Election Update

Just got a call from Robo-Mitt Romney. At least I think it was a robot. With him it's so hard to tell.

I have to say his heart just didn't seem to be in it. I think maybe the current crop of Wingnuts is even too crazy for him, but he has to go through the motions if he has any hope at all in 2012. I hate to break it to him but the theocrats running the Republican party are never going to let a Mormon be president. Them's the breaks.

Happy Halloween!

And a Happy Halloween it is! Look what appeared overnight... Jim is back! It looks like I spoke too soon. He isn't going to let a little police action get the better of him.

Obviously it isn't as lavish as last year. Last year he started decorating on October 1st and it built in a steady crescendo all month and resulted in a Halloween phantasmagoria the likes of which I'd never seen. This was just thrown up over night. But I give it an A+ for effort.

I especially like the little touches. The 12pack in the scarecrow's hand is a Jim signature - last year's inflatable Thanksgiving turkey also toted one.

And the police tape? Brilliant! A sly wink and a nod to last weekend's unpleasantness. That's what I like about Jim - he's conceptual.

I just got a call from Sarah Palin!

Or rather, the disembodied, robotic voice of Sarah Palin. I'm so touched that she took time out of her busy schedule dumbing down the planet to have a computer program randomly call me. It shows how much she cares.

And she isn't alone. In the past few days I've received calls from Robo-John Boehner and Robo-Newt Gingrich. I even received one from Robo-Chris Christie, the Robo-Governor of New Jersey. Because everyone knows the Central Valley and New Jersey share the same concerns... Snookie. They all want me to "take back" the country. I wasn't even aware it was missing. Thanks for the heads up!

We never received this type of robotic attention when we lived in LA. Living in an affluent area of a blue city in a blue state, I guess our vote was just taken for granted. But not here in fly-over country. Here we know at least one party robotically cares about us... the Robo-Republicans.

The only question I have is how many of the locals think they actually got a call from the real Caribou Barbie. I would wager the number is frighteningly high.

Pucktards

There are many, many things about Bakersfield that make absolutely no sense. And high on my list of head-scratchers would have to be... hockey.

This is a dustbowl ag community, built in the middle of a desert where for half the year the temperature hovers around the century mark. The nearest ice is in the distant Sierras.

This is also football country, where everyone here worships the high school teams. Local weekend sports shows are dedicated to dissecting each week's games, examining game tapes like they're the Zapruder film. Seventeen year-old quarterbacks are treated like royalty and the players like conquering warriors.

And yet the only semi-pro sports team here is hockey.

The Bakersfield Condors.

Named after the largest bird in North America, the nearly extinct California Condor. And if the city has it's way, it'll finish the job - the county (which is really just the city writ large) recently approved a massive development in the mountains south of here on what's considered one of the last nesting areas. Don't let the door hit ya on the way out.

Almost all the players are Canadian, which much be a massive mindfuck for them when they arrive in Bako. And as if the whole enterprise wasn't screwy enough, there's the marketing. The still above is taken from their TV spots - poor defenseless Canucks marketed like a sides of beef. It's "Chippendales On Ice".

Who on earth is the target market for this? The twelve openly gay men in the entire city? The cougars? I've seen them in action down at Buck Owens' Crystal Palace and, trust me, they don't need the encouragement. The housewives? I doubt the husbands find these ads amusing. The whole thing flies in the face of conventional advertising.

And yet it works! The Condors are wildly popular here.

It really makes you wonder what's going on below the surface of this town. Maybe this is the first case of "on the down low" marketing. It certainly puts the high school athlete fetish in a different light.

Things that make ya go hmmm....

No Hallow’s Eve

I'm afraid it's looking like this Halloween is going to be a bust. We didn't bother to decorate this year, mostly because there are other things afoot to be detailed at a later date. Didn't even carve a pumpkin. I'm not even sure we're going to have candy out, even after last year's moderate success. (The photo above is the boyfriend last Halloween, when spirits were high. Literally.)

The real distressing news on the Halloween front comes via our neighbor Jim, the Exterior Decorator. And just when things were looking up, too.

We were driving past his house last Sunday and noticed a couple of squad cars parked in front. I don't know the nature of the unpleasantness with Bakersfield's Finest, but the very next morning every stitch of Halloween gear was gone. No doubt alcohol was involved - that's a given when there's a sign over your front door proclaiming "Happy Hour 24/7". Maybe he violated some unspoken quota on inflatables. Perhaps he was arrested for bad taste, although if that was the case everyone in this town would be doing time.

Whatever the case, it's all gone. And the neighborhood is all the sadder for it.

Neighbor Hoods

I thought something was up a couple of weekends ago when I noticed the militantly fit couple across the street packing up their matching SUVs.

We never actually met them but I'd see them most mornings returning from the gym as I took the dogs out for their early morning walk. When the weather was warmer they'd finish up their workout with sets of crunches and leg lifts on the front lawn before heading inside. At first I didn't find that odd because I'm from West Hollywood where such "Hello Sailor!" front yard physical displays are fairly routine. In time, in the context of Bako, it just seemed creepy.

They were in their early 30's and the husband was hot. The wife was too, I suppose, if you're into that sort of thing. It wasn't uncommon to see them packing up the cars on the weekends. Usually with mountain bikes or kayaks or camping gear or all the sorts of things that made you feel like an inferior slacker. But this time they appeared to be packing to move. Clear plastic bins loaded with Franklin Mint collectables and Hummels and all the precious breakables you wouldn't trust to movers.

And just like that, they were gone. The next day a "For Rent" sign appeared on the lawn.

