop at red lights, pick up the occasional bottle on the side of the road - so why can't I just have this one pass? Leave me alone.

Deconstructing Denmark

I met a Danish guy tonight. No, not on Match.com, you effing comedian. Let's say he's a friend of a friend. And that certain friend's name is Bill. Anyway, I see this guy with killer specs on, the kind where you just know he's either an architect or from one of those cold countries where they speak a Germanish-sounding language. Turns out he was the latter.

I've been fascinated by Denmark after this article came out a few months ago. "Happiest Country on Earth"? What could they be pumping into the air supply to make those Danes so friggin' exuberant? Turns out much of what the article proposed - namely, the socialist government giving everyone a fair stake at success and well being - is backed up by my new friend.

He says the Danish are more concerned with family than with success. (If I just look at myself, I moved 3000 miles from my family initially to pursue the American Dream of writing screenplays for moolah. I stayed out here for convenience.) They get taxed like mofos - up to 70% if you're making over 60,000 a year. In fact, the system discourages being overly successful, so that everyone in turn just does enough to keep busy. If you want to go to college, you don't have to break your neck to get into a good one, since everyone is guaranteed secondary education.

I asked him what Denmark's main industry was. Here were his exact words: "We have a very flat land, so we grow a lot of agriculture. We have a lot of pigs. I don't know. There are a few well-known designers to come from Denmark." Translation: "We just kick it all day, occasionally growing shit and designing these cool specs you see on my face." No wonder they're so happy, right? I'm not just saying that as a throw-away statement, either.

Could we ever pull off a socialist government here? No way. In fact, the NSA is tracking my blog from this point forward. Oh well. The thing is, we're too goal-oriented and try too hard to distinguish ourselves from the rest of the pack. The article mentioned that happiness can be derived from living around people with the same goals as you. Not a single person living on my block has the same goals as me. You know how I know that? For starters, I haven't talked to any of them. They either annoy or confound me with their late night car alarms and strange parking habits. In addition, we don't ever see each other outside of parking our cars at night and sticking our heads out of the windows after an earthquake. In fact, rarely do I see the same people anywhere in this city. I'm constantly running into new people, none of whom seem to share my goals either. We're all playing for different teams. This would be a depressing thought if it wasn't the same mentality that gives us 23 different options for toilet paper.

Would I live in Denmark? I don't think so. Apparently, the family unit is so strong over there that it is hard to break into. And they have no need for English teachers, either. This guy I met speaks better English than I (or is it "me"?). Again, not a throwaway statement. But certainly I think it's a good model to follow, even if we try it on a micro level. Like giving somebody a hand putting groceries in her car, or picking up a piece of trash on the sidewalk, or contacting the police when you see a vandal at work. Wait, that doesn't work.

When you play on the same team, especially if that team is your family, you win. And winning is American. Why do I feel like I'm sounding more and more like Stephen Colbert? I'm serious, though. More taxes is not always a terrible thing, as long as it's money being well spent. Programs to rehabilitate gang youth? Well spent. More bike lanes? Well spent. More intersection cameras? Not well spent. I bet they don't have those in Denmark.

Sympathizing with the Ladies

I started shaving my legs because I'm "in training". At least, that's what I tell myself over and over as I get constant reminders that my legs are, in fact, shaved. These reminders come in many shapes and sizes:

1) When I go to bed, I can feel my legs touch the sheets.
2) Someone at a coffee shop was staring at them.
3) My sister said, "Hey, you shaved your legs."
4) I'm using more Gilette Mach 3 razors than ever before.
5) I see myself in the mirror.

Why, you ask, did I shave them in the first place? What exactly does being "in training" mean? Well, I suppose it means that I am competing in a triathlon in September, and that's what one does as part of the preparation. You could say it makes me more aerodynamic, or that it makes me look official, but the real reason is that I mentally feel like a triathlete now. Sure, it looks cool too when you can see your calf muscles, and apparently, it makes it easier to clean a wound on your leg if you should fall, but I think it's definitely a mental thing.

Watch the movie Breaking Away starring a young Dennis Quaid and you'll see what I mean.

"Bum bum, ba baaahh...waaaahhhhh"

My sister's husband Dave downloaded the sound effects from The Price Is Right and waited patiently by the computer until someone bombed a joke so that he could unleash the noise that one hears when one guesses wrong on the show. It's nearly impossible to replicate via written word, but I'll give it a shot: "Bum bum, ba baaahh...waaaahhhhh". The "waaaahhhhh" part is like a group of trumpets going slightly out of tune. Does that ring a bell? Anyway, I thought it would be a funny idea for a sketch if the host of the show had to make all the noises himself because the sound f/x guy forgot to show up to work. However, since I've taken improv enough to know a little about sketch writing too, I see an inherent flaw in the idea: There's nowhere to go from there. It's perfection, and even perfection has its limits.

