A New Year

Technology has kind of ruined New Year's Eve.

When we got up this morning shortly after 5am, they were already celebrating the New Year in Sydney. What a spectacular that was. CNN will be showing New Year's every hour, on the hour, as the festivities slowly creep across the globe. I just noticed that several of my Facebook "Friends" (or as I like to refer to them, "Total Strangers") are traveling in the Far East and just posted photos of celebrations there. With satellite TV and an East Coast feed, we can ring in the New Year in Times Square... at 9pm. By the time the big moment finally arrives here on the West Coast it always feel like you've arrived at the party late after everyone's already left and the hosts are clearing the dishes. Such is life for the geographically disabled.

I don't really do "New Year's Resolutions", preferring instead "New Year's Suggestions". There's much less guilt and depression when February rolls around and you realize you aren't all that resolute. Topping the list are always "quit smoking" and "lose weight" followed by an ever rotating roster of good ideas that never seem to go anywhere.

But this year is different. This year I'm actually making a resolution and I'm sticking to it.

Next year is going to be different. Next year I'm not letting despair overtake me and I'm going to approach everything with a positive outlook and a belief in the possible. For real. I'm going to make things happen.

I'm even going to bring this positive outlook to Bakersf...

Oh, who are we kidding? I'd have nothing to write about. Where's the fun in that?

So... other than Bakersfield, next year is going to be GREAT.

Maybe we'll go out and enjoy the festivities tonight.

I hear they're dropping a giant cow pie at midnight down at Buck Owens' Crystal Palace.

Happy New Year!

The New Neighbors

So it's out with the old, in with the new, and that goes for the neighbors as well.

Since we're only moving a couple of blocks it isn't so much a wholesale change as it is a slight reshuffling of the deck. There will be some losses of course. Cindy moved out weeks ago. And I never really got to know the new gangbangers across the street so I can't say I'll miss them. And talk about a "win/win" situation - we'll finally be rid of the despicable Mary. I just may fire up a carton of smokes on the back patio before we move for good.

Some of the new neighbors you've already met. There's Jim of course, the Exterior Decorator. Just this morning he was removing his spartan Christmas decor and was replacing it with this...



A giant grasshopper.

Daylight photos really don't do it justice. It was glowing with green lights in the pre-dawn darkness, which seems to be when Jim does most of his work. I have no idea what the significance is, and to be honest, I don't want to know.

And then there's Deena and Roz. I can actually see their condo from our driveway. We were out in the front yard, trimming the massive overgrowth when Deena walked by with her vicious dogs and gave us a hearty "thumbs up". I guess there are no hard feeling for the unfortunate leash incident.

And then there's The Old Man Who Washes His Car. You Know him previously as The Old Man Who Hates France. Every morning he washes his car, the Acura with the "Boycott France" bumper stickers. At 8:45 every morning, he rolls it out into the driveway and washes it. Every damn day. I've never seen him actually drive it, so as far as I know it only ever travels the 20 feet out and back into the garage. That car is so clean you could perform surgery on it.

And finally there are the brand spankin' new neighbors. Let's meet them, shall we?

We have Barbara, a no nonsense sort in grey business suits and a mid-70's beehive up-doo. She met the boyfriend while I hid in the background, so I didn't get much info on her. She looks like middle school principal.

And then there's Margaret, the crazed Korean. Who coincidentally looks just like Margaret Cho. I had just pulled up in a pouring rain and Margaret decided that was the perfect time to introduce herself. She came running up to the car in the downpour and started talking a mile a minute. I couldn't make out half of it. Something about four grown children was about all I was clear on. That, and that she works for a local gym. Front office, obviously, because Margaret is a little on the husky side. I don't know if she's really crazed or manic, or if it was just the rain, but we'll have to keep an eye on her.

A few doors down we have hoarders. Don't know their names or have ever met them, but the blinds on their front windows are open showing rooms stacked to the ceiling with boxes and wash baskets full of lord knows what.

And finally, there's Jason.

Jason is going to be a problem. I can tell already.

He and his family are our immediate neighbors. We have a corner lot, and Jason's side yard backs up to our back fence. Their house was already on my radar long before we bought the house. They're on one of my dog routes and the first thing you notice about the house is how neat and immaculate it is. The second thing you notice is the bumper stickers on the trucks parked out front. They're evenly divided between Jesus and guns, including the ever popular "prying-my-gun-from-my-cold-dead-hands".

So there you have it... we now live next to Gun Totin' Bible Thumpers.

Actually, it's worse.

Gun Totin' Bible Thumpers... with Chihuahuas. A lot of 'em. I've counted 5, but they move so fast I think there are probably more. Jason has turned his side yard into a dog run and the Chihuahuas run wild 24/7. I think they may breed them because I've seen no human interaction with the dogs. They're left out there in the cold and rain and they appear to be less family pets and more a cash crop. And they bark. Constantly. The second you step foot in our backyard they go off like a car alarm. The boyfriend says he'll have a little talk with them once we move in, but all I can say is he better have his affairs in order. Because I don't think Jason is going to take kindly to that. Jason scares me.

He showed up with his youngest son at the door the other day while I was there painting. He looks to be early 40's, maybe ex-military. His son had accidentally thrown his football into our yard and he was asking if they could retrieve it. He was very meek and mild and unassuming. And that's what scares me. Because I've seen him go off on his kids while I was walking the dogs. Red faced, vein bulging screaming about the trash or the lawn or any number of things. In fact I didn't even recognize him when he showed up at the door because I've only ever seen him in a volcanic rage. But now here he was, almost mousy. I think he keeps a lid on his simmering anger, but every so often something just SETS HIM OFF!

So I can only imagine what's going to happen when the Jesus freak next door gets a visit from his new gay neighbor complaining about the dogs.

I'm beginning to think Mary might not have been so bad after all...

Movin’ On Up. Or Sideways.

So... the new house is mostly done, the new carpet now laid. Looks great, I have to say. There are still a few odds and ends to wrap up. One bathroom still needs to be painted, but after painting the cathedral ceilings by hand that's going to be a piece of cake. I do love the house. I'd almost go so far as to call it my "dream house"... if it wasn't here. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd probably give it a "9" anywhere else, but once you calculate the "Bako Factor", it drops to about a "5".

Now it's time to get down to packing. This will probably go down as the easiest move of my life. The new place is only three blocks away, so a lot of things can be carried over. And more importantly, probably half of our belongings are still in boxes because WE NEVER PLANNED ON STAYING HERE.

Oh well.

Things change, hopes die, and here we are.

Scene Of The Crime

The FBI just released crime stats for the first part of 2010 and it looks like nationwide violent crime is down over 6%. In LA, the homicide rate has dropped to the lowest level since 1967. That's great news! Good for them.

