W2

Yosemite Sam is coming to town!

Rick Perry, rootin', tootin' Texas Guv'na is running for Preznit and will be swinging through Bako next week to fleece the rubes. As I recall, we once had a Texas Governor as President and it didn't work out so well, but those who forget their mistakes are condemned to repeat them and this country is certainly dumb enough to do it again.

I'm sure his schtick will go down well with the local gun totin' Bible thumpers.

The tickets to see him start at $1500, which seems a bit steep.

Especially since you can watch cartoons for free on the TeeVee.

OK Corral

My greatest fear may be coming true.

I fear that we are going native.

A few months back we noticed a vacant lot down the road being cleared and soon enough construction started going vertical. But, on what?

And then, up popped a sign...

"COMING SOON... GOLDEN CORRAL."

We were both ashamed of our response. We were thrilled.

How much lower can you sink when you're thrilled at the prospect of yet another corporate chain "casual dining" outpost? Not much fucking lower, that's for sure.

But the truth of the matter is any addition would be welcome news. Listen, even Applebee's and Hometown Buffet get old after awhile.

I can't believe I just wrote that.

When we first blew into town we had nothing but disdain for the Olive Garden and the Outback Steakhouse and the Black Angus. We would find the local restaurants, the legendary Basque cafés, the mom and pop diamonds-in-the-rough with the fresh local produce and homecooking.

Well, we found 'em. Which is why we're so looking forward to Golden Corral.

It must be good - it's "GOLDEN", right?

At least the odds of getting salmonella are less with food that's been mass produced and flash frozen at the mammoth industrial corporate food processing centers back at the home office. Or so one hopes.

So, we count the days until this magnificent bounty will be laid out before us...



Can't you just smell it?

Give Them A Hand

I swear, these people can't do anything right.

If you're going to brutally murder someone and then dispose of the body in a shallow grave, you need to BURY THE WHOLE BODY.

You would think that would be obvious, but not to these lazy amateurs.

That Bakersfield Sound

People say Bakersfield is a cultural wasteland.

They say "other than Buck Owens, what has Bakersfield contributed to the cultural life of our nation?"

And to those people I say... "Metalachi."

The world's first heavy metal mariachi band.

Where else are you going to see that?

I think we can safely say "nowhere."

Sunday Inspiration

Picture. Thousand Words.

Give My Regards To Broadway

I take back my snarky post about the hurricane from a few days back.

At the time I figured it would just peter out but it's shaping up to be a major disaster and obviously my prayers go out to everyone who'll be affected by it.

I was remembering this morning my first ever trip to New York. It was 1974 and we were on a family trip up and down the East Coast. My mother insisted if we were going to New York, we were going to take in a Broadway play and it was with great anticipation we took our seats in the Minskoff Theater to see the one and only Debbie Reynolds in...

"Irene".

Weird, huh?

I even still have the program...



How gay is that?

Talk about natural disasters, just look at that dress!

I've been asked before when I first knew I was gay and this may have been the moment. I had a huge crush on Monte Markham and I wasn't even in Middle School yet.

Anyhow, here's to hoping this weekend in New York won't be as awful as the show.

The “F” Word

"Figs"

This is our backyard. Those are figs.

I can't keep up. It's like the bombing of Dresden, they just keep coming. It's relentless.

I rake them up, I even had one of my clients come over and pick the hell out the tree, and yet they come...

Sell Baby, Sell

A woman was arrested for trying to sell a baby.

For $2000.

At Taco Bell.

Screw gold. If you want a killer investment go with babies. Another woman was arrested for trying to sell a baby two weeks ago and all she wanted was $500.

That's a 400% increase in just ten days!

Although I'm not sure babies are really the way to go, investment-wise. Who can say if they hold their value and they may just eat you out of house and home. And the diapers...

Shaken, Not Stirred

I can't help but be amused, and more than a little pissed, by the saturation news coverage of the "Great East Coast Earthquake".

Being a lifelong Californian, I easily remember the reaction of the rest of the country, and the New York media in particular, to both the Loma Prieita quake in the Bay Area and the Northridge quake in LA a few years later (that I lived through) and in a word it was nothing but disdain.

"That's what you get for living in California" they'd tsk-tsk on the morning news.

Well, ya know what? Welcome to our world muthafuckas.

Pussies.

5.8?

That'd rattle the ice in our cocktails, but not much more.

So good luck with that. I'll be thinking of you later this week when the hurricane hits.

"That's what you get for living on the Eastern Seaboard..."

Monkey Business

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Best. Job listing. Ever.

Just discovered on Craigslist....