T-Minus Day, Stomach Hair, Pantsed in Ramadi

In an effort to maintain a semblance of talent, I’ve decided to make regular updates to this blog, even if I’ve got nothing to say. Don’t fear, however, because tonight I do have something to say. Whether or not it’s funny or full of supposed talent is up to you to decide. Try not to think too hard on it.

For starters, it’s getting closer to T-Minus T-Mobile Day, which is July 11th (or, the day the new iPhone comes out), when I will be officially switching over to ATT. My journey with T-Mobile has been documented not only by me in previous blog posts (Sorry, I don’t have them linked here – you might try the archives or just taking my word for it, Captain Doubty) as well as by T-Mobile themselves.

It’s a long story, but the brief version is that I once called so many times in the span of a week, with such gusto (or annoyance) that I am convinced they “red flagged” me so that every subsequent time I called, they knew that I was a head case who needed to be handled with kid gloves. What led me to this paranoia, you might ask? It wasn’t Crypto-Cronic-California weed, though it’s been known to have worse side effects. No, it was the time I called and instantly was transferred to a sweet, Southern-sounding woman named Sandy who was ultra-polite and nice and would “kindly walk me through whatever I needed taking care of for the day”. My face on the other end of the line looked like Neo’s in the beginning of The Matrix when he gets a call from Morpheus telling him to look across the room at the agents talking to his boss. It gave me a cold chill down my spine, and not one of supreme victory over the phone gods, but one that screamed, “Jesus, this is what I’ve become? A dickhead customer?”

Now when I call, I’m way too nice, to the point where I never solve the problem I originally call to complain about. In fact, they now take advantage of me, probably to pay back some of my earlier bullying. For example, I called Customer Service (not deserving of capitals, by the way) when the first iPhone came out to see how far T-Mobile would be willing to go to keep my business. They transferred me to a guy named Burt who sounded like he was a UFC fighter from Queens.

Burt: So, what do you need?
Me: What are you guys willing to do to keep me as a customer?
Burt: Why you wanna leave?
Me: To get the new iPhone.
Burt: Oh, I see. So a new fancy phone comes out and you just wanna bail on us? Is that it?
Me: I wouldn’t call it “bailing,” since I’ve paid you roughly $5000 in bills since I joined; it’s not like you’re a friend with cancer whom I never talk to anymore.
Burt: Fine. You can go. We got plenty of other customers. Millions of ‘em.
Me: Are you supposed to be this brutally honest?
Burt: Yep. It’s our new policy. It’s the T-Mobile “We’re the cheapest option, so suck it” plan.
Me: Gotcha.

Fast-forward to today, and I get the same treatment today as I really, for sure this time,
want to switch over to ATT, this time because the iPhone is cheaper. I get Denise on the
line, who makes a marked change from friendly to bitchy as soon as I tell her I want to switch. She literally sounded like a little kid who just found out you were having a sleep over the same night he was and that you also invited most of the same kids: “Oh, you’re gonna leave us after all this time, huh? Fine. Be that way.”

+++

I’m on my extended, truly kick-ass summer vacation from teaching and so far Week One was everything I’d hoped it would be and more. I’m in training for my first Triathlon in September, so I spent many hours on the bike, in the pool and on the boardwalk flexing for the ladies. Except, I can never translate the expression on so many of their faces as they gaze at my stomach. It could be one of these three things:

“Boy, he’s got a lot of work to do to justify taking his shirt off in public.”
“I didn’t know chest hair also turned into belly hair, but just in a different color.”
“Is…..that……sweat?!?”

You just don’t care, and that’s how you pull it off, in case you were wondering. But obviously I do care, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing about it on a Sunday evening. Ah, the musings of the single-parented male.

+++

On a more serious note, I’ve finished what is now the third book I’ve read about Fallujah (I know – does the fun ever stop!?!) and I’m back in my September 12th mindset that I need to join the Armed Forces (justified capitalization), only I can’t decide if it is as a Warrior or Analyst. I know, I know – you are going to say that’s like wanting to either be a garbage man, or a man who eats garbage for a living. I just don’t think I could hack it out there in the field as an infantry fighter (Is that redundant?). I’m more of a thinking man’s man, and hence the analyzing of terrorist cell communications for the CIA or something. And just the term “thinking man’s man” would get me pantsed on the streets of Ramadi for just saying it out loud, so I think that settles that. Plus, my desire for combat would not be a pure one, like why so many brave men signed up on September 12th (to prevent Iraqis from invading America and stealing their blond girlfriends), but would be a simple desire to be able to say at a cocktail party that I could snipe a fool from 300 yards out. I am aware that there are Marines who truly signed up for that exact same reason. Does that make it wrong? Not really.