Here in Bako, we do things a little different, march to a different drummer. Here, for the first 6 months of 2010, violent crime is UP 33%!

I believe it.

Monday night the dogs and I were startled awake by the sound of a shot gun blast nearby.

The boyfriend slept through it, but he's been known to sleep through earthquakes. He insists it must have been a car backfiring, not a shotgun.

Listen - I lived for most of the 90's in Venice Beach, back before the Bobos invaded, back when it was still prime gang turf. Handguns, automatics, sawed-off shotguns... I know my firearms.

This one sounded like a 12-gauge. Just an educated guess.

PS - I heard about the 33% crime increase on the morning news, but when I went to their website, it doesn't appear. It's a curious pattern with all the local news outlets. They'll report negative news about Bako on TV, but it never seems to migrate it to the web. Destroying the evidence I suppose. At any rate, couldn't find a link for the stats.

Carpeteria

Just a quick post before I run over and meet the carpet installers at the new house at 7am.

The boyfriend has changed his mind so many times I haven't a clue what's being installed. At first I would go with him to pick out carpet. But after the first 20 times it became obvious my opinion didn't matter and I refused to go. Then he would trick me. No matter where we went or what we were doing, we somehow always ended up being near Lowe's.

"Oh look! We're right here, C'mon, let's just look..."

I told him if he did it again I'd leave him.

So he's be going solo for weeks. We have so many carpet samples floating around we could probably carpet the entire house with them in a snappy harlequin pattern but I don't dare mention that.

Don't want to give him any ideas.

C'est la Mona Vie

Back from an all too brief Christmas visit. A lovely time was had by all. At least until the Ring Wing of the family arrived.

It's always amusing to see what seemingly innocuous topic will be twisted into Republican talking points, and this year it turned out to be the Civil War. Don't ask me why.

I'm not even sure how we got on the topic - I think my niece mentioned something about a term paper. But once it was introduced they were off and running. Silly me, I had assumed the subject had been settled over a hundred years ago. But being a Wingnut means never having to say you're sorry, or pass up an opportunity to rewrite history. My brother-in-law informed everyone it really had nothing to do with slavery but rather the issue of "state's rights". The South would have never seceded had the North not "invaded". That's why it was referred to as "The War Of Northern Aggression".

Why, yes, it had been referred to as that.

By the losers.

A century ago.

Is this what they're teaching at Glenn Beck U. these days?

Later on my sister and I delivered a small Christmas gift to the neighbors. They had recently helped my folks out after my mother had surgery and we wanted to express our thanks. When the neighbor opened the door, my sister's eyes lit up at what she saw inside...

Cases of Mona Vie.

Oh Lord. A Fellow Traveler on the Acai Berry Trail. They started speaking in tongues, Mona Vie style. There may have been a secret handshake, who knows. It's a cult, I tell you. I tuned it all out and when we headed back to my folks I could tell my sister was just itching to try and recruit me again. I cut her off at the knees. It was Christmas, for God's sake, give it a rest.

It was a very low key Christmas. Like us, my folks didn't really bother to decorate. There was no tree. In deference to our financial situation, there were no gifts since we weren't in a position to reciprocate. It dawned on me that once you strip Christmas of the trappings and tinsel and gifts, it's really nothing more than... Thanksgiving. Again.

And all too quickly the weekend was over. We feared a repeat of my almost 5 hour slog back at Thanksgiving, so we hit the road early and were shocked to be back in Bako 2 hours later. I think that qualifies as a Christmas Miracle. It's not much, but we'll take it.

Here’s The Story, Of A Lovely Lady...

When we were first looking for a place to live in Bako, this was the third neighborhood we looked at.

And it was love at first sight.

The boyfriend and I both share a certain fondness for the 70's aesthetic, and entering this neighborhood was like stepping back in time to the malaise-y days of the Carter Era. Actually, even though the homes were all built in the late 70's, the vibe is more "Nixonian". That's to be expected in Bakersfield, where everything is at least ten years behind the times. I think the thing I liked best was that it all reminded me of "The Brady Bunch".

"The Brady Bunch" was my all-time favorite TV show as a kid, so much so that when it was ultimately cancelled in '74 I started a petition to bring it back and circulated it around my neighborhood. The neighbors already thought I was a little strange, and that certainly didn't help matters. I'm not sure exactly why I was so drawn to "The Brady Bunch". Maybe it was the fact that Mr. Brady was an architect, and that's what I wanted to be. Maybe it was the Brady home, so hip and mod with it's orange Formica kitchen and bitchin' open staircase. Or maybe it was just my crush on Peter. Who knows.

Most of he homes in our neighborhood are what I refer to as "Mid Brady Modern", vaguely Modernist post and beam homes in wood and 70's earth-tones. They look like kissin' cousins to the Brady's Sherman Oaks ranchstyle. The rest are are early "Cali-terranean", the faux Hacienda look of stucco and tile that became popular in the early 70's. It proved to be the downfall of residential architecture because it introduced the concept of house as movie set. Soon people weren't content with sleek modern designs. They needed fake Swiss chalets and half-timbered Tudors, phony country cottages and off-the-shelf, on-the-cheap Tuscan villas. Sadly, the home we just bought falls into the latter category. It's my only regret about it. I will be denied my Brady dream home and have to make do with a glorified Taco Bell.

Adding to the whole Brady appeal of the neighborhood is that fact that more days than not you actually see Mrs. Brady out cruising the neighborhood. A lot of people around here use a water service called "Rain Soft". Their national spokesperson is Florence Henderson and her giant face maniacally grins from their vans as they tool about...



So, as I wrap up prepping the new house and prepare to leave Dogpatch for a few days of Christmas cheer with the family, I find myself soaking in a little Brady nostalgia.

And it's in that spirit that I wish every one a "Very Brady Christmas".

Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest

Speechless. Just... speechless.

There are days here in Bako when I feel like Jane Goodall out studying chimpanzees in the wild. Actually, that's not really fair...chimpanzees are smart.

Today's brainteaser? Stoplights.

The heavy rain the past few days has knocked out the stoplights at quite a few intersections. As anyone with a driver's license knows, this makes them effectively four-way stops. For you and me, this is just a minor inconvenience, no big deal. For the people of Bako? It's a fucking Rubik's cube.

Over the past year I've learned it's just best to stay home when possible. But yesterday I had to go pick up yet more paint. As I left our neighborhood I quickly approached a major intersection. There was a horrible back-up and I could see the stoplights flashing red up ahead. After several minutes I finally got close enough to observe the natives in all their stupid glory.

At the lines of the crosswalks sit eight cars, two facing in each direction.

Waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

Waiting... for someone to make the first move.

Then all of a sudden, all eight lurch into the intersection at the same time, only to slam on the brakes once they realize everyone else did the same thing. They're all 5 or 10 feet into the intersection now. So they wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait... for someone to make the first move.