I figured it would sit empty for months like several other vacancies on the block. So imagine my surprise yesterday, when I returned from my twelve hour shift of "Ice Road Truckers", to discover new neighbors moving in...

Gangbangers!

At least that's what it looks like. Who else tows a U-Haul with a lowered Escalade with chrome spinner rims?

Just one more thing for Mary to freak out about. I hope they smoke.

On The Road Again

The good news is I have more work! The bad news is... it's all in LA, necessitating another trip into the city tomorrow.

Three meetings, the first at 9:30, the last at 3. So I'll be on the road from 6am until well past 7. I feel like a truck driver. But such is life.

Vote Early And Often

One week to go until the damn election and it can't come a moment too soon. I've had it up to HERE with the constant barrage of ads. I swear I see Meg Whitman about 10 times an hour and I'm happy to hear whatever "Megmentum" there was has evaporated and it looks like she's going to lose. That was $160 million well spent.

The ads for the local races have only really started ramping up in the past couple of weeks due to the cost of buying ad time in California. That, and the fact they're run more as a reminder to vote than anything else. They're remarkably meek, but that's because there's really no contest here. Kern County is so overwhelmingly Republican that the outcome is pretty much already known. What few Democrats are running avoid mentioning their party affiliation like the plague, and more than a few trot out a string of proud Republicans to vouch for just how un-Democratic they are.

All the real fireworks, locally speaking, came back before the June primary when all the Republicans candidates tried to out-crazy each other to get the nod. Once the roster of lunatics was set it was pretty much a done deal.

Two things have stood out to me about the local races, at least as far as they've played out on TV. Take the ad above for Andy Vidak, who already looks corrupt before even taking office (I'm sure that will come).

"Farmer for Congress"

Is this really a selling point? Unless he's planning on planting cotton between the aisles of Congress I fail to see how being a farmer is superior preparation for elected office. But it must work here because he isn't the only one using this tactic. At least he had the good sense to stay off the tractor, which can't be said of a couple of other candidates.

The other thing I've noticed is almost every single candidate here vows to fight for "OUR FAIR SHARE OF WATER!" The whole idea is both arrogant and dubious. Our fair share of water? That would be about "zero". The central valley is a desert; Bakersfield only gets about 3 inches of rain a year. The only reason is has an agriculture industry is because over the past century they've built canals to steal the water from the Sacramento delta. Using that same logic I should be able to walk into a bank and demand my "fair share" of the money, but I somehow doubt the cops would find that a convincing argument.

Hooray For Hollywood

I don't miss Hollywood but boy, do I miss Hollywood money. I billed more for last week's work than I'd make in a month and a half in Bako. Not that I'm going to see any of it for weeks or months, but still.

It was a bit of a mindfuck, actually. I'd finally gotten to a space where I could leave the past behind and make peace with my new life in Bako (up to a point). And then to be slammed head first back into my former life and all the woulda/coulda/shoulda baggage that comes with it was more than a little jarring. But it's not like it's going to last. I'm under no allusions that I'm now suddenly back in demand. If anything it was just freakish good timing on my part, something I've never ben accused of having before. And even if it were an unexpected renaissance, I'm still playing beat-the-clock. The only thing more predictable than the product Hollywood spews out is the calendar, and once we pass Halloween this weekend everything will start winding down for the holidays. Come Thanksgiving week, Hollywood will be a ghost town until the new year. C'est la Vie

The one thing I'd forgotten about, or had mentally blocked out for my own psychological well being, was the aggressive stupidity of entertainment marketing. In particular, the Golden Rule of selling movies and TV shows -

Whatever your show is about, for God's sake, don't show it.

It's been a constant throughout my career and the best example was a few years ago when I was hired to work on "Mad Men". I was thrilled at the prospect because I like the show and, more importantly, I love the graphics of the era. Here was a chance to really play with it and do an homage to all the great mid-60's ads and graphics. And then I got my direction...

"Whatever you do, don't do anything that looks 60's."

Well, of course not. Why would we do that? Just because it's a huge part of the charm of the show, and without it it would be nothing but a retread of "Thirtysomething", we wouldn't want to show that.

Around the same time I was hired to design a commemorative box set of all Clint Eastwood's spaghetti westerns, but all the work was rejected. Why?

"You made them look like Westerns..."

And before that, my work on "Return of the King" was killed because "We don't want to sell it as a fantasy film..." I hate to be the one to break it to anyone, but the minute you put a wizard and elves in your film, you have a fantasy film whether you like it or not. Not to mention it was the third film in a hugely successful trilogy, so I doubt very much you were going to be able to fool anyone.

The reason given for avoiding the obvious is always the same. Genre films, be it a western, or a period drama, or a science fiction film "TURN PEOPLE OFF". That's what the studios believe. Which begs the obvious question... THEN WHY DID YOU MAKE THE FUCKING FILM? But that would be biting the hand that feeds you, so the question goes unasked. The solution is usually to strip out any reference to the actually film, crop a headshot of the star so as not to see the period costume (or armor or corset or elf ears) and just cash the check. Which is what I intend to do.

So today is spent working on my last Hollywood project., a futuristic science fiction film in which I'm forbidden to show "anything tech-y or futuristic". Which actually seems perfect for me. If you need someone without a clue about the future, I'm your man.

The Cost Of Doing Business

My plan, if you could call it that, is to aggressively pursue work here in Bako, approaching all the local clients I've done work for through the local agencies and offering to do the work cheaper by working for them directly. Is it the right thing to do? Probably not. Is it unethical? That's a debate for better times. A girl's gotta eat.