The Man with the Rigor Mortis Hands

Outside my apartment building lay a man with rigor mortis hands. He's been lying there for some time now. The first to arrive were the firefighters. They only respond to emergency situations, not criminal acts. I don't think he was shot or stabbed. I don't see any blood. I think he was drinking all day and passed out in that peculiar spot right between the curb and the tire of that Honda Prelude.

There's a siren in the middle distance. When I look out the window, the noise is coming from every direction, making it difficult to tell from where it will come. It peaks and then it passes. The firefighters are holding a string above his head. The have flashlights in their hands, and the light makes a web of beams around his body. I can't see his face, otherwise I would see his condition.

The ambulance arrives. They turned their siren off. The cops would have been here by now if it had been a crime scene. Medics get out and walk over to the man. A man talking on a cell phone walks by and stops, keeps walking and stops again to look back. He's probably wondering the same thing as I. A nice-looking couple passes by. The woman is pulling the man to get him to hurry up. The man is worried. One of the medics looks at him for a second and goes back to work. They are preparing a stretcher. If he were dead, they would have a body bag, the kind with the zipper.

They pull at the man's shirt. His legs haven't moved at all. I can see my breath on the window pane. I can see my face in the reflection. I see the cornea and the pupil of my eye. I look aware. They pull him onto the stretcher and tie him down. They are crowded around him I can't see his body anymore they are moving the stretcher there is a space between two of the medics and I can see his arms they are up in the air why are they up in the air if he was really drunk they wouldn't be in the air like that they close the door to the ambulance.

The ambulance is parked outside my apartment. If he were really in need of medical attention they would have been speeding away by now. Another ambulance wails in the distance. It races down the main thoroughfare on its way to or from a different incident. Why is there so much activity on a Sunday? Sunday is a day of rest. I thought this man was drinking today because it is Sunday and got too drunk and landed next to that curb. But he had rigor mortis hands that stood straight up. They didn't move at all, and when they strap you down, that is the priority - your hands. If they need to put tubes in you, they can't have your hands waving around, pulling tubes out.

The ambulance is pulling away. It does a three point turn in the intersection outside my apartment. The lights inside the ambulance are on. I can see inside the ambulance through the back windows. I can see the man. His arms are folded on his chest.

I can see his arm move.

Naked UFC to the Max

The lunch lady at my school has the audacity, or balls, or chutzpah to put a tip jug out for both the students AND the teachers. There is one lonely, sweaty, possibly fake dollar chilling at the bottom like a chappy sock.

My profile picture suggests I'm "taking care of business," but I'm too snobby to take my own picture and replace it. I wait, and wait, and wait until someone takes a picture of me so I can review it and then post it.

Lately I'll have one or two nights a week when I have two meals for dinner. And inevitably while I'm preparing the second dinner, about halfway full I become totally disinterested with eating any more. But I'm too cheap (or pre-WWII frugal, if you will) to throw the food out.

Man Vs. Wild versus Survivorman.:
Bear Grylls is more charming and his British accent is cooler, but he's a total show-off. He all hangs off of planes before he jumps out of them. No! You jump out of the plane! That's enough to seal it for most people. You don't need to try so hard. On the flipside, Survivorman Les Stroud is about as humorous as a butt zit, and kind of a bitch, but at least he knows what he's doing. I feel like he could survive for a year in a closet if he had to. And maybe he figuratively is, for that matter.

I can't sell my car, and I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm caught in the riptide of some downturn in the car market, just like those who can't sell a house to save their lives. I took it to CarMax, but they offered me the same amount I would have gotten from taking it to a chop shop. Fuck CarMax. More like Sucks to the Max. Or CarLacksGoodDeals or FartTracks or ShittyShits. Sorry, I just reverted to my middle-school inner self. Selling a car will do that to you.

Watching "Eastern Promises," I've never been more inclined to lean forwards and backwards in my seat as during Viggo's balls-out fight scene. Talk about a departure from Aragorn. He and Daniel Radcliffe should do a naked UFC fight to see who can unmask his typecast persona the most. If I had done that scene, the budget would have been twice the amount simply for the grooming that would have needed to take place. I'm talking some serious manicuring.

My Rad Moment That I'm Still Super-Stoked About

Yesterday it occurred to me how lucky I am to be living out here. Yes, I’ll concede that having the summer off played a big role in this revelatory attitude of mine, and perhaps without these endless days of beach-going and reading and running I would never have experienced this moment of insight. But lets put aside all that pessimism and focus on the Moment that sealed the deal for me.