Then all of a sudden, all eight lurch further into the intersection, all at the same time... AGAIN.

Now they're all gridlocked in the center of the intersection and it takes several minutes for them to slowly sort themselves out.

The intersection clears.

Now it's time for the next eight contestants to do... THE EXACT SAME THING.

It take 10 minutes just to get through one intersection! Just so you can travel half a mile and do it all over again at the next major cross street!

A 5 minute trip to Lowe's ended up taking close to half an hour. Morons.

Honestly, I don't know how these people manage to dress themselves each morning, let alone operate machinery.

Bahhumburg

I keep forgetting Christmas is this week. We've done absolutely nothing for it. Christmas used to be such a big deal for us. Back in 2007, when things started to look a little shaky, we scaled it back dramatically. By 2008, we were in free fall and forwent any gift giving. Same with last year. But through it all, we still managed to decorate. Even last year, when we'd only been here weeks. But with the house and the pending move, we didn't so much as break out a wreath. And in Bakersfield, that appears to be the norm.

If you're a Scrooge type of personality, than Bako is your kind of place. You'd be hard pressed to find somewhere else with even less civic holiday spirit. Considering the overtly evangelical nature of the place you'd be surprised at how quietly Christmas passes here.

The city does pretty much nothing, as far as I've seen. Where I come from even Van Nuys threw up street decorations, and it's even more of a dump than here (but not by much). The merchants seem content with badly painted windows that will no doubt be quickly and easily hosed off come Monday. I'm sure the bunker-like mall did the same as last year, but I haven't been back since that depressing visit.

And the locals don't seem particularly into the holiday spirit either. Our neighborhood seems sparsely decorated, even worse than last year. And the ones that have decorated gave it a half hearted effort. A lot of people who put up lights didn't even bother to ring the house, just tacking up a single string over the garage like a Christmas band-aid. There were a lot of Home Depot inflatables at the start of the month but everyone seems to have grown bored with them and they don't even bother to inflate them anymore. Several front yards look the aftermath of a horrible skydiving accident.

But by far, the biggest disappointment has been Jim. Up until last Sunday he'd done absolutely nothing, and then a few random ornaments appeared in his front tree. That's about it. No inflatables, no Circuit Party Santa.

I was in the front yard of the new house on Monday, checking on the drainage during a light lull in all the rain. I saw Jim across the street giving a friendly wave. I waved back and he started to walk over to chat. We stood in our front yard and he was admiring the work we'd already done. He was holding a highball glass of scotch. On the rocks.

It was 10:30am.

"You haven't done much with your house this Christmas" I said.

"Yup. Just not into this year" he replied. "I only hung the ornaments because my dad was giving me a hard time."

Well, that solves one mystery. I was always curious how Jim supported himself since he obviously doesn't work. And the answer is, he doesn't. Dad does.

"Just not into it this year" he repeated.

Well, that makes two of us.

The Ghost Whisperer

Bakersfield made the national news last night, and for once it wasn't for scraping the bottom of the barrel in some quality of life survey. No, this time it was for it's stunning portrayal of the Lost City of Atlantis after all the recent rain. Today it's looking like we get a bit of a break before the next wave of rain moves in tonight.

Work on the house is really proceeding nicely. I have to say I really do love the house. If only it wasn't... here. I think I'll be very happy there, as long as I never go outside.

And once the paint started going up, all the ghostly occurrences seemed to stop. I can only speculate that once Josephine began to grasp our vision she calmed down and came onboard. Proving once again that when it comes to interior design, trust the gays.

Even if you're dead.

Be Careful What You Ask For...

And to think I thought there was no irony here. It was only a couple short months ago, during the overheated election, when every local Tom, Dick and Harry running for office was demanding MORE WATER!

We needed more water!

We deserved more water!

We were going to get more water, one way or another.

Well, we got it - a year's worth of water in 48 hours.

Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor?

This city is used to measuring rain in hundredths of an inch, so this series of storms has really thrown everyone for a loop. It appears Bakersfield isn't as flat as I thought. Turns out there are some low spots. Or rather, there were... they're underwater now. I'm not sure what the city plans to do about it. The City manager declared a state of emergency and said the storm had "exceeded our functional capabilities".

I'm not even going to touch that one.

Hopefully those neighborhoods will drain, eventually. If not, the city will probably just tell everyone to go out and enjoy brand new "Lake Bakersfield" and call it a day.

It's amusing to see how unfamiliar the locals are with the concept of real rain. Outside one grocery store a handwritten sign warned...

"CAUTION: RAIN MAY MAKE WALKWAY WET!"

"May"?

Is there some sort of new "dry rain" I'm unfamiliar with?

On the local weather report, the "Chief Meteorologist" suggested that if you approach an intersection with three feet of standing water in it, don't attempt to cross it. That seems pretty self evident to me, but then I'm not from here. He ended with a cheery...

"Turn around. Don't drown!"

I like it. It's kind of pithy. Reminds me "Give a Hoot, don't pollute!"

And then there was the tragic story of a family whose basement had flooded. They had an older home with a full-on, old school basement. As the water encroached on the house, they noticed water coming into the basement. They watched it creep up inch by inch for hours until it finally reached the ground floor and they fled the house. They were standing on the sidewalk in tears when the reporter interviewed them...

"And now Christmas is ruined. All the Christmas gifts were in the basement..."

And there was a shot of a Xbox console, floating near the rafters of the basement.

I don't mean to be rude, or kick someone when their down, but let me see if I understand this correctly.

You stood there watching the basement flood.

Inch by inch.

For hours.

And nobody thought to run down there and rescue the Christmas gifts?

What? You were afraid the kids were going to see them unwrapped and know what they were getting? I'm pretty sure they wouldn't care, because now they're going to get... nothing.

We have two, maybe three more days of this, and it can only get more entertaining.

And The Rain, Rain, Rain Came Down, Down, Down…

Holy Moses! It's ark building time in Bako.

Yesterday we received almost an inch and a half of rain. That's almost half what the city normally receives in a year! It shattered every record on the books.

Viva La Niña!

People always talk about "the fresh smell of rain". But not here. The rain seems to absorb all the crap in the air, so instead of smelling like a cow's ass, yesterday it smelled like a wet cow's ass.

As you can imagine, the city wasn't prepared to cope with the situation. All the streets were flooded because storm drains here were an afterthought and are few and far between. Either the brainiacs at City Hall saw them as unnecessary or they blew the budget for them on booze and hookers. It's corrupt Kern County, so I'm going to go with the latter.

My neighbors did what you would expect in such a deluge... watered their lawns. At first I just assumed they were too lazy to shut off the automated sprinklers but then it occurred to me that perhaps they were just concerned that all the fresh rainwater would be a shock to the system for landscaping accustomed to the swill that comes out of Bako taps. Better to dilute the fresh stuff with the toxins they're used to.