The only problem with the plan is it's going to take time and I need cash now. So Monday I did an e-mail blast to everyone in LA I've worked for over the past three years. It was done out of desperation more than anything else and I honestly didn't expect anything to come of it; if I had been getting any work from these people over the past couple of years we wouldn't be living in Bakersfield. So imagine my surprise when I started getting work within about an hour! By yesterday afternoon I'd racked up four jobs already. And then I hit the motherlode...

"Are you available for a project over the weekend?"

It was a big project for a former client, a lot of money for two days work, and easy work at that. How great is that? Am I available? Absafuckinglutely.

"Great. We'll messenger you a script and materials. What's your address again?"

SHIT.

I knew this would happen eventually. I'm actually surprised it hasn't happened before now. So far I've been able to maintain a charade that I'm still in LA, working from a secure and undisclosed location. Now someone needed to know where I really lived. The ironic thing is all these agencies already have my address, they just don't know it. In order to be paid I've had to provide my mailing address to all their accounting departments. The beauty of the system is that no one at an agency ever talks to anyone from accounting. I doubt anyone at an agency could pick their accounting department out of a police line-up. But now it looked like the jig was up.

I tried to think of some even remotely plausible reason to have stuff sent to Bako, but let's face it, there just isn't any. So I was left with just one option..

"Oh that's OK, I'll just swing by and pick it up in the morning."

That's a big fucking "swing", 2 hours plus each way. But like I said, a girl's gotta eat.

So it's off over the mountains. Again.

Avenida Blanca de Basura

I haven't written more about our housing situation, or as I like to call it "The Greater Bako Foreclosure Scavenger Hunt", in deference to the boyfriend's wishes. He doesn't read this blog, but he'd "heard" from "friends" (you know who you are) that I had mentioned something about it and he wasn't too thrilled. So out of love and respect, I'll say no more.

Except this.

Who the hell picks the names for the streets of Bakersfield? Obviously it's someone with an axe to grind against the city, or someone with nothing but contempt for the people who live here. Someone from Fresno.

How else to explain streets like "Volcano" and "Fjord"? Because everyone knows Bakersfield is known the world over for it's scenic volcanoes and fjords.

How about "Candy Lane" and "Twinkle Drive"? No wonder the people here seem so angry.

"Merlot Cellars Drive"... why, that has to be a nice area, right?

We looked at a house on "Snowflake". "Snowflake"? In Bako? It was 106 that day.

Several of the developers have chosen to name the streets after their kids (I'm assuming):

"Kathy Suzanne"
"Tori Lorene"
"Kimmie Rachelle"

Proving they have no more talent naming their kids than they do the streets.

"I live on Kimmie Rachelle Drive..."

Never gonna happen.

Or how about a theme! Everyone loves a theme. There's the "Spice Tract", which is really the "Spice Rack".

"My house? Just make a left on Sage, a left on Rosemary and the a right on Thyme..."

You can really do that here!

Or get your flag on in the neighborhood of "Liberty" where you can actually live on the corner of "Declaration" and "Independence".

The old downtown is laid out with numbered streets running east and west, and lettered streets running north and south. Either the original city fathers were a no-nosense, pragmatic sort, or they knew even then that the locals couldn't be trusted naming the streets.

Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head

The earth must be off it's axis or something because it's been raining off and on for the past couple of days. That just doesn't happen here, not this time of year.

This is the time of year we normally get the toxic dust storms. The clouds of killer spore laden, pesticide soaked dirt blowing in off the plowed fields west of town.

Or as the locals call it, "Fall".

Won't You Please Help?

"B.T.D."

"Bakersfield Transaction Disorder"

It a local affliction which renders people incapable of completing simple transactions. I've written about it extensively, although I only just named it.

Usually it involves a cashier of some sort, but you will be unsurprised to learn it also applies to salad bars.

What is wrong with these people?

We decided to go out for a cheap dinner and the boyfriend was craving salad bar. It would be our first attempt at one since we moved here.

And probably our last.

In the case of the salad bar, unlike the supermarket, it isn't a case of people being baffled as to what to do. It's picking up food and putting in on a plate - what could be simpler? No, with the salad bar it's a case of overwhelming indecision, each ingredient requiring the Judgment of Solomon. As a result, the people move with all the speed and grace of a three toed sloth. Wanna go for salad bar? Better carve out four hours of your day.

The man in front of me was completely torn - broccoli, or cauliflower?

Broccoli?

Or cauliflower?

b r o c c o l i . . . ?

c a u l i f l o w e r . . . ?

It was like watching "Sophie's Choice." I was ready to club him with my chilled plate. All I wanted was some fucking garbanzo beans.

Luckily, I doubt we'll put ourselves through that again. The salad bar looked like it had been stocked in June and left to rot for three months. That is the enduring enigma of Bakersfield. It's surrounded by millions of acres of fresh produce, yet everything you find in the market or restaurants looks like it's been left out on the back dock for a week. Or rescued from a dumpster. There are times when it feels like perhaps the healthiest choice may just be drive-thru.

A World Of Possibilities

I have no idea what the future holds, but it looks like it could include snapping on a rubber glove.

Oy vey. The unfortunate things you learn when you have daytime TV in Bakersfield on in the background. This was an ad for the "Career Services Center" and it featured a really loud *snap* of a latex glove*. Nothing anyone wants to hear.

I guess it beats all the Mesothelioma commericials.

But not by much.

* I have to clarify - at no time do they mention a medical career. So you're left with all sorts of unappealing options.

Same Old, Same Old

So week two on the panhandling circuit. At least I shaved this morning, first time in a week. I want to appear "professional", after all.