Picture it: A stiff northwesterly breeze comes off the ocean, bringing brine-flavored air to the olfactory system and surf noises to the ear. The sun is straight up and golden – not humid or overpowering or even bright, really. Just golden and warm. The beach is in Hermosa, and because of the time of day and day of week, practically empty, save a few calm families and lifeguards. Next to me is Jessica. We’re sitting on our new beach chair backpacks purchased from Costco reading our books.

Suddenly, a cry goes up from one of the families to our right. I look over to see a child pointing at the ocean and jumping up and down. My line of sight follows the direction of her finger, and lands on several dark shapes cruising through the surf, about twenty yards from the beach. The dark shapes bend in and out of each other’s paths. One breaks off from the pack and body surfs on a large wave, much like an experienced boogie boarder. As he (or she) nears the beach, his dorsal fin pierces the water, and a blowhole shoots a puff of water and closes. He aligns his trajectory parallel with the beach and jets back to his friends.

But these dolphins aren’t making their usual drive by. Maybe because there’s fish nearby, or maybe because they have an audience, the pod circles back and begins a veritable dolphin decathlon right in front of our eyes. Flipping, surfing, diving and showboating, they soon draw a crowd of onlookers and scores of children dive in and swim into their arena.

At first, it’s a little disconcerting watching dark shapes in the ocean swim fast towards groups of children, but the lifeguards don’t seem to mind and the kids are squealing with delight. Jessica and I move towards the ocean to get a better view. The dolphins swim back and forth across an area of fifty yards, staying always right in view for everyone to gasp and point at. One kid gets so close to one of the dolphins you could swear he was about to ride it. Jessica quips, “I hope that kid is here on vacation from the Midwest or something. Just imagine him going home and telling his friends that he freaking swam with dolphins in California.” I laugh.

At that moment, something in me clicks on. Or off, depending on how you look at it. I hand Jess my sunglasses and hat and dive into the water, swimming towards the dolphin highway. With each wave that crashes over me, I get closer to them. For a minute, I can’t see any of them and think dejectedly that they had been scared off by my newly shorn head, but just as I surface another crest, I see one coming straight for me. He is surfing the wave, his body gliding with the current, his tail whipping efficiently. I marvel at his grace in the water, and feel a little like I was a fish out of water. I dive under his wave, and as I come up for air, so does he. For a split second, what felt like a week, I look right in his eye, see his blowhole open and close, and watch him slip back into his playground and dart off with the quickness of a greyhound.

Jess is jumping up and down when I beach myself on the sand after riding a wave in. “He was right there! Did you see him? He was handsome, wasn’t he!” I tell her I saw his eye. She thinks about it and replies, “Whoa.” I think I get it now why so many native southern Californians have come up with words like “gnarly”, “radical” and “bodacious”. They have objects for these adjectives that many places in the world do not. You tend to forget that out here.

Anger Management at Trader Joe's

Before you delve into this harrowing tale, keep in mind that I love Trader Joe’s and would never purposely slander them. In fact, this account is less about Trader Joe’s itself and more about the kind of people it attracts. In case you don’t live near one, a Trader Joe’s is a super market that has really good stuff for cheap. They usually have sweet chalkboards all over the place with pretty drawings and super-neat script hand-drawn by some genius in a factory (there’s no way every Trader Joe’s has an employee who can write that neatly). Also, the cashiers are always friendly and most of them have this vibe about them that at one point in their lives they wielded a knife for some crack rock, but they’re over it now, and life is good.

I bought frozen chicken from Costco a few months ago, and perchance found some interred beneath the frozen veggies and butter in my freezer. Like finding a five dollar bill in the washing machine, it was an even that needed to be celebrated. So I decided to grill the chicken and eat it. First though, I needed marinade. Where to go to get marinade? Trader Joe’s. Where to go to get anything other than frozen chicken? Trader Joe’s.

The Trader Joe’s on Pico and 32nd in Santa Monica is a beacon for practically every woman, man and child in West LA (everything west of the 405 freeway – probably a couple million people). I don’t know why, since it’s one of the smaller TJ’s, with a parking lot scheme that looks like a set piece for Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice. Most trips to this TJ’s take about 25 minutes at least. I was going for five minutes in, five minutes out. All I needed was marinade, right?

Ten minutes later, I had the following items in my basket: orange juice, frozen chicken masala, frozen lemongrass chicken wraps, barbecue sauce, mango lemonade, frozen goat cheese pizza, arugula salad……..no marinade. It’s inevitable that I will raid the frozen section like a Viking, especially when there are new items in stock, and completely forget why I came to TJ’s in the first place.

With less than twelve items in my basket, I headed straight for the Express Lane, since the name conveys quickness and efficiency. I dropped into line behind a rather large man, with sweaty hair parted down the middle, gaps between all of his teeth (making his mouth look like Stonehenge), and a black, multi-pocketed vest from which he kept reaching for all of his valuables, including a film roll case packed with small change (a sure sign of insanity).