The biggest issue we had to deal with yesterday was the dogs. What is the deal with dogs in the rain? I attempted to take them out several times, but the second they were hit with a raindrop they hightailed it back inside. Needless to say, we had very unhappy (and bloated) dogs for most of the day. If there is any chink in the Theory of Evolution, it's dogs in the rain. One would think that Natural Selection would favor dogs that can pee in the rain. It seems like that would be a useful quality for dogs in the wild. Or Seattle. And likewise, you would think that dogs that can't pee in the rain would die out. Probably from bladder infections. But that isn't the case at all.

Luckily, the weather broke around 9pm and I was able to get them out to do all their business. But now I'm feeling somewhat duped. The dogs had led me to believe they required a 30 or 40 minute walk in order to do what they needed to do. But now I discover that, when push comes to shove and there's rain involved, everything can be accomplished in under 60 seconds.

From now on, whenever I walk them I'm taking a squirt bottle and giving them a little fake rain to speed things along.

Random Good Things About Bako #12

Comic relief.

Good 'Ole Bako. Every time I'm feeling down and blue, something astoundingly stupid comes along to put a smile on my face.

This morning it was my favorite Weather Mistress.

Evidently with time to kill and out to prove she'd done her homework and was indeed smarter than a fifth grader, she was going on at length about this year's prevailing weather pattern... La Niña.

La Niña weather patterns, she informed us, are characterized by dry, dought-like conditions.

It was pouring rain outside.

She must have read that on "the Google".

In the very next breath she started going on about this Fall's record rains and how perhaps this could end up being one of the wettest winters on record in Bakersfield.

You could practically see the disconnected wires of her brain sparking behind her eyes.

I swear you could put the Chuck E. Cheese menu on the teleprompter and she'd read it as the forecast.

God bless her. I'm in such a good mood now.

All The Leaves Are Brown, And The Sky Is Grey...

I've actually welcomed all the manual labor on the new house because it gives me something to do. I have't had any work in a month and have no prospects. Trying to panhandle some work the week before Christmas is futile, so at least I have something to take my mind off my slim job prospects and grim future.

Most of the time.

I usually have NPR on in the background and occasionally they do a story about the moribund job market.

Wednesday they had a cheerful woman on, a supposed job expert. She helpfully explained that there are still five unemployed people for every job opening. Employers are so swamped with job applications that they can't possibly read through them all. So they've employed some filters, the first one being age. Anyone over 40 is automatically given the boot. It isn't even remotely legal, but who's gonna know? "Can't teach an old dog new tricks", right? The second is employment status. As ridiculous as it sounds, most employers won't consider people who are currently unemployed. The thinking is that everyone who is unemployed is unemployed for a reason, obviously of their own fault. No one wants to inherit someone else's ex-problem employee.

So that's two strikes against me.

And here's the third...

The advertising industry has gone through a paradigm shift. Since the advent of the internet people have been announcing the "Death of Print". It always seemed on overblown declaration, even as the scales were increasingly tipping towards the online world. But the advent of smart phones and e-readers and streaming video and more have finally given cyberspace critical mass. People want apps and Facebook pages, Twitter feeds and online communities. A lot of what I do was still adaptable to the web, but as more and more people live their lives on a 4 inch iPhone screen, less is more. The work I do is now considered extraneous.

People say "Take classes, switch gears" and I've done that. But advertising is now a left-brain world of writing computer code, not the right-brain world I was trained in. You can't re-wire your mind with a few evening classes.

I've been haunted the last few days by a meeting I had back in the mid 90's. I was a hot shot young art director at a trendy boutique agency. I always received calls from people wanting to show their portfolios. Mostly it was kids right out of school looking to try and get a foot in the door. I always agreed to see people because I remembered how frustrating it was when I was first starting out just trying to get someone to look at my work.

One morning the receptionist buzzed and told me I had a visitor. It was someone I didn't know wanting to show their book and I had said "sure" and told him to drop by. I was expecting to see a kid out in the lobby and was surprised to see a guy in his mid-40's. I ushered him to my office and he sat and placed his thick portfolio on my desk. He explained that he'd recently been let go from McCann-Erickson, a global agency with LA offices, after over 20 years. I opened his book and saw...

Marker comps.

Back before the Mac and Photoshop, that's how we used to show our ideas and sell our wares. Hand drawn comps fleshed out with colored markers. It was how I had been trained, and I considered myself pretty good. But this guy was a master. I was mesmerized as I leafed through page after page of stunningly beautiful marker comps. His drawing was sublime and his work with the markers looked like watercolors and oil paintings. He had achieved looks with markers I didn't know were possible. It was all framable art as far as I was concerned, except for the fact they were hawking Scope mouthwash and Tide detergent. Hell, I'd probably still hang it up, it was that good.

But McCann, like every other agency, had switched to computers in the early 90's. Comps were now assembled from photos in Photoshop. His services were no longer needed. I had no idea what to tell him. His work was outstanding, but that era had passed. The experience left me more than a little shaken. Could that possibly happen to me? Nah... I knew the computer, I was safe.

He left my office looking sad and dejected and more than a little scared.

Like I feel now.

It would appear my era has passed too.

I always wondered what became of him. If for no other reason than to get a clue as to what I should do now. Because I am completely lost.

OK, enough with the pity party. It's cold and rainy and I'm feeling down, but there are walls to paint.

At least that expensive art school training isn't going to waste.

Radio Daze

Yesterday I was on my way back to Lowe's to pick up more paint. This house is sucking down so much paint we might as well have it delivered by tanker truck. I had the radio tuned to one of the local pop stations and after listening to it for awhile I have a couple of observations.

Firstly - what is the problem with these people and math? An ad came on for a local business and it ended with this:

"Founded in 1970, we've been in business for over 30 years..."

Why, yes, that is more than 30 years.

It's SO much over thirty years that it's actually... FORTY.

Why not just say that? Why 30? Why not 35? Or 25? Hell, why not "in business for over 1 year..." It makes just about as much sense.

I swear everything here is just so arbitrary.

And secondly, here's bulletin from the Department of Redundancy Department - a local gym is sponsoring a weight loss challenge and they're calling it "The Bakersfield Loser".

In a nice oxymoronic touch, the "winner" will be crowned the Bakersfield "Loser".

Having lived here a year, I can tell you that they're all "winners" in my book.

The Quicker Picker Upper

I was wrapping up a long day of painting when I realized I'd run out of smokes. So on the way home I stopped by the neighborhood liquor store, right around the corner.

It's owned by an Indian family and every time I'd been in before there was always someone behind the counter in a turban or sari. They never speak, only scowl. You get used to that here, the scowl. When you live in Bakersfield it becomes your default facial expression. Can't imagine why.