Gifted Artist to Paint my Vision

Artist who is accomplished in drawing and painting to 1) sketch what I saw during a mystical experience and 2) use that sketch to paint what I saw. I am not looking for a fine artist who will want to interpret my experience or overlay his or her version or vision upon it. I am seeking someone who is skilled at rendering life-like drawings and paintings. This is the most profound experience of my life, and I want it preserved as if I had taken a photo of it. You would have to meet with me so that I could describe the experience while you sketched and modified the sketch according to my direction, e.g., make the hair longer, the gaze more intent, the look more commanding. In other words, you must be able to function like a police artist for the sketching component of this assignment. A sensitivity to the mystical and the spiritual--though, heavens, NOT the religious!--is key.

The Shut-Ins

We finally discovered the perfect way to enjoy a weekend in Bakersfield...

We never left the house.

It certainly wasn't planned that way. The boyfriend had to go into work briefly Saturday morning and while he was gone I took care of the yard work. When he returned, we sat down to plan the weekend and figure out where we had to go and what we had to do and the answer to everything was... nada. We didn't even have to make a trip to the market.

The weather was mild for an August in Bako, but enjoying the pool wasn't really an option; it's currently unusable. When we first erected it last month it was partially shaded by our fig tree, which was unavoidable. The fig tree is so gargantuan that it looms over most of the backyard. But not to worry, or so we thought. It had dropped its bounty of questionable fruit back in June and knowing nothing about fruit trees we assumed that would be it for the season.

Wrong!

The very first day we used the pool, as I floated on my little raft gazing up into the tree, I noticed what appeared to be "Round Two". Sure enough.... it's "Revenge of the Figs". They started ripening last week and they've been dropping into the pool and even though we try and swoop in and get them out as quickly as possible, you can't get them all out in time and and they start dissolving into a gelatinous muck. The pool currently looks like a petri dish.

We did, however, have a list of little projects around the house, so we threw on some tunes, cranked up the AC and basically puttered around here for two days. It was lovely. You'd never even know you were in Bakersfield.

And besides, I need to rest up. Tomorrow I start an interesting new project. It's from one of my clients in LA, for one of the networks. It's an ongoing gig and slated to run for several months and if it's successful it could lead to full-time job and our ticket out of Dogpatch. I'd almost go as far as saying I'm excited, but "excited" isn't offered on our menu anymore. It's not so much that I'm a pessimist, although there's that. It's just that after four years I've lost count of the potentially life saving, career salvaging jobs and opportunities that have fizzled, flatlined of failed to launch at the eleventh hour. Once you've had your hopes crushed that many times, you learn it's best just not to have them.

So let's just say we're cautiously optimistic.

I hope I didn't just jinx it by even writing that.

.

Sunday Inspiration

Live Free Or Die. Or At Least Half Off.

People here are appalled.

Outraged even.

Over the latest example of the creeping socialism, the desecration of the American way of life, the trampling of our basic rights and the death of the capitalistic free enterprise system.

City officials are trying to limit garage sales.

The monsters.

Have they no decency!

"I'll give you my Hummel when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!"

Endless Bummer

This morning's headlines were all about shark attacks and missing white women, an unmistakable sign we've reached the dog days of summer. Did it ever occur to anyone that maybe the white women were eaten by the shark, or is that just too obvious?

Any way you slice it this has been a Debbie Downer summer. Little work, dwindling funds and now health issues. A crazy stock market and crazier Republicans and the fear that everything is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.

Adding to the general malaise is the realization that the motley group of characters I refer to as "my neighbors" have been more or less missing in action all summer. When it comes right down to it, it's been very lonely around here the past few months. I haven't a clue what's become of them, but I certainly miss the distractions.

I haven't see Roz in ages, although I noticed she upgraded to "RozMobile 2.0". A few weeks back I noticed a brand new Vette parked in front of her condo. It's an absolutely hideous shade of brown, a color so ugly it must be custom. I can't imagine a car company actually offering it as an option, not even an American one. I'm guessing she picked it to match her leopard print car cover. I was relieved to see that "Lil' Roz" made the lateral move, her unmistakably jaunty silhouette still perched on the dash.

Likewise, I haven't seen Roz's partner/roommate/ whatever, Deena the Dog Whisperer. She did drive past us once, with a wave, her rabid dogs almost busting out the back windows of her Kia when they spotted my dogs. I swear it's only a matter of time before those beasts kill something. Let's just hope it's one of the neighborhood kids and not a dog.

The Suburban Gangbangers have been M.I.A. all summer, the low-riders never leaving the driveway. If I had to guess, I think their absence probably involves parole violations.

No sign either of our dumbshit neighbor, Margaret. Obviously she eventually had her power restored because her rattle trap air conditioner runs nonstop and sounds like it's about to launch itself off the roof.

The Old Man Who Washes His Car hasn't been spotted in months. Maybe he's dead.