Within seconds I heard this man accosting people left and right, criticizing their clothes, musical tastes and recreational drug habits. I’ll explain. The cashiers, like I mentioned before, may all be casual pot smokers. Just a hunch. Thus, they sometimes like to make small talk relating to pot smoking. So, when the fat guy in front of my says, “Hey buddy, you’re shirt is giving me a headache (which he meant in all seriousness),” the cashier replies, “Yeah, well you should lay off the green stuff.” In my book, it’s not that funny of a comment in itself, but funny nonetheless because of the party saying it. The fat man, however, gave him a dirty look, and said, “What? You have pineapples on your shirt. Why would I smoke those?” Again, insane, and absolutely no sense of humor.

Remember, I am in a bit of a hurry, so when the cashier finished ringing the last item of the fat man’s basket, I put my basket on the hook that they provide on the counter next to the cashier. By accident, the cashier started ringing up my stuff and putting it with fat man’s stuff. Now, all he happened to ring up was an orange juice, which costs $4.00. The fat man exploded with rage, “Wait! Wait! That’s not my STUFF! I didn’t buy THAT!” And he threw me a murderous glance, saying, “This guy over here’s a LINE JUMPER! WE’VE GOT A LINE JUMPER!” He’s shouting this loud enough for people two lanes away to hear it.

The cashier looks at him sheepishly, and says, “All we have to do is void one orange juice, sir. It will take two seconds.” The fat man says, “NO WAY! I’m not having negative numbers on my receipt. No funny business! Un uh! Do them ALL over again. No funny business!” Keep in mind that despite being in an “express lane,” this man has about 24 items.

The manager comes over and voids the orange juice, which takes literally two seconds like the cashier said it would, so the fat man calms down a little. But when the manager asks the cashier if anything needs to be taken back, the fat man chimes in, “Yeah, you can take THIS GUY back with you!” He’s pointing at me. Now, I had been cucumber cool the whole time this charade is going on, but that last comment awoke some blood-red river that ran from my bowels up to the crown of my head, sending sparks raining around my extremities like napalm. “Excuse me, but it’s not like I come to Trader Joe’s just waiting to jump in front of people or to put my basket on the hook too fast. I don’t wait all fucking day to do that. It’s not my fucking hobby.” I was shaking.

The fat man doesn’t even look me in the eye, and says, “Yeah, well you’re just a pushy bastard.” Lights out. In front of me, I see both his eyeballs impaled with Charles Shaw wine bottles. I’m pouring mango lemonade on fresh paper cuts I’ve inflicted with my frozen pizza box. His gapped teeth are gone. Stonehenge is no more, ripped out by the Vikings. The space-time continuum is bowing outwards, unable to constrain the tension of this moment.

“Happy Fourth of July, buddy.” I swipe my card and walk out.

Now, I won’t play the “I was a bigger man” card, because I looked for him in the parking lot (just a little, like five minutes), but it shows how far I’ve come as an adult. Had this been 2002, 2003 or 2004, I might have jumped on top of fat man and started clawing his face, and then he would have surely body-slammed me into the Charles Shaw wine display. It would have made the five o’clock news. Instead, I simmered all the way home and felt inclined to write about it, a sure sign that I’m still pissed-off. Progress, people. Progress.

I Have a New Obsession

The first time I saw it, it was at my sister’s house. She has a few actually in the front garden by the steps that lead out onto Main Street. To the best of my knowledge, they came with the house. They look like juicy green roses, so juicy that you could bite them. I don’t know what would come out – aloe? Maybe it would be a pungent disaster. Or perhaps, a slightly sweet milky fluid that would require some getting used to. Not that I would ever bite these miracles of nature.

I asked for one as I was leaving Mary’s house one day. She casually pricked off a leaf of one and made a little pot for it. They survive the moving process, as long as you have a root system in place. I kept it by my window, but it eventually died. It never achieved the beautiful rose structure, but it was reminiscent of the original. I once peeled a tiny piece off of my own once it was big enough, and gave it to a dear friend. I hope she still has it.

They are of the “succulent” variety of California plant. What a suggestion. The name alone evokes that desire to chomp into them. They must be that way in order to survive the desert climate. Some are of the rose-shaped rendition I saw at my sister’s, but few have a classic rose/artichoke shape that I lust after. I saw one this weekend and bought it. I named him, though I won’t divulge that ridiculousness. He has proper sunlight, ventilation and love. I look at him constantly. I worry about him. I did research on the internet about him. He’s called by some a “Ghost Plant,” by others a “Ghostbuster”. Who knows where these nomenclatures come from?