As I entered the store, I glanced to the counter and was shocked to see... a lumberjack! An honest to God lumberjack! He was about 6'4" and built. Dark hair and a full beard and wearing a red plaid flannel shirt and jeans. He appeared to be in his late 20's, early 30's.

And he was kinda hot.

Not really my type, but it had been so long since I'd seen an attractive man in this town I was a little smitten.

I don't know if he was new or if he always worked evenings - I'd never been in the store after dark before. There was no one else in the store. He flashed a big smile and asked how my evening was going. We exchanged a little small talk (that's what you call it when you're married. If I was single it would have been "flirting"). I noticed it was deathly quiet in the store and I mentioned he should throw on some music so it wasn't so creepy.

"Don't need no radio" he said. "I've got the best music in the world..."

"Playing right in here". He was tapping the side of his head.

Alrighty then.

Did I say "lumberjack"? I meant "serial killer".

Hot N’ Tot

You would think I would know better by now, but those who forget their mistakes are condemned to repeat them, so of course I chose the express lane at the market.

There I was with my 8 items or less and as I approached checkout there were long lines everywhere.

Except the express lane.

There stood a lone woman with only two items. How bad could it be? So I fell for it.

She had Tater Tots and Cool Whip. You may think to yourself "What a random combination of products. Surely they aren't to be used together." But then you don't know Bako cuisine. Of course they were.

And I know this because the woman was breathlessly giving her super secret Tot recipe to the checker, who was listening in rapt silence.

Now, when I hear "Tater Tot recipe" I immediately think "casserole". Who doesn't? Some ground beef, Cream of Mushroom soup. Probably some cheese product, say, oh, Velveeta.

But nooooooooooooooo... this was for a desert!

A "Seven Layer Desert Dip from Hell".

First you start with the graham cracker crust.

Then a layer of Hershey's chocolate bars.

Marshmallow.

A layer of Tater Tots.

Grated cheddar cheese (!).

Topped with Cool Whip.

Actually, that's only six layers, not that it matters.

"It's just like s'mores!" the woman exclaimed with a flourish.

Ah, yes. Who among us doesn't have happy memories of sitting around the campfire, singing songs, chowing down on our cheesy potato S'mores?

One of the locals once told me there has been no shortage of attempts to open fine dining restaurants in Bako, but that they all fail within a year. Perhaps they should try topping everything with cheese.

And Cool Whip.

Baku #11: Painting

Glorious white walls.
Radiant in the sunlight.
Needs a second coat.

A Paler Shade Of White

The entire weekend was spent at the new house prepping it for paint and happily there no more supernatural shenanigans. Oh sure, the lights would flicker on and off from time to time and at one point it sounded like someone was walking around in the attic, but other than that, nothing to report. I live so many aspects of my life in denial these days, what's one more?

We discovered some moderate water damage on some of the exterior walls and had someone out to check. He said it was caused by the automated sprinklers. Inexplicably the bank had left the utilities on the entire time the house sat vacant and the sprinklers have been going off like clockwork, soaking the yards. With no one around to monitor it, the water had pooled against the house and crept into the walls.

Proving that in Bakersfield, even the dead overwater their lawns.

I'm headed over this morning to begin painting, which should prove to be interesting. From day one we had decided to paint the entire house stark white. None of this namby-pamby "sage" or "mocha" for us. But you'd be shocked to discover how many shades of white there are. For two months now our current home has been plastered with white paint swatches. Taped to furniture, matched up with carpet samples, moving around from room to room to see what they look like in different light.

The boyfriend had finally narrowed it down to four and to be honest I couldn't tell them apart. And I have an art degree. But to him, each represents a monumental shift in whiteness. After much back and forth, he finally settled on a winner, only to change his mind again on the way to the store to pick it up. So I have a sneaking suspicion that after eight hours of painting today, the boyfriend will arrive after work and decide that the white isn't quite... right.

If history is a guide, I know this isn't a task I will be doing just once. But such are the things you do for love, so I'll paint it as many times as he likes.

Beware Foolish Mortals...

I have to admite I was pretty apprehensive about returning to the new house to continue working. So imagine my relief when I checked my email yesterday morning and found a desperate plea from one of my LA clients for a little help on a project.

"Do you have the time?"

Honey, I have nothing but time, and if it keeps me out of Amityville for the day, so much the better.

But now that's done and I have to head back to the haunted house to keep working this morning. I do feel a little better about it. I understand Josephine is distressed watching all the floral glory of the 70's be peeled away, but I believe once she see's how tasteful we make it she'll be content and leave us alone.

At least that's what I've convinced myself.

That ’Ole Bako Spirit

Even in these trying times, I try to stay positive and wake each morning and acknowledge the things in life I'm thankful for.

And yesterday morning I was thankful for vinyl wallpaper.

Our new house is in remarkably good shape for a foreclosure. With a good scrubbing it would be move-in ready.

Except for the wallpaper.

Every flat surface in all 10 rooms is papered in 70's era floral wallpaper. Even some of the ceilings. Living with it isn't really an option. It's overwhelming. And if you stare at it long enough you'll get a migraine. Painting over it isn't an option, not just because it's such a lazy, white trash thing to do, but because in most places it's already frayed and peeling. No, it was going to have to come off. And with the boyfriend's long hours and my current employment status, there never was really any question who was going to do it.

As escrow stretched longer and our window for remodeling shrank, I'd have nightmares at the thought of having to steam it all off in under a week. I met the boyfriend at the house around noon on Wednesday when he received the keys and after a brief celebratory hug and a kiss it was time to get to work. I decided to start in the master bedroom because I noticed a corner on one wall was already drooping down about 6 inches. With a mixture of dread and hope, I gave it a tug and...

Vinyl wallpaper! It doesn't tear! The entire sheet peeled off like string cheese! Hallelujah!

This was going to be a piece of cake. Within a couple of hours I'd finished the master, the dining and living rooms. The boyfriend left work early and joined me. We cracked a bottle of champagne and ordered a pizza and by the time we left around 9 the house was wallpaper free.

Except for one room.

The front bedroom had inexplicably been papered Old Skool style. It was going to require a steamer. No biggie. It was one of the smaller rooms in the house and I figured I could knock it out in a day. Yesterday morning I rented a steamer and got to work with the arduous task of removing the lovely mauve floral print.

And it was then that I discovered one small issue with the house.

A flaw, you might say.

A problem.



The house is haunted.

We had tried to find out the history of the house. It was obvious from the wallpaper that old people lived there. Or the blind. We had deduced from a couple of clues that it might be an elderly couple. A magnet tucked under the stove vent said it was "Nana's Kitchen". A faded paper banner hung up in the garage rafters proclaimed "Happy 50th Anniversary Josephine and Jim". We asked our charming but vapid realtor, Stephanie, if she had any info. She was clueless. About that, and so much more we soon discovered.