I applied for unemployment last week, the first time I've been able to do that. Over the past couple of years I've worked for several employers essentially full-time, but I was never on the payroll and considered a freelancer, so when I was ultimately cut loose I was on my own. But thanks to my brief salaried stint here in Bako, the vast untold riches of unemployment have been put at my disposal... $240 a week! While that may be chump change back in LA, that's real money here in Bako. Not that I can get used to it. The minute I accept a piddly $500 contract job, the State of California will consider me FULLY EMPLOYED! and pull the plug.

But I have been methodical over the past week. After a thorough assessment of the Bakersfield job market, an exhaustive review of the available job openings, and with consideration of my art degree and 20 years experience in the advertising business, I've determined there are exactly two career paths available for me...

Tattoo artist and children's face painting.

Although I faint at the sight of blood and I hate children, so both may prove problematic.

The pipe dream of getting work from LA is also proving to be unrealistic. The great promise of the digital age was that we would all be able to telecommute and work out of "virtual offices". And it actually came true for awhile. A year ago when we moved here I was able to maintain the charade of being in LA and accepting work I could do at home. But the Brave New World ran head-on into good old human nature - people are by nature control freaks. No matter how much work you produce off-site, how quickly, you still can't shake the perception among clients that you're really just surfing porn in your underwear on their dime. Plus there's no way to stand over your shoulder and browbeat you when you aren't there, and that is evidently a very important part of the process.

And then you have to add in security concerns. Clients aren't comfortable with all their assets floating around with faceless freelancers. There's always the chance that an un-retouched photo of Julia Roberts could show up online and then heads would roll. Personally, I think that's little more than a red herring. The real concern among clients is that people like me will post the clever, brilliant, groundbreaking work that they've done on their own websites, the work that the clients have almost always KILLED, and then they'll be exposed as the talentless hacks that they are. I've seen it happen before...

"Can you believe THIS is the movie poster they went with... when they could've had THIS?!?!?!?!?!"

Clients HATE that.

The bottom line is most clients want you on-site now, even if it's just for a day or two. And unless I'm prepared to sleep in my car on the streets of Burbank for work, I think trawling for work in LA is beyond pointless.

So that leaves really only one option. Beating the bushes for work here in Bako, going door to door like Willy Loman if necessary. Not my first choice, that's for sure. But it's not like I have choices anymore.

And So It Begins...

Ever since we passed Labor Day and the weather started to change I've been obsessed with one question... will he, or won't he?

I'm talking about my neighbor Jim, the Exterior Decorator, and his Halloween Extravaganza.

On the one hand, I couldn't see him not doing it. He has a huge capital investment in Halloween accoutrements and let's face it, they're good for one day only.

But on the other hand, there was his unfortunate hernia operation last winter. Perhaps he just wouldn't be up to it. Easter did pass without so much as an egg or a bunny, and when Memorial Day and the Fourth didn't produce even a flag I became concerned.

So imagine my pleasant surprise when I drove past his house the first, crisp Sunday of October and saw him in the yard assembling his menagerie. Already the huge inflatable witch was up, and the even larger inflatable grim reaper. I was driving and unable to snap a pic, so I figured I'd grab my phone and take a photo later in the day when I walked the dogs.

But later that afternoon as we rounded the corner I was shocked to see... nothing! It was all gone, like Brigadoon.

Had I imagined it?

Was it just a test drive? That seemed unlikely as it was all tried and true from the previous year. Maybe there were "technical issues". Whatever. His intentions were clear so I figured it was just a matter of time before it all went up again. So I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Two weeks went by and the only thing that appeared was the above assemblage of the frog on the Arc de Triumph on the mailbox. I'm pretty sure this is just Jim "freestylin'" and has nothing to do with Halloween. Regular readers will notice that the Arc has been repurposed.

So what gives? Had he had second thoughts? Backed out due to health concerns? What? The thought of Halloween without Jim's All Hallows Eve Tableau and the little bit of joy it gave me each morning was too much to bear.

So it's with an immense sense of relief I can report that Halloween is apparently back on! Below is the yard as it looked this morning. I can only imagine what it will look like this afternoon. I notice he swapped out the witch for an inflatable scarecrow - a wise choice I think. You don't want to repeat previous successes and it's a little more kid-friendly. I'm guessing the scarecrow was the source of the delay. He probably had to save up a couple of disability checks to pay for it.

I can hardly wait for all the rest - the bats and the ghosts, the scarecrows in Jason hockey masks, the floating heads and voice activated monsters. And the tiki torches and hanging frogs (I don't get that either, but it's a tradition).

Today, all seems right with the world.

Lesbian Down

I'd hoped, I'd dreamed of one day actually meeting Roz. But never in a million years would I picture it happening the way it did yesterday afternoon.

I was taking the dogs out for a mid-day walk, a special new treat they get now that daddy is unemployed. We were walking past Roz's condo when suddenly her lesbian roommate/lover/whatever rounded the corner with her two nasty dogs. She didn't see us, but her dogs sure did, and in a flash they launched themselves into attack mode. As the dogs quickly reached the end of their leashes they jerked the poor lesbian so hard she actually went airborne. She landed with a thud and a wail on a small patch of grass, dropping the leashes.

My dogs were frozen in fear and I now had two vicious dogs headed at me like missiles. For a split second I thought I just might have to kill her dogs, try and kick them in the head to protect my own. But as fate would have it, as they passed a truck both leashes lodged under the back tire and snapped them to a halt about a foot from us. Just like in a cartoon.