The woman who sold him to me told me to take very good care of him. I asked her if he would survive, and she said, simply, “If you like him, he will.” I haven’t had good luck with previous plants. This would sting if it didn’t pan out well. Apparently, I have to submerge him in water for a half hour to water him, and that’s only when he’s completely dry. The semantics of the watering process are enough to make me second and triple guess.

Today I Got Dunked On

Ever since the first day I walked into that classroom, I knew I was a goner. I wanted them to love me. Not in a mushy, superficial way, but in a “that guy is cool” kind of way. I wanted them to trust me enough to be themselves and open up to the opportunity of learning more than just what the books had to offer. I wanted to teach them about life, and just happen to get a little English on the side. The first week of teaching, I had a recurring dream that I was in a cover band playing to my students and they were my rabid fans. It was a beautiful dream.

And then I woke up. The day-to-day started to chip away at this romantic notion, and throughout the rest of the year, these moments of divine insight were fleeting at best. I went from believing I could be the next Mr. Holland’s Opus to resigning to the fact that I never had any real training and would be thrilled to make it to the end of the year. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve done a great effing job considering the circumstances – but there’s the perfectionist in me constantly pricking my subconscious, telling me I could have been that lead singer of the cover band.

Today, I was that lead singer. Man, I’m getting chills just thinking about it right now. I totally flipped on the kids, asking them why they hadn’t been reading the book 1984, which my mom donated to them out of the kindness of her heart. Since not having the book wasn’t an excuse, I asked why they were all far behind.

“We’re Seniors, and we’re not into doing anything the last few weeks of school.”

“We’re just lazy.”

“It’s too much to read.”

“It started off good, but now it’s boring.”

“I can’t relate to it.”

And that’s where I stopped them. All the other excuses I could buy, since I was a Senior myself (a decade or so ago), but not relating to a book about invasion of privacy and Big Brother and technology controlling us in this age of MySpace, iSight laptops, intersection cameras, AIM, Blackberrys, Sidekicks and phone tapping? I wasn’t gonna let them get out of this one that easy.

We had our first “real” discussion, the kind where everyone (even the sleepy kids) is involved, there’s a real democracy of sharing ideas, and the clock burns through a half hour before you know it. At one point in the discussion, I was going off on a MySpace rant (about how nothing changes on this website – you could check back in a month and everybody’s talking about the same shit, with the same pictures, and the same lame music, etc.) and one of my students yelled out unconsciously, “Preach it!” I was going off.

At the end of the period, as I was wiping the board clean, I could sense a student coming close to me, slowly. I then felt as he was backing up into me, pivoting, elbows up, backing up some more, and pivoting. I turned around, and one of the tallest Seniors in the school was basically backing me up into the board as if he was a guard positing himself for a dunk. When I turned around, he made his last move, and “dunked” on me, to the utter delight of the rest of the class.

I made it. I belong. For one blissful moment, I was their lead singer.

Soak City: An Exercise in Humiliation

During my formative years, I was very self-conscious of what other people thought of me and my actions. At my worst, I often acted more like a gentleman around complete strangers than around my parents and family. Something in my brain just demanded the acceptance and approval of everyday Joes, so that even my household reputation was being diminished.

Thankfully, I’m over that phase of my life. Or, so I thought I was, anyway. Leave it to an amusement park to dredge up that old me and plant it, bubbling and disgusting, right in front of my face. Here’s how it went down:

My girlfriend and I went to Joshua Park for a couple of days, and decided to spend the night in Desert Hot Springs, a windy little town not too far from the park and Palm Springs. I was under the impression that the town’s name meant that it would be like Yellowstone “South”, kind of like Sonny’s in Santa Monica is Mary Anne’s “West”, or Canada is France “Northwest”. Everything is something, but farther away. Put that on a t-shirt.

Well, Desert Hot Springs was more like Hockessin, Delaware “West”, because there warn’t Nathan to do in that thar town. Our only option was Palm Springs, that pleasant-feeling haunt of the Rat Pack and Sonny Bono. For an option, it was not too shabby. On our way to Palm Springs from Desert Hot Springs, we passed Knotts Soak City. A huge, gleaming tower vaulted overhead, the top of the tallest ride at the park. On the sign, a buffed-up, hugely pectoraled surfer gave us the “hang ten” sign and invited us to get soaked!

I looked it up online later that night and found out it was open just for that week, since there were a lot of Spring Breakers in town. We headed to Target the next morning, picked up towels and sunscreen and made it to the park by 1:00. The mean age in the park was 30, only because half the people were under 20 and the other half were over 40. We were the only people between 20-40 in the whole park.