And then a couple of weeks ago I was standing in front of the house with the dogs and suddenly a voice behind me asked "So you gonna buy it?" I turned around and found Jim, the Exterior Decorator, our new neighbor and my potential new BFF.

"No", I said, "but a 'buddy' of mine is".

No need to spring the "gay" thing on anyone yet. In LA, when people find out the gays are moving in next door, they're usually happy because it means their property values will go up. I'm pretty sure they view things a little differently here. They'll figure it out soon enough.

I asked him if he knew anything about the house. He said an elderly woman lived there with her son. Josephine, I imagine. He said she passed away about a year ago, and then several months later the son died too. Why the house had fallen into foreclosure, he didn't know. Perhaps the heirs didn't want to be bothered, or perhaps there were no heirs. Whatever the reason, it fell back to the bank, and now to us. Beyond that, Jim was a little hazy on the details. That's to be expected when you start drinking at 8am.

I reported what I had discovered to the boyfriend, and he asked the question I hadn't thought to ask... did they die in the house?

In California, any death in a property has to be disclosed to potential buyers. Or so I thought. The lovely, but dim, Stephanie told us that isn't the case with a foreclosure. I think she was lying. But, truth be told, we had other things to worry about and forgot about it.

Until yesterday.

I was in the front bedroom, steaming away, peeling the wallpaper inch by painful inch. I'd brought a boombox with me and had it tuned to NPR, or as I like to call it "Radio Free Bako". When gradually the radio dissolved into static. And just then...

The front door slammed shut with a thud that shook the house.

I assumed it was the boyfriend but when I went out to the foyer there was nobody there.

I hadn't left the front door open, had I? I was pretty sure I didn't.

Oh well, maybe I had and the wind blew it shut.

But then I looked out the window and saw the air was dead still.

And then I noticed the front door was deadbolted.

There was no way I imagined it, the whole house shook when it happened. It was then that the house seemed to get really, really cold.

Just then my cellphone rang. It was the boyfriend, checking in.

"Oh hi honey, everything is fine, and by the way, the house is haunted."

I told him what had just happened and he was a little freaked. He began to tell me what he thought I should do, but the phone went dead. The call dropped out even though I had full signal strength.

I decided it was time to take a break, and left.

Fast.

I'm no Sylvia Brown, but I think it's pretty obvious what's going on.

Josephine really, really loved her wallpaper. And she isn't happy.

And she's still there.

Casa de Bako

I knew this day would come, eventually. I knew this was a post I 'd have to write, eventually. I tried to prepare for it as best I could, and now that day has arrived.

*sigh*

We bought a house.

And by "we", I mean" the boyfriend". I had nothing to do with it. The house in LA was in my name and when we lost it in a short sale I became persona non grata to the US banking industry (The Nigerians still seem quite fond of me thuough, judging by the e-mail). My credit is ruined, I probably weigh more than my FICO score. All my credit cards were cancelled and now the only plastic I carry is a debit card and a supermarket club card, and that's actually registered to one of the dogs (I don't like people tracking what I buy and I still get the perks. My little dog got a free subscription to Sunset Magazine and I'm pretty sure I enjoyed it more than she did.)

But I digress. Back to the house.

When the boyfriend first proposed this cockamamie scheme of buying a house I thought he was mad. I know it made a certain amount of sense from his perspective. A year and a half of job searching in LA and other civilized lands had led nowhere. He now had a job in Bakersfield that he was actually enjoying and doing well with and making decent money. Homes were so cheap in Bako that owning actually saved us several hundred dollars a month over renting. It seemed... rational.

But it was still Bako, and I was still operating under the assumption we were still trying to get the hell out. But I could tell by the crazed look in his eye that this was a matter that wasn't up for discussion. I've learned from experience in situations like this to just play along and hope the fever burns itself out. And for the first couple of weeks I thought it would do just that.

Since he was going to have to swing this deal all on his own, we started looking at foreclosures. Luckily for him, the San Joaquin Valley is the epicenter of the foreclosure crisis in California and there was plenty to choose from. Almost every house for sale in Bako is a foreclosure, but the thing you learn very quickly is that people who lose their homes in foreclosure aren't very happy. I'd go so far as to say they're angry. Holes punched in walls, doors kicked off their hinges, windows shattered. Everything that wasn't nailed down had been stolen, as well as quite a bit that was. Missing toilets, kitchens stripped of cabinets. One house was even missing all the baseboards and door trim.

It was becoming very discouraging. For him.

For me? Not so much.

But a funny thing happened after the first couple of weeks.

First of all, the caliber of the houses went up dramatically. So much so that we ended up putting an offer on a house. We were outbid the next day and the boyfriend was crushed. I wasn't. Although the house was great, it was located on "Snowflake Court". There's no way in hell I was going to live on "Snowflake" in Bakersfield. I would've had to get a PO Box. But still, the houses we were looking at were nice enough that I could actually picture ourselves living here.

And the second thing that happened was with my job.

I had actually grown to love it. Go figure.

I had taken it out of desperation and in the initial weeks I hated it. But soon I found the work challenging and fun. For the first time in years I was actually feeling, dare I say it... creative. And the nicest thing about it was the freedom. For twenty years I'd watched my work be put through the middle management meat grinder, with every low level executive putting their personal stamp on the process. The final product was usually so butchered I rarely took credit for it. But when I approached my Bako boss with my first big project, girding for the criticism and rejection I was used to, I almost had an aneurysm when he said...

"If you like it, it's fine. That's what we pay you for".

Imagine that? I'd never heard that before. I could definitely live with that.

So there you go. I was onboard. We looked at houses and several seemed promising. Ideally we wanted to stay in our current neighborhood. We'd really grown to love it's Brady Bunch, Carter era charm. It was close to everything and walkable, as long as you had a map and were good with mazes. But the houses in this neighborhood were way over the budget.

And then...

I was walking the dogs one day and noticed a house around the corner had just come on the market. The front yard was overgrown but the house appeared to be in good shape. And the price, shockingly, fell right in our sweet spot. We arranged a showing and fell instantly in love with it. It hadn't been ravaged and the only apparent fault with it was the elderly woman who had owned it loved wallpaper. REALLY loved wallpaper. That alone was going to be a project. But despite it all, the boyfriend put in an offer, it was accepted and we entered escrow in October.

Of course, three days later I was laid off.

I assumed, for whatever reason, that that would put the brakes on the home purchase. But it was then that I learned that I was on a runaway train, one where I was only a hapless passenger. As I mentioned before, the boyfriend was buying this all on his own and he wasn't about to let a little thing like my unemployment stop the presses.

So here we are, 60 days later. The house closed yesterday and he finally got the keys.