So I have a lesbian down, screaming like a banshee, clutching her knee. And two rabid dogs snapping at us like crocodiles, inches from my littlest dog.

And then from behind I heard a shriek...

"DEENA!!!!!!!"

I turned to see Roz running out of her garage, dressed in a low cut leopard halter top and mom jeans. And heels.

She ran past the rabid dogs to her "friend", Deena, to see if she was OK, and once it was determined that she hadn't broken anything Roz said "Let me get the dogs inside..."

I wasn't sure Roz was equipped to handle the two snarling monsters, not in those heels. But the strangest thing happened. As soon as Roz picked up the leashes the dogs became docile, like someone had hit the "off" switch. She quietly trotted them back into the house.

Roz has such a way with animals.

And animal prints.

She's like St. Francis.

She came back out and I started to apologize. Why, I don't know - I wasn't the one with the attack dogs. But Roz was quite sweet and said, no, it was her dogs fault. We both walked over to Deena who was still down on the ground. She'd calmed down a bit but was still clutching her knee. I offered to help her up and she declined, but after a moment offered up her hand. I helped her to her feet and she dusted herself off.

It was then that Roz extended her hand and introduced herself. I returned the favor and then turned and extended my hand to Deena to do likewise but she ignored it and just grunted "Deena".

And that was that. We're now friends! Well, actually, I don't think I'd go that far. But still.

At any rate, the whole situation was bizarre beyond belief. And with everything that had just occurred, as we walked back home, there was one question I just couldn't get out of my mind...

"Deena"?

Really?

Such a dainty name for such a large woman.

Where Are They Now

You know how you'll be driving down the road and suddenly a song comes on that you haven't heard in 25 years and you find yourself "Oh my god.... I haven't heard this in years... I wonder where they are now?"

Well, wonder no more.

They're here.

On the morning news they did a live report from "Oildorado Days". Yes...OILdorado. It's put on south of here in Taft, the town formerly known as Moron until the Morons wisely changed the name.

Headlining this years event? Eddie Money!

This area is an elephant graveyard of acts from the 70's and 80's. Mostly they perform at the Tachi Palace Indian casino up the road, but the just concluded county fair is another favorite venue. Where else could you hope to see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy?

David Cassidy, Berlin, Styx, The Doobie Brothers, REO Speedwagon... the list goes on and on.

They even had X... how sad is that? Once the cutting edge in LA punk and now they're playing next to the dollar slots.

I guess I'm not the only one who's star has fallen. And all the fallen stars seem to land here.

It Was An Observation, Not A Wish...

I was just recalling my first encounter with Bakersfield.

It was October of 2004 and the boyfriend and I were passing through on our way to a long weekend with friends in Yosemite.

I'd never driven up Highway 99 before, and it wasn't making a great first impression. The air was orange and foul and smelled like a sewer. Farm equipment off to the side was kicking up great clouds of dirt. The windshield was being bombarded by bugs. And as we approached Bako, both sides of the highway were lined for miles with "Bush/Cheney '04" signs.

I turned to the boyfriend and said...

"What a hellhole. You couldn't pay me to live here."

So here we are, six years later.

I now live here.

And nobody pays me.

If only I'd kept my thoughts to myself...

Shakn'Bako

I read an alarming report earlier this week that the scientists at Cal Tech now believe the San Andreas fault is even more ripe for a major earthquake than previously thought, and they already thought it was overdue. Not only that, but they now predict it would be even bigger than expected, an 8.1, which would make the Northridge quake in '94 seem like hitting a pothole by comparison. I'm thinking about it today because the dogs are acting really strange this morning. More so than normal. I think they know something.

You would think a major quake on the San Andreas would be a major concern here, seeing as how the fault lies just 50 miles south of town. But you'd be wrong.

The faultline is actually closer to Bako than it is to Downtown LA, yet in LA they seem keenly aware of the danger they face. Older buildings have been retrofitted and reinforced. Newer buildings are built on base isolators and other shock absorbers. Everywhere you look there are "in case of earthquake" directions. People stock up on emergency supplies and all the local stations run reports on the coming "Big One".

Here? Not so much.

Living in Bako it's hard to believe you actually still live in California. "Earthquakes you say? Never heard of 'em". There seems to be almost zero concern about the earth massively shifting beneath their feet. A few months ago I was chatting with some women I was working with and the subject turned to emergency earthquake supplies (why I have no idea). The women seemed completely dumbfounded, first they'd ever heard of such a thing. You would have thought I was talking about a hidden pot of gold in the garage. In the year we've lived her I can't recall ever hearing earthquakes mentioned on the local news, and yet every time a storm rolls through they will be quick to remind you that there's an infinitesimal chance, however unlikely, that we might just get a tornado! It hasn't happened in recorded history, but they really seem to want one.

And that's the thing about Bako. You really get the sense that a lot of people here resent the fact that their fair city rests in the Golden State, and not somewhere out in the Bible Belt where it obviously belongs. More than anything else, this place is really nothing more than "West Tulsa". Which probably explains their endless yearning for twisters.

But still, you would think they just might have a passing concern with the possibility of a quake, especially since it wasn't all that long ago (1952) that one almost wiped this place off the map. Or perhaps they might be a tad bit worried about the immense, shoddy dam that looms to the east, the one that even the Army Corps. of Engineers says will probably fail in a major quake, submerging Bako under 6 feet of water. But again, you'd be wrong.

Although perhaps I've misread the situation.

I've noticed that a lot of people here own boats. Maybe they are planning ahead after all.