Now, I’m not usually dissuaded by something as insignificant as that, not nowadays, but I couldn’t help feeling out of place and borderline weird. Especially when I doffed my shirt to reveal a winter’s worth of body hair and pasty skin. Note to self: summer starts early out here. This feeling of unease and discomfort was exacerbated minute by minute as I waded my way through throngs of little kids holding plastic tubes and rafts, screaming and splashing water at each other. I just wanted to get on one freaking ride, that was it. I wanted to go on the yellow one.

The yellow one has a storied history for those who know about Soak City. Some say it’s as tall as a building (true), some say it kills at least one kid a year (unfounded), and others say it will inevitably shoot water up your rectum (true). What they don’t tell you is that if you’re wearing a certain type of bathing suit, you will have issues. I was wearing running shorts, which come with an elastic lining to hold the boys in place while you’re bouncing around. I thought it would suffice. I was wrong.

At the top of the yellow slide, you can see all of Palm Springs and the surrounding mountains. Breathtaking. When you sit down onto the slide and wait for your turn, that panorama turns into 30,000 feet atop a plane that’s headed for the ocean. Terrifying. The cross winds make you feel like you’ll be ripped off the trajectory path and sent careening onto a concrete slab hundreds of feet below, or maybe impaled onto the surfer dude’s hanging ten thumb. When the lady atop the yellow slide tells you, “Go ahead” in that you’re-too-old-to-be-on-here-dude-voice, you can’t help but feel your bowels turn to ice and your spine to jelly. You push off.

And you’re not even touching the slide, because despite the ample body hair on your back, you’re hydroplaning at 100 miles an hour, and there’s no way the walls to your sides will keep you in and you’re bound to die horribly, and why this way and not saving a bus load of Vietnamese schoolchildren from a suicide bomber and SPLASH! You made it to the landing strip, but WAIT! what’s this BUMP they put in so you get air and hop up about two feet and is that your bathing suit that turned itself around so that your package, or junk, or cash and prizes is hanging out for the entire viewing section, full of families and kids and girlfriends and boyfriends and old people, to see?

And that’s where I found myself: hurriedly fixing a FUBAR situation at the bottom of the yellow slide, averting my gaze from anybody’s eyes, hoping I didn’t scar some poor kid for life. And now I’m back to the insecure me, the one who just keeps running that tape over and over again in my brain like it’s a perverted Zapruder film on acid, all yellows and purple tubes and little kids laughing at me and parents asking why. But, I’ll tell you what. It was a freaking rush, and I’m going back for more. Only maybe I’ll wear those board shorts in my closet. The ones that go waaaay down below the knees.

Bike Tour of Duty

Some of you may know that I've run a couple of marathons in the past two years. Some because one of my running photos was my MySpace profile picture for a spell, others because I insisted on telling you. I'm here to tell you today that the marathon man is no longer in the building. My lean physique has been relegated to that of a middle-aged man who plays with his kids on the weekends, but otherwise eats Cheetos and uses a fair amount of mayonnaise. Rest assured, I am not that man - I just look like him.

So what do I do for fitness these days without a stringent schedule to keep me in check? Walk around a classroom and pass out papers, for one. Run down vandals, if there are any (it's been a slow year). Lastly, I'll hop on a bike now and then and spin around for an hour or two.

Biking hasn't ever been my passion, probably ever since the time I went mountain-biking at a place called Iron Hill and rolled down a very irony hill, resulting in 20 stitches in my arm and back. Ever since then, it hasn't procured the same zeal from me as running on safe, well-lit and iron free streets. The craziest I'll get these days is a spin around the boardwalk or a beginner's-level ride down a dirt path in the Pacific Palisades.

But leave it to consumerism to whet my palate once again. I purchased a new bike rack several months ago that had been collecting dust, and I finally decided to start getting my money's worth. As soon as I put the bike on it, the old emotions and excitement pre-Iron Hill came rushing back. Wouldn't you know it, but it was just in time for Dave to mention off-handedly, "Hey, are you doing the Acura Bike Tour this year?" Having no clue what it was, I said, "Yes."

Later that day, googling the hell out of "bike", "tour", "acura" and "distance", I found out that it is a 22 mile "tour" through downtown LA. "Tour" is the very appropriate word to keep in mind as you read the rest of this blog. The tour starts and stops at USC, and snakes its way in and out of beautiful Angeleno landmarks such as Skid Row, Highway 101/110 interchange, Downtown (aka That Place We All Drive By on Our Way to the Staples Center), and Fashion District (aka any Metropolitan city center in Southeast Asia, plus bums). Really, I was doing it for the camaraderie of riding my bike next to some friends for an hour or two.

Perhaps to discourage lame-asses from signing up, the start time is 6:00AM on a Sunday, which means a splendid 5:00 AM wakeup call on a day off. We are not lame-asses, however, so we were up and at 'em at five sharp, connecting bungee cords and scraping knees on bike chains in the bitter blue cold. I gave up coffee and sweets recently, so that rules out my usual breakfast when I'm up and available enough to have it. So I ate trail mix. For breakfast. In the cold.