The house isn't without it's problems. For example, here's our "spa"...



If only all of life's problems were so easy to fill in and cover over.

I still haven't quite figured out how to fill in the massive gaping hole that was my career, but it appears in the near term I'll be filling it with a lot of peeled wallpaper. I've been designated the home fixer. I guess if I had to be unemployed, now would be the time. We have three weeks to get the house livable.

And by "we" I mean "I".

Oh, and the best part? It's across the street from Jim!

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

It's morning in the Fifth Dumbest City in America.

It could've been worse - Merced and Visalia, just up the road, came in first and fourth, respectively. Modesto fared a little better, at tenth. That means of the ten stupidest cities in America, four are located here in the San Joaquin Valley. We beat out even Texas as the stupidest region of the country.

Quite the achievement, I must say.

When I saw the news report last night, I felt compelled to blog about it (see below) and it ends up I missed the best part... the local reaction. They sent a reporter "out in the field" (to Starbucks) to see what the yokels thought about it. The reporter thrust a microphone at a Cro-Magnon-ish woman and asked for her opinion of the survey.

"It's not right. My daughter learns good here."

Of all the people to interview, they chose Koko the Talking Gorilla.

Case closed.

It reminded me of something I was going to write about a couple of weeks ago. I was channel surfing one day and came across the movie "Idiocracy". As described by Wikipedia...

The film tells the story of two ordinary people who are taken into a top-secret military hibernation experiment that goes awry, and awaken 500 years in the future. They discover that the world has degenerated into a dystopia where advertising, commercialism, and cultural anti-intellectualism run rampant and dysgenic pressure has resulted in a uniformly stupid human society devoid of individual responsibility or consequences.

I never saw the film before and only caught the last half hour or so, but my first thought was "whoever wrote this must be from Bakersfield". It was just a little too spot on.

I do remember there was a bit of controversy when it came out. I was still working in Hollywood at the time and there were accusations that the studio that released it, Twentieth Century Fox, essentially abandoned it. Dumped it into the market with little or no advertising and then pulled it from theaters after only a short time. Fox is owned by News Corp, which also owns Fox "News". The word on the street was that Rupert Murdock (who owns News Corp) or his minions, realized that the film was mocking their core "News" audience. It was a swift kick in the nuts to the Glenn Beck and O'Reilly crowd. Since Fox makes far more money off their propaganda operation than they could ever hope to earn from the film, they torpedoed it.

That sounds about right to me.

The film was released in 2006, in the "Pre-Palin" era. At the time people found it's premise outlandish.

Four years later, it feels oddly prescient.

The Hits Just Keep On Coming

On the news just now they mentioned a report out from Portfolio Magazine rating American Metropolitan Areas.

You'll be unsurprised to know that Bakersfield didn't fare so well:

#1 Dirtiest City

#9 Drunkest City

#9 in Sexual Promiscuity

I've been to Buck Owens' Crystal Palace on a Friday Night Cougar Night, so that last one seems about right.

But the thrust of the report was to determine the "smartest" cities.

Bakersfield came in at 196.

They only rated 200 cities.

“Driller? I Hardly Know ’Er”

I was out and about last week, in a local store, and found something I simply had to have...

A T-Shirt from Bakersfield High - "Home of the Drillers".

I took my impulse buy up to the counter where a kindly looking grandmother was manning the register. She took one look at my purchase and a sly smile crossed her face.

"So you're a Driller too" she whispered.

Well Ma'am, as a matter of fact I am, in a manner of speaking, but not how you think and let's just leave it at that.

"Once a Driller, always a Driller" she added.

I couldn't agree more. And to think some people still think it's a choice.

How popular would I be, walking down the streets of West Hollywood in my "DRILLER" shirt? Such a waste. With no gay community to speak of here, the double entendre is completely lost on the locals. At least I find the rampant "Driller Pride" around town amusing.

I don't think they realize the gold mine they're sitting on. If they opened a boutique in San Francisco, or West Hollywood, Key West or Provincetown, they would make a fortune. Hell, the mail orders alone could probably cover the entire athletic budget for the school.

There's an "athletic supporter" joke in there somewhere, but who has the time.

It was only after I got home it dawned on me how pointless it was. Where am I going to wear the shirt? Here? The natives aren't in on the joke, so everyone will just think I went to school there.

No, this is the type of shirt you pick up when you're passing through town and then you wear it out to the clubs back in the city to amuse your friends. This is a shirt you can only wear somewhere there is irony. Which isn't here.

So into the drawer it went. Such a pity.

At least it only cost 8 bucks.

Tonight’s News Headlines

"After the break - one group questions the Word of God..."

Color me jaded, but that doesn't strike me as particularly objective.

Then again, the group wasn't struck down by lightning during the commercials, so I guess that counts as "fair & balanced" here in Bako.

La Dolce Vita

Among the many, many things we miss about LA, dining options would probably be at the top of the list. In particular, we long for good Italian food. Hell, we'd settle for "decent" at this point.

About a year ago I thought I had a great lead. A woman I worked for decided to treat her small staff to a holiday luncheon and since I'd done a lot of work for her she extended the invitation to me. It was at "the best Italian restaurant in Bakersfield" she said, and I had no reason to doubt her. In a town where people consider themselves "world travelers" once they've ridden "It's a Small World", she seemed to be the real deal - a well traveled woman who been to Italy in just the past year (or so she claimed).

The restaurant is a Bako institution and been around for close to 100 years. It's in a seedy part of downtown (OK, "seedier" -the whole place is scary). They don't take reservations, so when we met there the line was out the door and down the block. I figured it must be great with this kind of a crowd.

We patiently waited our turn and finally were seated after an hour. I was prepared to be dazzled.

It was atrocious.

Undercooked pasta smothered in what appeared to be ketchup. The only thing they seemed concerned with was turning the tables. The check was delivered with the entrees and as they hovered about you definitely got the impression the meter was running.

Scratch that off the list.

So for the past year the boyfriend and I would query anyone we met - "Hey, do you know of a good Italian restaurant?" And the answer was the same no matter who we asked...

Olive Garden.

Oh dear God no. I've seen the TV spots, luscious closeups of poor defenseless pasta drowning in what appears to be Elmer's glue. There was no way.

But things in Bako have a way of just wearing you down, and after several months we decided "how bad could it be?" We dropped by around 7pm and discovered a crowd spilling out the door and a 60 minute wait. You have GOT to be kidding. We passed.

A few more months passed and we gave it another go, this time driving up around 6pm to discover a 90 minute wait. We always forget we live on "farmer time" now, and the dinner rush here starts before 5. We bailed.

But yesterday we were out running errands all day. We'd only had a sweet roll for breakfast and had skipped lunch. Around 4pm we found ourselves starving and the boyfriend uttered the regretful suggestion...