I did catch a glimpse of our old bitchy neighbor, Mary. She's sporting a new look these days, a hairstyle that harkens back to early 80's Nancy Reagan. It just confirms what I've always suspected - Bakersfield is about 30 years behind the times.

But by far the most shocking absence has been Jim. As long as we've lived here he's been a fixture in the front yard, through every season, hot or cold. Normally his morning would be spent decorating the yard, hoisting pots and decorations up into the sad little tree. Once it got to be too hot, he'd retreat to his lawn chair with a cocktail, holding court and watching the world go by.

But not lately.

I have no idea what's up, but Jim has seemingly vanished. I know he's here, I can occasionally hear his voice. But it's almost as if he's in hiding. I hope there isn't a warrant out for him. That would really bum me out.

With everyone missing, I've had to look elsewhere for my entertainment. So thank God I found THIS!

It's absolutely brilliant. Where to start? How about with the photos? They look great don't they? It almost makes Bakersfield look livable. Too bad all the photos are stock images of other, nicer places. Or how about the music? You won't be getting that tune out of your head all day, let me tell you.

I'm completely mystified why this website exists. All the locals will know it's obviously a lie. And nice as it is, it's not enough to actually lure unsuspecting tourists here and trap them. Or maybe it is. That's a pretty low bar.

Hey! What a great idea. I want to open a bar here in Bakersfield and call it the "Pretty Low Bar". Look for it under "Nightlife", coming soon.

Who Could Have Imagined...

They've apprehended the 'Bad Hair Bandit".

Obviously, there's a Bakersfield tie-in.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Good For What Ails You

I suppose the doctor's visit could have gone better.

It started when the cute male nurse came into the examination room to take my blood pressure. He cuffed my right arm and pumped it up and I heard him exclaim under his breath "no way..." He removed the cuff, realigned it slightly and then pumped it up again, this time like a boa constrictor. My fingers started turning purple as he slowly shook his head, quickly removed the cuff and moved over to my left arm. He went through the same drill, looking a little more alarmed.

"Is there a problem?" I asked.

"Let me get the doctor" he said as he bolted out of the room.

The doctor arrived, a little too quickly I thought. Usually you have more than enough time to read one of the year-old magazines cover to cover in the time it takes the doctor to arrive after they've taken your vitals.

He dispensed with any greetings and immediately cuffed my right arm to take my pressure. And then the left. He then whipped out his pad and wrote me a prescription for high blood pressure medicine.

"I want you to have this filled downstairs. Immediately. And take a pill be fore you leave today."

"What's going on?" I asked.

He quickly reverted to his usual reassuring manner.

"Oh nothing" he said. "Your blood pressure is a little high."

180 over 110. That's about the threshold when people start having strokes or heart attacks.

"I wouldn't be too concerned" he said. "It's probably from the long drive in on the 405. That would do it."

Well, yeah, sure.

Or maybe just living in Bakersfield.

Take your pick.

Actually, the reason it was probably so high is I had just gotten off the phone with my worthless insurance company. I had presented my shiny virgin insurance card at the front desk and a few moments later the receptionist called me back.

"Your insurance company says this account has been closed for over a year."

Imagine that. And they had only just that morning debited my checking account for my extortion level monthly premium.

After 15 minutes lost in the phone tree and a couple of disconnections, I finally reached a human at the Worst Insurance Company of America©. She informed me that this account had been closed because they had sent me new cards with a new account number over a year ago. She then read off the address it had been sent to.

Who's address?

Beats the fuck out of me. It wasn't my address, or an address I'd ever lived at.

"Oops" she said cheerily. "We must have put someone else's address on your account."

Because the last thing we'd expect from an insurance company is accurate record keeping. Fucktards.

We finally cleared that up, not that it mattered. This office visit wouldn't be covered because I hadn't met my deductible. My deductible is greater than some nation's GDP and the odds I'll ever meet it in this lifetime are beyond remote.

Once the nightmare doctor's visit was over, I stopped for lunch with an old colleague to catch up and get all the fresh dirt.

My only clue to the state of my old business is the changes I see to everyone's LinkedIn status, mostly going from employed to "Independent Professional", LinkedIn code for "out-of-work".

She hadn't worked most of the summer and she gave the rundown of all the recent bloodletting. It was much worse than I had imagined, agencies gone, people on the street.

The greatest mystery was that once people were let go, many of them simply vanished. A few popped here and there at other agencies, but for the most part people seemed to just fall of the edge of the earth once they were downsized.

I imagined them all trundling off to some great advertising elephant's graveyard.

Like Bakersfield.

Road Trip II: Electric Boogaloo

Off to LA, yet again. This time for a long planned Doctor's appointment. No offense to the lovely Third World doctors of Bako, but I'd just prefer to see my longtime physician... in Beverly Hills.