Republican Economics 101

So I was just watching the local news and I see that the Kern County Board of Supervisors just agreed to raise ambulance fees 25% across the board without any comment. In a recession.

Kern County is the only county in California without paramedics. They rely on a private ambulance service, Hall Ambulance.

Hall Ambulance has a monopoly, in perpetuity contract with the county, which isn't open to discussion.

Hall Ambulance is owned by Harvey Hall.

The Mayor of Bakersfield.

I'm sure it's all above board. That's what they keep telling us.

$#!+ My Mom Says

Yesterday brought a sudden and violent eruption of Mt. Mary next door. She'd been dormant for months, or so we thought. But evidently pressure had been building and yesterday she finally blew.

I was in the backyard and I heard her watering. Without warning, from over the fence came...

"SHIT!"

I assumed she must have stepped in... shit. Or something. But the tirade continued and was directed at me.

"QUIT SMOKING ALREADY, I CAN'T HANDLE IT ANYMORE, ENOUGH!!!!!"

Now, I'll be the first to admit that smoking is a dirty, nasty habit. Both the boyfriend and I rue the day we ever started, and we've made countless attempts to quit over the years. We were, in fact, just about to give it another go before the unfortunate layoff last week. So normally I'd actually have a lot of sympathy for Mary's distress.

Except I wasn't smoking.

I was taking out the trash.

We abandoned the backyard months ago and there isn't so much as an ash tray back there anymore. We'd occasionally let the dogs out to cavort on our stamp-sized back lawn, but the summer heat killed that off leaving nothing but a patch of dirt, so we don't even do that anymore. But try telling that to Mary. Whenever she hears our back door open she sees clouds of smoke curling over the fence.

"QUIT SMOKING ALREADY, I CAN'T HANDLE IT ANYMORE, ENOUGH!!!!!"

Well, I can't handle it anymore either, bitch.

So I screamed back "I'M NOT SMOKING!!!!"

And then I dropped the bomb.

Not the "F-Bomb". Please. "Fuck"s are a dime a dozen in my vocabulary, a byproduct of my years in Hollywood. I tone it down when we're out in public in deference to the local sensibilities, but it wouldn't be a word I'd choose to shock anyone. No, I chose another word. A word so vile I can't even type it.

The "C word".

Rhymes with "punt".

She slammed her door so hard she shook the house.

I guess that's that. We have to move now.

I can't imagine that didn't light her fuse and it's just a matter of time before she attempts to poison the dogs or slash my tires. I don't think she'd go so far as to burn our house down, seeing as how it's attached to hers. But she isn't really dealing from a full deck so I don't think anything is off the table.

I was reminded of an incident that happened over the summer, one I'd evidently blocked out until Mary flipped out.

Shortly after we moved in we had some minor repairs that needed attention. Can't even remember what they were. The property management company sent out a handyman. He was really quite nice and chatty too.

"I did a lot of work on this place. Fixed both doors" he said gesturing to the front door and the French doors that lead to the backyard. It was only then I noticed both door frames looked like they had been badly shattered and glued back together. "Looked like somebody kicked them both in..."

It was the first we'd heard of this place's violent past. Whether it was a domestic dispute or a S.W.A.T. type thing, we didn't want to know.

A few months later we started finding notes stuck in the front door...

"John - call me ASAP. XXX-XXXX. Hector".

We didn't know who "John" was but I'm guessing he was the previous tenant. We tossed the notes.

Eventually Hector got a clue and started leaving notes saying "Please forward to John". OK, sure. Forward them where? Prison? That's where I pictured John right about then. We tossed those notes too.

Then one evening while we were eating dinner there was a knock at the front door. The boyfriend answered and standing there was a sketchy guy clutching a note.

Hector.

He asked for John, we explained we didn't know anything about anything. Hector asked the boyfriend to pass along a note and as the boyfriend tried to explain we didn't know where John was, Hector cut him off and said...

"Not to John. To his mother. She lives next door. HER NAME IS MARY..."


*SCREE*SCREE*SCREE*SCREE*SCREE*SCREE*SCREE*

So yeah, I think we have to move.

If I Was A Rich Man

So late last week I allowed myself a pity party, particularly on the long slog back to LA on Friday.

But today is a new day, a new week, and there's no point crying over spilt work.

Last Tuesday I had received a call out of the blue from a creepy sounding man in Tarzana. He owned an agency that catered to construction related industries and he had been referred to me by a person he refused to name. He had looked over my website, liked what he saw and was interested in meeting me.

"How about Friday? he said.

My first instinct was to pass. Although my Bako salary was minimal and I could certainly use the extra income, it would have meant concocting a cockamamie excuse to take a personal day off and I didn't feel like I could chance it being so new in the job. But then he said the magical phrase "this would be ongoing work" and suddenly I had a change of heart. Taking a personal day for a one-off job was iffy, but doing it for a potentially ongoing revenue stream seemed a reasonable risk. I told him I'd get back to him in the morning and then spent the afternoon and evening trying to craft the perfect lie.

Call in sick? Family emergency? Death in the family? What to do, what to do.

But as fate would have it I was canned the next day, so I was free to schlep into LA guilt free.

In the past three years I've had many strange meetings and this one certainly makes the top ten. I won't bore you with details save to say when my new client walked into the room it was as if he just stepped out of a touring production of "Fiddler on the Roof". A bear of a man, he had a long unkept beard and was wearing a yarmulke and a prayer shawl. And he was barefoot. The meeting was odd but productive and it looks like we'll be doing business together. He said he'd call me midweek with work. Let's hope Tevye is a man of his word.