"How about Olive Garden?"

At 4pm you'd think there would be no wait, but you'd be wrong. It was a 20 minute wait and we figured what the hell. We were told we could wait in the "lounge" - a tiled corner of the lobby with all the charm of a men's room. It had a small bar that looked like it belonged in someone's basement rec room. We sat at the bar, deciding we were going to need some alcohol to get through this. The bartender ignored us for ten minutes and started throwing attitude. I just wanted to slap him and remind him he didn't work at Skybar - it was a fucking Olive Garden. In fucking Bakersfield.

We were finally shown to our table and seated between some ex-convicts and a family with toddlers. We were served our "endless" breadsticks, which were so doughy I'm not sure they had actually been baked. We ordered some entrees (stuffed chicken for me, lasagna for the boyfriend) and when it arrived it actually didn't look half bad. And then we ate some.

How is it possible to cook something with no taste?

"Excuse me, waitress, can we send this back and have them add some flavor?"

After two bites we both felt like we were eating a cardboard box and I found myself mentally running through the contents of our pantry to figure out what we had to eat at the house.

How do you say "never again" in Italian? Ah yes... "mai più!"

Well one thing is certain. We've finally discovered where to find the best Italian food in Bakersfield... the frozen aisle at the supermarket.

Comings and Goings

When I returned from my Wiener Adventure at Walmart yesterday, I was saddened to discover Cindy (the Good Neighbor) moving out. She had friends haphazardly throwing her crap in the back of a couple of pickups.

"Your moving?" I asked, somewhat surprised.

"Yeah. This place is just too big for one person and it costs a fortune to cool and heat" she replied.

Her unit is a mirror image of ours, three bedrooms with huge cathedral ceilings in the living room, so I could see her point.

"Plus, I'm done with roommates. The last one was a heroin addict..."

Honey, I hate to break it to you but they've ALL been heroin addicts - that's what you get when you advertise on Craigslist.

By nightfall she was gone. I can't say I'll miss her braying beagles. All the same, the neighborhood will be a little sadder for her absence.

Not much to report on the other side of the wall. Mary seems to be rattling her cage a little more frequently, but we haven't had any other altercations since I dropped the C-bomb on her.

We did learn a little bit of curious information. Turns out the unit we live in, which is attached to hers, is owned by her bother, who now lives in Fresno. Frankly, if she were my sister I don't think Fresno would be far enough. What we find interesting is that Mary is such a rabid anti-smoker and yet her brother specifically advertised this unit as "SMOKERS OK!" That must be one fucked up family dynamic. The holidays must be an absolute blast with them.

Ordinarily I'd be concerned to see what low-life grifters replace Cindy, what with our new gangbanger neighbors across the street. But truth be told, I don't really care.

You see, Cindy isn't the only one moving...

Wieners & Losers

Well the news doesn't get any bigger than this!

THE WIENERMOBILE...

IN BAKERSFIELD...

AT WALMART!

That has to be some sort of harmonic convergence - I should go buy lotto tickets.




It's a sad sign of the times when the Wienermobile is nicer than my car.

Random Good Things About Bako #11

Small town charm.

OK, "charm" might be stretching it, but whatever it was, it was on full display last night for the Bakersfield Christmas Parade.

It's a big deal here, the Rose Parade and Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade all rolled into one. It draws a huge crowd and they broadcast it live. Marching bands, local dignitaries, homemade floats.

Very homemade.

And a lot of big rigs.

It was actually quite touching to see the whole community turn out to celebrate the season.

I only noticed one faux pas, when the homeless woman wandered onto the parade route with a shopping cart and the anchors mistook it for a float. But if you had seen what came before you'd know that that was an understandable mistake.

The Budget Gourmet

I just burned Hamburger Helper.

I didn't know that was possible.

The Big Question

Some days I get pangs of guilt for mercilessly mocking Bakersfield. Feelings of regret. Moments of remorse. Second th.....

Oh, who are we kidding. That never happens.

It never happens and let me tell you why - Even the natives aren't terribly fond of this place.

A woman I'd worked with gave me a lead on what could potentially be a lucrative client. I'd actually already done work for them, but I'd done it as a freelancer through one of the agencies. She gave me the contact info for the owner, but after two weeks none of my e-mail or voicemail had been returned. Undeterred, I put together a slick little promotional package featuring the work I'd done for them and decided to hand deliver it to the office. I figured I wouldn't get past the receptionist, but I hoped it would at least get in front of the owner.

I stopped by the office and explained who I was to the front desk staff. The receptionist excused herself and surprisingly enough returned with the owner. I gave him my brief intro and he invited me into his office for a little chat. I handed him my samples and as he started to leaf through them I started in on my standard spiel...

"Yadda, yadda, yadda, and then last year we relocated from Los Angeles to Bakersfi..."

He cut me off.

"Good God, son! Why on earth did you do that?!"

Trust me - I cry myself to sleep each night trying to answer that question.

He looked genuinely concerned and I found myself stumbling for an answer.

He explained that he was Bakersfield born and bred and that the only reason he was still there was the business. As it was, he and his wife also had a home on the Central Coast, and he only drove in to Bako a couple of days a week as needed.

That isn't the first time I'd heard a story like that. Evidently if you're looking for the neighborhood where all the successful people of Bako live, look no further than... Pismo Beach. Two hours away.

He liked my work and said he'd pass it along to his son. Turns out he's grooming him to take over the business.

"I'm counting the days 'til that boy takes over. Can't wait to get the hell out of here for good".

I know the feeling.

Oh, The Humanity...

Here's your morning traffic report:

Major pile up on the morning news; multiple words involved.

I promised myself I would lay off the morning news crew, they've suffered enough. It's really just too easy, fish in a barrel. So after the last post on the subject I vowed to give it a rest.

For awhile at any rate.

But then there was this morning's unfortunate carnage.

It started with a story about an infant undergoing a rare surgical procedure. It wasn't even a local child, so I have no idea why they chose the story. Someone aware of their own limitations would have taken one look at the name of the procedure and ditched the story, or at the very least just referred to it as "brain surgery".

But not here.

So, like a monster truck attempting to jump a row of school buses, he went for it...

"Hemispherectomy".

It was like a semi barreling down an ice covered highway and, sure enough, it jack knifed. I don't even know what a hemispherectomy is, but after watching the anchor attempt it again and again I found myself wishing he'd had one. It seemed to throw everyone off their game, what there was of it, and it started a chain reaction of botched stories. I found myself covering my face as the words just piled up.

Survivors attempted to take refuge in the entertainment report, to no avail. They launched into a story about an upcoming film based on the life of famed showman "Libber Ace".

Never heard of him? Sure you have.

Flamboyant... pianist... candelabras.... played Vegas... you know....

"Libber Ace".