Actually, I'm not so sure I'm still considered a patient. I haven't seen him in four years and when I called to make the appointment they told me I had dropped out of the system. Seems I've been getting that a lot lately. They eventually found me... in the archive.

Doesn't that just make you feel young and fresh?

The reason I haven't been in so long is that when I lost my last "real" job, I also lost my insurance. I was so sure I would land a new job within weeks that I didn't even bother to sign up for COBRA.

Clearly, that didn't work out.

After going without for a couple of years, I grew concerned enough to seek out insurance on my own.

Basically, you quickly learn that if you aren't employed, the insurance companies just want you to die. Their cheapest plans for the self employed just come with a coffin. I was finally able to find a plan through a professional graphics organization. It's completely usurious but the best I could find. For $7000 a year and a horrendous deductible I get basically nothing but "catastrophic" care. I guess I'll find out what that means when I test drive it tomorrow - it's the very first time in two years I've attempted to use it.

I hope I have enough money left or the gas to get home.

Bring Out Yer Dead

When I first found myself working from home several years ago I resorted to an old college habit and always had the TV on in the background. It didn't really matter what was on (but that's how I became such an Oprah scholar), it just helped to break the loneliness and isolation.

That isn't really an option here since we can't afford to hook up two TV's to cable and the flat screen is clear across the house.

So I tried working to my iPod, which is when I discovered I have questionable musical taste. Not to mention the shuffle seems oddly preoccupied with Serge Gainsborough and I think we can all agree a little of that goes a long way.

Next I tried streaming KCRW out of LA, but I never bothered to upgrade my computer speakers so it's all glitchy and scratchy.

So I was finally left with local radio. God help me.

I don't speak Spanish, so that rules out half of the stations. Country isn't my thing. There's a handful of pop stations, but they have a minimal playlist of the most saccharine, Ryan Secrest approved, Idol-icious crap.

There is, however, one classical station. I was raised with classical music so I'm completely happy listening to it all day. If I have one complaint it's that they too have a pretty limited playlist. If I hear "The Pines of Rome" or "Clair de Lune" one more time I'm going to scream.

But recently things have taken a macabre turn and I'm taking it personally.

Every single time I sit down to look for work, they start playing funeral music.

I just had Chopin's "Funeral March", followed by Mozart's "Requiem".

It's almost as if Someone is trying to tell me... something.

I swear, my stars are definitely not aligned these days.

Episode IV: A New Hope

Sure, it's another hare-brained scheme. That's kind of our specialty. We're like "I Love Lucy" that way.

More often than not, they succeed, which is why we keep doing it. When they fail, they tend to fail spectacularly, i.e. Bako.

Last summer's big scheme was buying a house here. When the boyfriend first proposed it, I was aghast, primarily because it meant accepting a life sentence in Bakersfield with little probability of parole. However, looking at it rationally, it made a certain amount of sense. At the time we both had jobs that we nominally liked. Although they didn't pay much, the cost of living here was so low we'd been able to approach our former lifestyle. Minus the nice things. Houses here were so cheap that it was actually cheaper to buy than to rent. And if and when we did blow this taco stand, we could always rent the house out and make a tidy little profit in the process.

So we bought a house.

We hadn't even cleared escrow when things started to go awry. First, my job was eliminated, leaving me jobless during the holiday season. Then the boyfriend's boss, the one who made his job so enjoyable, was sacked and replaced with a petty little tyrant who promptly extended everyone's hours and cut their pay. By the time we actually moved into the house, we were both miserable.

We thought about renting out the house and bailing, but one thing we hadn't really considered was the deadbeat nature of our neighbors. Judging by the number of posted eviction notices I see when I walk the dogs, renting out a house in this neighborhood doesn't necessarily guaranty you'll actually receive any rent.

We felt trapped.

But then something happened last week that gave us both a new sense of hope.

The house on the corner went up for sale!

It's a mirror image of our house and was used as a rental. It sits on a much busier intersection and hadn't been kept up well at all. The tenant moved out around the first of July and a "FOR RENT" sign popped up a few days later. That lasted until last week when it was replaced by a big, hard swinging "FOR SALE" sign. We noted the web address and looked it up to see what it was listed for, and imagine our shock when we saw it was priced $60K over what we paid.

"They'll never get that" we both said, but Sunday we saw they were having an open house. The boyfriend went down to check it out. He says the house is in worse shape than this one ever was. He decided to grill the agent about the pricing and was informed that not only did they feel it was priced aggressively for the market, they already had one all-cash offer on the table.

So what gives? If anything, the economy in Bako is worse than when we arrived. I was under the impression prices were still falling, not rising.

Well...it turns out Bako nearly tops the list for rental home investors!