We got to USC with time to spare, and zipped down to the start just in time to see massive fireworks exploding overhead. Those pitiable locals must've thought we were getting bombed by North Korea. That signified the start, so off we went. Sort of. A marathon starts slow, but at least you're walk-running. A bike tour starts off slow, and you walk alongside your bike for 300 yards, banging into other zealous bikers.

I suppose now's a good time to bring up one of the finer aspects of the Bike Tour - anyone, and I really, truly mean anyone, can do it. This includes 3 year-olds to 233 year-olds, coherent to bat-shit insane, cologne-drenched to foul-smelling, novice bikers to Lance Armstrong wannabes. And can I just interject here to say that just because you have a logo on your jersey that you bought from Helen's Cycles does not mean you are Lance himself. You do not have the right to shout, "ON YOUR LEFT!" or "COMING THROUGH!" or "BIKE STRAIGHT!" at the top of your lungs at me. Go up front if you must. Leave us casual bikers alone.

Another major difference between the bike tour and the marathon race is that for a "tour," the bike event produces an awful lot of injuries. During a marathon, you may see some dehydrated folks, sure. But you'll never see blood pouring from heads, as I did. Yep, right around the midway point, there was a man hunched on the ground, not moving, with blood all around him. Two bike cops were poking him and looking at each other, scratching their heads. I'm not joking - this man was in bad shape. A few minutes later, I saw a man on a stretcher getting carted into an ambulance. A mere fifteen minutes after that, I glanced over to the sidewalk and inadvertently witnesses a young boy bawling his eyes out, holding his kneecap. The bike "tour" does not eff around, ladies and gentlemen. If you are not vigilant, it will make you bleed.

We finished at around two hours, and managed to scope the elite marathoners for the LA marathon (starting right after the bike tour). They moved with such fluidity, such ease, that we were mesmerized. What was it about them that looked so appealing, made me yearn for that kind of race as opposed to the one I had just finished?

Oh yeah - none of them was BLEEDING PROFUSELY FROM THE HEAD.

These Plants Keep Breakin' My Heart

There's one thing that couldn't be truer: most plants are very hard to keep alive. I can't, but mostly don't want to, tell you the dollar amount I've spent on fauna that is now enriching the soil with its deadness. My dead-ass former plants are probably soil in pots that hold very alive plants - likely in some yuppie's condo on Franklin Blvd. Yeah HE knows how to keep it alive.

What all this bio-death is doing is releasing oxygen...great, but I'm convinced there's psychological damage done to a plant owner who keeps losing 'em left and right. I've got one motherfucker hanging in there alright, and to me, he is like the hiker who chopped his own arm off to escape from under that boulder. I can't fathom why he's still alive. For all my supposed shitiness as a plant keeper, he's trucking along, shedding a few brown leaves here and there sure, but keeping it long and flowing in the corner of my room. I'm serious - if anyone dared spray some Windex on him for laughs, I'd start wailing on them like a Milwaukee Adult League hockey coach. And then it'd get REAL weird between us.

There's one case that breaks my heart, see. You all know those classic bamboo-style plants that every schmuck has on his office desk, the kind you can get at IKEA for like a dollar. They sometimes twist around, but mostly they're just straight up bamboo and leaves. Well, you can keep those things alive under the hood of a car, I swear. No water for weeks, occasional light, and some breeze, and that thing's sittin' pretty for a year at least, right? Not mine. I made a mortal cultivation faux pas and put it outside my window in the dead of October. Now, mind you, this is LA, so it MAYBE got to 50 degrees. But it was enough to deal a deadly blow to my lil' bamboozler. By the next morning, that thing looked like E.T. when they pulled it out of the creek. Literally. It was milky brown, wet, and it was mewing like a semi-deranged lamb. I brought it quickly inside, wrapped a towel around it, and pointed my 100 watt lamp in its direction. A week later it looked mildly better, and by January we were looking at a brand-spanking new plant. I thought the Curse of the Plant Widower was finally over.

Until yesterday.

Inexplicably, my bamboo plant is dying. I'm at a complete loss. Its stalks are brown and mushy, the leaves limp and depressing. There's water in there, sure, but that hasn't helped or hurt matters since the beginning. The only thing I can think of is that it has lost the Will to Live. Can they do that? And if so, why put yourself through this mental anguish anymore? These things are like people that die in front of us all the time, and we're just supposed to keep burying them? Fuck that. I'm not buying anymore. I got one, and he's getting it done. When he dies, I'm swearing them off for good. No room in this heart for any more breakin'.