Beyond that I wrangled a job from Hollywood. I had forgotten how much I'd grown to hate entertainment work. That is, until the check clears. I'm booked for today and tomorrow and will make more in two days than I made in a week in Bako. And there are a few more irons in the fire so we'll see if anything comes of it. All in all, I'm looking on the bright side, such as it is.

The trip to LA was odd for another reason. In the first couple of months of living in Bako I had had to trek back to the city at least once a week to tie up loose ends. I always looked forward to going back "home", even though once I got there I was usually consumed with sadness and despair. But I hadn't been back to LA since February and this trip back proved to be different. I found myself getting increasingly anxious as I cleared the pass into the LA sprawl. And once I hit the 405 like a brick wall and found myself inching along, stuck in the "morning" rush hour at noon I found myself thinking "thank God I don't have to deal with this anymore." It should have been a two hour drive, but I had allowed myself three. And still I barely made it to the meeting on time. The whole time I was in the city I found myself completely stressed out. While I was sitting in the meeting I kept eyeing the clock, hoping to end it before 2 so I could get back on the road before "evening" rush hour began, to no avail. When I finally hit the freeway at 2:15 it was already gridlocked. "How do people live like this? I thought to myself, conveniently forgetting I had done it for 25 years.

Once I finally cleared greater LA at Castaic, two hours later, I finally felt myself start to relax. And when I cleared the Grapevine and started descending back into the San Joaquin valley I actually kind of felt at peace. It was Golden Hour and the sun was shimmering off the wheat fields. Or maybe it was dead corn, who can tell; I still new to all this farm crap. At any rate, it was beautiful.

They say you can't go home again, but I guess that all depends on where you consider home. And to be honest, I'm not sure I know anymore. But I'm pretty sure it aint LA.

Great Expectations

Yesterday was the huge "Bakersfield Business Conference: Triumph of the Will 2010". Judging by the news reports it was a bit of a let down. I think we can all agree it just wasn't patriotic enough.



The entire Wingnut Pantheon helicoptered in to to address the villagers with pitchforks and left just as quickly. No need to mingle with all the salt-of-the-earth riff raff. They stayed just long enough to dish out the red meat and get everyone riled up.



Oops. How did this get in here...


The disappointment stemmed from inflated expectations. Initially everyone assumed the headline event would be an appearance by the "Disasta From Alaska", Sarah Palin. But then it was announced that there would be "surprise special guests" to close out the festivities. All week long the town was abuzz with speculation as to who it would be. My money was on Satan, but the consensus opinion was that it might just be George W. Bush, emerging from his secure and undisclosed location for the first time since the '08 election.



As the Snowbilly-in-Chief finished her remarks, the room was electric with anticipation as to who the surprise guests would be. So you can imagine the collective disappointment when it was announced the closing guests were a trio of "heroes", including Captain "Sully" Sullenberger. No offense to the men, but after all the build up it was a bit of a letdown for people who had paid up to $500 to attend the days events.

Not only that, but the food sucked.

"For $500 I expected more" said one of the participants.

"I've had better at Hodel's..."

Beyond Here There Be Dragons

I had something pithy to write today but to be honest I can't recall what it was. I've lost the will to blog, among other things.

I was able to land a fairly substantial freelance job for next week, and later this morning I'm driving into LA to panhandle for additional work. Beyond that, who knows. If I look ahead farther than a week I get scared.

As I was trawling the internet for work yesterday I discovered two frightening developments.

The first was oDesk.

Listing after listing for available design work tracked back to oDesk. oDesk is a company in Northern California that allows prospective clients to post their jobs, and we designers get the awesome opportunity to bid on them. And since you're competing with hundreds of thousands of designers across the globe it's nothing but a race to the bottom.

Here's a typical listing:



You read that right, "Max. Hourly rate: $1.50/hr"

Maybe in Jakarta or Nowhere-istan $1.50 is real money, but at that rate a pack of cigarettes would be a day's work.

And making the whole situation that much more odious is the fact that if you submit the winning bid, you have to agree to install oDesk software on your computer to allow oDesk to have remote access to your computer where they can view your monitor in real time and follow your keystrokes. That way they can crack the virtual whip over your head for checking your email or taking a break. They also have the ability to harangue you through iChat while you're working.

The second development is even more disturbing. Earlier this week GAP Brands, home of the Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy, unveiled an all new logo.

It's atrocious.

And they probably paid millions of dollars for it. It's being universally reviled by everyone, and GAP's panicked response?

“Thanks for everyone’s input on the new logo! We’ve had the same logo for 20+ years, and this is just one of the things we’re changing. We know this logo created a lot of buzz and we’re thrilled to see passionate debates unfolding! So much so we’re asking you to share your designs. We love our version, but we’d like to see other ideas. Stay tuned for details in the next few days on this crowd sourcing project.”

They know they fucked up, and their answer is to ask people to submit better logos.

For free.

Obviously it would be a huge feather in anyone's cap to have the GAP logo in their portfolio, so as much as design professionals are decrying the move, it's too late.

As of this morning they already have over 5000 submitted logos. For free.

So "FREE" is now apparently the new normal.

By this time next year I'll probably have to start offering to pay to work.

The Good Lord Giveth and the Good Lord Taketh Away

I can't say I didn't see it coming. There have been lots of little clues for weeks. But still, it looked like we had finally somewhat stabilized our lives and I chose to whistle past the graveyard and not think about it. When I got into work yesterday morning and was told there was a three o'clock marketing meeting with no set agenda my heart sank.

And sure enough... laid off. Again.