Prices here are so rock bottom and there is such a glut of homes that outsiders are swooping in and snatching them up as rentals. Since rents are so much higher than the mortgage, you can make a handsome profit. And if you own ten or twenty homes, you can weather the loss of one or two deadbeat tenants. If you live in a neighborhood, like us, with good schools ("good" being a relative concept here in Bako), prices are actually rising.

The boyfriend invited the agent over to appraise our house and he said he can easily get us $50K or more than what we paid.

Just on case he's blowing smoke up our ass, we're having a different agent come by tonight.

If we like what we hear, we're putting this puppy up for sale and getting the fuck out of Hooterville.

And go where? Do what?

Well, that's the hare-brained part of the scheme we having really figured out yet.

Our motto this week is "Leave first, ask questions later."

Cirque du Bako

The circus is coming to town!

For newcomers like us, you could be forgiven for thinking it had never left, but at one point it did, and now it's back.

I don't remember it coming through town last year, so maybe this is a really special occasion. Your only chance to see real live clowns outside of a City Council meeting.

That's going to make for a very full weekend, between that and the gun show.

Round Trip

Man, that is a long ass drive. But luckily, I hit no traffic.

The interview was actually in the heart of Downtown LA. I thought perhaps I was over the city, but... no.

I miss it horribly.

Will anything come of the meeting? Hard to say. I'll just lump it in with "winning the lottery" and hope for the best.

I have to say, Downtown LA was a lot cleaner than I remembered it.

Maybe it's all those older buildings being spruced up and converted to lofts.

Or maybe it's just that after living in Bakersfield this long, anything looks clean.

The Long Road Ahead. In More Ways Than One.

Off to LA today.

Last week I received a call from a recruiter in LA, wanting to set up an interview. Today's the day.

I suppose I should be more upbeat about it, but truth be told, I've been down this road before.

When I was first downsized back in 2007, the first thing I did was hit all the recruiters. At last count I think I was registered with 12 of them. Most of them, I never heard from again. I found out later that there are so many people looking for work, and so few jobs, that most recruiters thin the herd rather brutally. Even though it's illegal, if you're over 40, your application goes straight to the dead letter office more often than not. And most recruiters dump job seekers after 60 days. They figure if they haven't found you a job by then, they probably won't, your "sell by" date has passed and there's always a fresh supply of desperate people behind you to fill any job that may pop up.

I discovered all this a couple of weeks ago when I went to update my resumé at one of the bigger recruiters, only to discover they hadn't heard of me before.

"But I have a login and everything" I said. And then I told the helpful woman on the phone when I originally registered.

"Oh honey - you dropped out of the system years ago."

So, needless to say, I wasn't expecting much to come of it. Imagine my surprise when they called to set up an interview tomorrow.

So, we'll see. A three hour drive for probably a 20 minute interview. And they don't validate. That's always a bad sign.

Sunday Inspiration

One More For The Road

I hate when this happens.

You go to the store with your best buddy to buy some alcohol.

At 9:45 am.

On a Thursday.

Your buddy decides he wants to steal the booze.

You say no.

So he stabs you.

Repeatedly.

And then steals your car.

He's still at large. Police suspect he may be intoxicated.

Ya think?

Now And Forever*

So it took long enough, but I finally made a friend in Bakersfield.

It's a cat.

A neighborhood cat. It's completely black, except the entire right side of his (or her) face is pure white. He looks like he has the lead in a feline production of "Phantom of the Opera".

So I've named him "Phantom".

I first noticed him shortly after we moved into the house. I'd get up and make coffee and go out on the patio for a smoke, and there, in the predawn darkness, he'd be sprawled across one of the crossbeams of the fence. That's apparently where he spent the night, which makes a certain amount of sense; it was a ringside seat over all our fruit trees and all the rodents that raided them during the night.

Normally, I wouldn't see him again once the sun rose, but last week I was getting up from the computer and noticed something move outside the window. And there he was, splayed across the wall that abuts the house. Just hanging out, watching me and the dogs through the window. He was there the next day, and the next. Just hanging out in the sun. I liked to think he was there to keep me company, but I'm not stupid - there's a bird feeder there. If the birds here are as stupid as the flies, he stood a pretty good chance of getting a snack.

But all good things must come to an end. Yesterday the dogs finally discovered there was a window in my office, and once they looked through it they discovered the cat. They made a scene and Phantom darted off. Haven't seen him since.

I miss him. It gets pretty lonely here all day. I hope he comes back.

* "Now and Forever" was the advertising tagline for the musical "Cats", which seemed appropriate.

PS: In looking for just the right image to top the post, I discovered there is a frightening amount of really, REALLY bad "Phantom of the Opera" fan art online.

Random Good Things About Bakersfield #19

Dumb flies.

You can't be surrounded by this much manure encrusted farmland and not have flies, and Bako has them in spades.

But, they're stupid.

I first noticed this during the first of many heat waves back in June. The house was full of flies, despite our best efforts to keep them out, but they were all just hovering around and lazily moving between rooms and you could walk right up and catch them with your hands.

Idiots.

I chalked it to the heat. Even though it was air conditioned inside, the broiling heat outside must have dulled their senses and slowed their reactions.

Or so I thought.

The weather has been surprisingly mild (for Bako), with temps seemingly stuck a degree or two over or under 100. Trust me, that's considered "brisk" for Bakersfield. And yet, the flies still seem to be operating at half speed. It's hardly sporting, being able to just walk up and whack them without much of a fight. But it's still somehow satisfying.

So there 'ya go.... Short Bus Flies.

Just one of the many “Wonders of Bako”.

Eau de Toilet

A lot of the horribleness of this town I could probably just come to accept. Maybe not willingly, but eventually I'd have no choice but to make my peace and come to terms with it.

Except when it comes to the smell.

Holy smokes, it stinks today.

Must be a "dead cow burn day".

You would think that perhaps over time you would adapt and it wouldn't be such an issue. But even the locals admit this place reeks. Some days more than others, but on the whole, every day in Bako is a stinker.

And it isn't just the air.

Yesterday I was doing some laundry, including a load of towels. When I got out of the shower this morning, I grabbed one of the clean "fresh" towels and held it up to my face... and nearly wretched.

It smells like it's been dragged through a septic tank.

And that's after having been washed in hot water, with bleach, and fabric softener and another fabric sheet thrown in the dryer for good luck. There are no amount of chemicals you can add to the laundry that will counteract Bakersfield tap water, which smells like it was piped in straight from the sewer. It's probably flammable too; I've never bothered to check.

Really, it's just so demoralizing. Like waking up each day and taking a shovel to the face.

Better Living Through Chemistry

Well, it's been over a week and so far the not-smoking thing is going shockingly well. After all the previous failed attempts, no one is more surprised than I am.

And contrary to the image with this post, there seem to be no side effects, at least so far.

The first couple of days I swore I was having heart palpitations and checked Google maps to see which third world hospital was closest, just in case. But it either passed or was just me being a hypochondriac.

And there's been no sign of the rumored suicidal depression, at least nothing more than the usual you find living in Bakersfield.

Also, there's been none of the anger issues that doomed earlier attempts, when we threw in the towel when it became obvious one of us would end up in a hospital and the other behind bars.

So... so far, so good.

I have to give a shout out to the drug companies, because this Chantix seems to work. It completely eliminates the physical cravings which was always the highest hurdle to overcome. It appears to eliminate ALL cravings - I haven't thought of peanut butter in over a week either.

I still think about cigarettes all the time, but I'm sure that too will pass.

When we first moved to Bakersfield I used to think about our former lives all the time, the home we lost, the career I loved, the freedom of having an income. But now I rarely think of any of those things at all, and when I do it's as if it all happened to somebody else. Hopefully, I can soon add "smoking" to the list of things that are gone forever.

Do You Smell Something?

Firefighters responded to reports of a small grass fire, the second to happen in days. They believe it's arson.

Luckily, they were alerted to the fire by neighbors and passersby. Who knows how long it would have taken them to respond without the quick thinking of local citizens.

Both fires were set next door to the fire station.

Sunday Inspiration

Pig Malion

One of our television guilty pleasures is "House Hunters International". Actually, everything we watch on television is a guilty pleasure... have you seen "Big Rich Texas"? Pure awesomeness.

But back to "House Hunters International"...

The show is about people who have money to burn and are looking to buy a second home in Zermat, or Belize, or Vanuatu or some other similarly outrageous location. Or, it's some high powered executive who needs to relocate to London or Moscow or Paris.

It's sadistic really, because it combines two things we'll likely never experience again... world travel and living somewhere nice.

But occasionally, they go downmarket, which brings us to last night's episode. It featured Carl and Sarah, a portly looking couple in their late 30's. Carl is British, Sarah, American. How they met wasn't explained. They've been together 13 years, married for 10. Carl moved here, and for the past ten years they've been living Stateside in Sarah's hometown. But Carl is homesick and it's time for a change and they've decided to relocate to Carl's hometown, Buckingham, outside of London.

We first meet up with them at their current home, in...

BAKERSFIELD!

I almost swallowed an ice cube when I saw that. Holy shit. I should have known... Sarah is sporting a classic Bakerdoo, right down to the bad highlights.

Their current home is typical Bako-terranean, stucco McMansion. Obviously new construction since it's built so close to the neighbors that the roofs practically touch and there isn't a stitch of foliage anywhere to be seen.