I can't take it personally. They let the entire marketing department go. I'm getting remarkably blasé about it, but then again I've heard some variation of the "tough times/drastic measures" speech six times in the past two years. You'd think by now it would get easier to take, but it doesn't.

So, once more into the breach.

It not all bad news. The new Target opened this week. Later today I'll check to see if they're still hiring.

Purple Rain

For the past several days the morning weather report has mentioned "possible rain showers" but they might as well have been warning of "possible unicorns" because that just doesn't happen here.

So imagine my surprise when I left for work to discover light rain! And it was water, not frogs. Or flames. Nothing Biblical.

What a welcome relief. Maybe this means the heat has finally broken - it was still 100 last Friday.

I might as well enjoy it while it lasts. The soul sucking fog must be just around the corner.

Ashes To Ashes, Dust To Dust

I think we can safely declare my design career dead.

Cause of death?

Blippo.

Blippo is an atrocious typeface designed in 1969 at the tail end of the Psychedelic 60's. And it looks it.

See above.

It remained popular throughout the 70's because everyone was stoned. As the 80's dawned, people sobered up (or switched to cocaine) and saw it for the horror it was and quickly abandoned it. It was left for dead.

Or so we thought.

With the advent of desktop published it was raised from the dead, a zombie typeface. And sadly, it became a favorite of the great unwashed masses. You know you've seen it, on church bulletins, yard sales, maybe a four year old's birthday invite.

It's here to stay.

But no professional designer would touch it with a ten foot pole. Maybe, in certain rare circumstances, used ironically, just maybe. But probably not. It's radioactive.

Clients rarely come forward requesting specific fonts. If they did, especially with Blippo, the best thing to do is ignore them and design something with a better font and it would soon be forgotten. If they persisted, you'd resort to reverse psychology...

"OK, sure, I see, you're going for a "retro" feel, you feel your customers are sophisticated enough to "get it" and not see your company as backwards and out of touch. Good for you! That's so brave!"

That would usually do the trick.

And yet yesterday, one of my clients emailed me with a suggestion.

"We thought the ad would look great in this font..."

And there on my screen was Blippo.

And I said "OK". And did it. Didn't even put up a fight. I just didn't care.

And that was the moment the career died. Without so much as a whimper.

I guess I can take some solace in the fact that Blippo at least had something of a pedigree. It was based, so they say, on an unfinished font designed at the Bauhaus in Germany, the birthplace of modern graphic design. Of course, it was unfinished for a reason, but whatever.

And all things considered, it could've been worse.

It could've been Hobo.

Random Good Things About Bako #9

The Oleander Neighborhood.

I took a wrong turn on Saturday and ended up in the Oleander neighborhood.

Where did this come from? It's absolutely charming.

Tons of Craftsman bungalows and grand, stately homes.


A lot of them were lovingly restored and lushly landscaped - I think we know where the gays live.


If the rest of the city matched this lovely neighborhood Bakersfield would actually be a nice place to live.


Sadly, the local taste seems to run to Caliterranean stucco boxes of recent vintage (anything built before 2000 is "really old"). But as long as this neighborhood is standing there's always hope.

Technical Difficulties

The internet was completely out this morning. To the entire city of Bakersfield.

How is that possible? Are things here really that rinky-dink?

Must be a power issue. Time for new rats.

They could start with the ones in my backyard.

The End Is Nigh

Next Saturday, to be exact.

I first wrote about this back in January. At the time I just assumed we'd be long gone by now, but here we are, so it looks like it's time to batten down the hatches and board up the windows.

For one day, and one day only, Bakersfield is going to be the white hot center of the Wingnut Universe. I mean, just look at this lineup...

Dick Cheney
"Dr." Lynn Cheney
Karl Rove
Newt Gingrich
Rudy Giuliani
Mitt Romney
Bay Buchanan
Cal Thomas
Laura W. Bush
Michael Steele

Talk about a Disharmonic Convergence.

It's a once in a lifetime opportunity since the only other place you could see all these characters assembled would be a War Crimes Tribunal, and that's not gonna happen.

And headlining the event, The Abominable Snowgrifter herself, former Half-Term Governor of Alaska, Mama Grizzly-In-Chief, Sarah Palin. No wonder the tickets are $200; that woman won't step out of the car for less than $100K. No one ever went broke fleecing the right wing rubes. Why would anyone pay $200 to watch a bunch of boilerplate stump speeches you could watch on YouTube for free?

Whatever.

And just to prove they aren't out of touch, they're opening with America's "edgiest" comic, straight from the Nixon Administration, Rich Little.

I hope he does his Hubert Humphrey impression. That always brings the house down.

Looking over the schedule it appears to be incomplete. Nowhere on it do I see the part where the earth splits open and Satan claws his way out of the depths of Hell to address his assembled minions.

I'm guessing it comes after Rove, but before Palin.

You always want to finish "big".

Some Day Her Prints Will Come

I caught a rare glimpse of Roz yesterday afternoon. It's become like spotting an elusive exotic animal on safari.

In more ways than one.

She was standing in her garage, a vision in a poly-blend giraffe print pantsuit. I noticed she's taken the "Wild Roz" 'Vette out of service; it was sitting off to one side snugly bundled in a leopard print custom car cover.

She was removing a large bundle from her other vehicle, the "Goddess Mobile". Whatever it was was wrapped in a zebra print blanket. It looked like it might be a body, but who could tell? By that time my eyes had started vibrating from all the clashing animal prints and I had to look away.

Maybe that's her M.O. She never has any witnesses to her crimes because she gives everyone a blinding migraine with her wildlife mind tricks.

She's up to something. I can feel it.