Now, Bakersfield, even on a good day and if you were feeling generous, would never be considered... pretty. But either by choice or by accident, the producers decided to portray the city in a particularly hideous fashion. They shot Sarah in her convertible, tooling around some of the most downtrodden and ghetto parts of town on a hazy, gruesome looking afternoon. Then they panned out the passenger side as the endless miles of fallow dirt whizzed by which, through the magic of editing, morphed into the lush green rolling English countryside. Our visit to Bakersfield was over and mercifully brief.

I won't bore you with the details of the show. You can watch the grand climax here. But let's just say the Sarah is kind of a whiny bitch. She specifically said she wanted a typical "English cottage", yet every one she was shown was met with...

"It's not as big as we had in Bakersfield."

or

"We had a lot more room in Bakersfield."

or

"I don't know how we could get all our Bakersfield furniture in here."

And then she'd pout. At one point she seemed incredulous as she asked why the homes were so small. Maybe it's because back in Shakespeare's day they didn't anticipate your horrible overstuffed JC Penney furniture and 70 inch flatscreen.

But that wasn't the worst part.

The worst part was that throughout the entire episode, Sarah was speaking with a fake British accent.

"Lovely day, guv'na!"

It was cring-worthy. We both just wanted to throw something at the TV every time she opened her mouth.

By the time it was over we both felt we had just watched the Bakersfield High performance of "My Fair Lady".

Does Not Compute

I was pretty much offline all day yesterday having my computer tuned-up. It had been acting sluggish for months and recently some bugs had cropped up and I thought it best to have it looked at before something major went wrong.

As far as I know there's only one Mac specialist in all of Bakersfield. He's very nice, and very good.

And very expensive.

What are you going to do? Unplug the machine and haul it to LA? That's really the only other option. He's who I called last year when my hard drive crashed and I have to admit, he saved my life.

I was in college at the dawn of the computer graphics age, but back then the hardware was so expensive, the software so rudimentary and the results so primitive that it wasn't something we spent any time on. That all changed a few short years later.

My boss at the time had moved to a new agency and he wanted me to follow him. After one of the briefest interviews I've ever had, I was hired on the spot. I showed up for work on the first day and was shown to my office, the first time I'd seen it. The door opened and there inside, instead of a drafting table, was a desk with a Mac. I was given my first project and told the deadline was Friday. Nobody even showed me how to turn the computer on and I was afraid to ask. Computer skills had never come up in the interview and I was afraid if I admitted I had none I'd be shown the door.

That first week was a steep learning curve, to say the least. And it's been a struggle to keep up ever since.

When the internet exploded in the mid 90's I tried to stay current. I spent thousands of dollars on night courses and weekend seminars on the latest web software, but as soon as I mastered them, something was introduced that made them immediately obsolete. It seemed less like staying ahead of the curve, and more like a very expensive snipe hunt.

Then I took a different job. It paid extremely well, but they didn't really believe in the concept of evenings and weekends off. So my continuing education discontinued. By the time I hit 40 I was more interested in having a life than chasing after the latest shiny new thing. And I had a new, secure job, so why worry about it?

Famous last words.

I've known now for years my skill set was out of date, but what to learn? There are dozens of programs out there, some old, some new, some relevant, some on the edge of obsolescence and it's a crap shoot which is which.

I spoke to recruiter in LA I've worked with over the years. Two years ago she insisted I had to learn a specific program if I wanted to survive. I actually signed up for classes, but then the house sold and the move to Bako loomed, so I postponed it. I called her last week and mentioned signing up again for classes and her reply was...

"Nobody asks for that anymore. It's irrelevant. What you really have to learn is.... HTML5."

Well, I guess that was money not spent well.

So for the past week I've ben looking into classes in HTML5. Something online. And I found a couple I was on the verge of signing up for. Which brings me back to my computer guy. I offhandedly mentioned to him that I was going to take HTML classes and he said...

"Why would you do that? When they just announced... EDGE."

Sure enough, he showed me the announcement online. Just a few days earlier they had announced EDGE. The next essential new thing. It comes out later this year. By the time people master it and classes start being offered in it, or the "EDGE for Dummies" book comes out, it will probably have been rendered obsolete by the next bright shiny new thing.

I swear to God, it's a Hall of Mirrors. Makes me just want to throw in the towel.

Shelf Life

It's actually easy to forget that you (or pretend you don't, as the case may be) live in Hooterville, hundreds of miles from civilization.

Especially if, like me, you rarely go outside.

Unless, of course, you go to the supermarket on Tuesday.

Wednesday is the day most of the stores get their weekly deliveries, so Tuesday is the day when everything starts to...run out.

I've never lived anywhere where things ran out! I come from the Big City where the stores are stocked (and open) 24/7. It was hard enough adapting to the limited hours and even more limited selection. And now they're going to run out of even that? What kind of Banana Republic is this?

In all the years I lived in LA, the only time I ever saw empty shelves was during the '92 riots. The city was in flames, people looting in the streets and the city went on lock-down with a dusk to dawn curfew. I lived in West Hollywood at the time and the local Pavilions was stripped bare of all the essentials for survival.... Pellegrino, artisan bread, imported cheese. Even fresh cut flowers, because nothing brightens a civil insurrection like a little pop of color. I remember you couldn't find paté for days. It was awful.

The first time I encountered the shortages here was one of the first Tuesdays we lived here. As I entered the store you could tell things were a little off. It's not like the store had been looted or anything, but there were definitely bare shelves and empty freezers. First, I noticed there was almost no dog food. And then milk. But the final straw for me came with the peanut butter... there was none. I had been craving peanut butter and there simply wasn't any. Oh sure, they had chunky, but... please.

I was obviously taken somewhat aback and a nearby clerk helpfully schooled me.

"Come back on Thursday once we've had a chance to stock up. The trucks all come tomorrow."

Oh, so trucks is it? I had imagined C40 cargo planes swooping low over the vacant lots behind the store, air dropping pallets of Cap'n Crunch to us starving villagers below.

At any rate, I forgot my own advice and went to the market yesterday and was reminded just how backwards my life is these days.

But this time, they at least had peanut butter.

Coffin Nails

I probably shouldn't even mention this for fear of jinxing it, but... we quit smoking.

Let me rephrase that... we are in the midst of our latest attempt to quit smoking.

So far so good.

It's been one day.

Between the two of us, we've tried just about everything, multiple times. Patches, gum, pills. I even went to a hypnotist years ago. That was not money well spent; my first stop after he pronounced me a "non-smoker" was the gas station at the corner for a pack of smokes.

In a bit of counterintuitive thinking, we seriously thought about trying to quit when we first moved to Bako. Our thinking was that everything in our lives was so upended at that time that it might be easier to break the habit when everything was in turmoil.

Bad idea.

But I think it's going to work this time. We're taking Chantix.

Now, we thought about doing it a year ago, but one of the side effects of Chantix is the not infrequent occurrence of suicidal depression. Considering we were now living in Bakersfield and my career had collapsed and I basically already had one foot out on the window ledge, we thought the timing was... bad.

But here we are a year later, and suicidal depression isn't much of a concern. Been there, done that. I've been soaking in it for a year so I'm just used to it.

We actually got the pills weeks ago, a few days before news reports came out linking it to a 72% increased chance of heart attack or stroke. It gave me pause, since there's a history of heart problems in my family and I just not that long ago spent a month nursing my mother through open heart surgery.

But then my seemingly resurgent career collapsed and my attitude about the side effects was "fuck it". I'll take a massive heart attack over the alternate future... living in a cardboard box off the highway. And on the off chance these pills don't kill me, I'll finally be a non-smoker.

Which is good, because cardboard is extremely flammable.

Manic Mondays

You would think I would dread Mondays. It's the start of the work week and I have no job. I also have few if any freelance projects these days, so Mondays mean the start of a probably futile week of looking for a job somewhere else or trying to scare up some work here.

And yet, I look forward to Mondays.

Because the weekends here are so depressing.

On the weekends, Bako turns into a ghost town.

This time of year, it's always bad because of the heat and humidity. People escape to the coast for some fun in the sun without the risk of heat stroke or radiation burns. Others flee to San Fran or LA for a little shopping and dining and nightlife and culture. You know... life. But the vast majority of locals hunker down, sequestered behind cheap mini-blinds and plastic plantation shutters in air conditioned isolation. It's like a zombie movie where all the zombies are inside on their Playstations.

I can walk the dogs morning, noon or night and in 30 minutes never see a single soul. We went to Home Depot one Saturday around 10am and parked right up front. Inside, there were more employees than shoppers. Obviously, there are still some people around. But on the whole, weekends in Bakersfield are a pretty lonely experience.

And it can't be blamed totally on the heat. A few months back, when my little dog escaped, it was a beautiful, coolish Spring day. Saturday, 9am. As I frantically ran blocks and blocks in every direction looking for her, there wasn't a human in sight. I felt like I was in an episode of "The Twilight Zone", the one where there's only one human left on Earth after a nuclear cataclysm.
Of course, if there was a nuclear cataclysm in Bakersfield, I'm not sure you'd notice.

So yes, I look forward to Mondays. It means the return of some life to the neighborhood. There's always a chance the mail will come and on Tuesdays and Wednesdays the neighborhood gardeners show up. As long as I can hear the leaf blowers I know I'm not alone.