So here we are at Day 60. Two months. My how time doesn't fly. It seems like it's been so much longer. I don't even know why I still count the days. Maybe it's a sign I haven't completely abandoned hope - people facing the possibility of parole probably count the days, people on death row probably don't.
When we first moved here I kept picturing myself as Meryl Streep in "Out of Africa". Gay, I know. Bako was playing the part of Africa, minus the charm, but with indoor plumbing. I related to the story of a woman moved against her will to a strange and primitive place, facing hostile colonials and scary natives, utterly lost. But she picked herself up, dusted herself off, grew a little coffee and ultimately got to go home. Of course the analogy fell apart once we got to the supporting cast. The boyfriend would end up in the Robert Redford role, and things didn't really end well for him. But I kept searching for the perfect film to mirror my own predicament. "Too Wong Foo". "Midnight Express". "Aliens". I went through quite a few.
But I finally settled on Tom Hanks in "Cast Away". Marooned on a deserted island, presumed dead to all who knew him. Fighting for survival and his own sanity. He builds a raft to try and escape, but without any means to sail it he's constantly met with failure. Until one day, after a storm, a plastic Port-a-Potty washes ashore. He fashions the flimsy plastic into a makeshift sail and is finally able to escape and is ultimately rescued. He finally makes it home. Sure, he's lost everything, but he's alive. And he's lost an amazing amount of weight. I should be so lucky.
But the thing that sealed the deal for me?
That Port-a-Potty that washes ashore?
It had a name printed on the side.
The name of a city.
B A K E R S F I E L D
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Random Good Things About Bako: #2
Fall.
I've never lived anywhere previous to here when I was able to experience Fall. LA doesn't have seasons in the traditional sense - "Fall" means wildfires, "Winter", mudslides. "Spring" is basically what we called "June Gloom", the cold, clammy weather that moves in in late April and lingers oftentimes into August, pissing off the tourists. The best way to tell what season it was in the rest of the country was to drive down Sunset and check out the background on the Marlboro billboards. Cowboy in snow? Must be winter. When the PC police had those taken down, you were basically on your own.
We had "Faux Fall" at our house in the hills owing to the huge number of sycamores and oaks. But lacking the hard freeze necessary to get the color ball rolling, the leaves usually just went from green to dead and bypassed the pretty part. So we got all the leaf cleanup, without any of the magic.
But here in Bako they have the real deal. About two weeks ago the temps briefly dipped below freezing at night, and it's as if someone fired a starter's pistol - all the trees seem to be racing through the full color spectrum. Most of them are still in the golden orange phase, but quite a few have moved on into brilliant reds.
I'm pretty sure it all natural, and not the trees rusting in the toxic air, but either way, it's beautiful.
I've never lived anywhere previous to here when I was able to experience Fall. LA doesn't have seasons in the traditional sense - "Fall" means wildfires, "Winter", mudslides. "Spring" is basically what we called "June Gloom", the cold, clammy weather that moves in in late April and lingers oftentimes into August, pissing off the tourists. The best way to tell what season it was in the rest of the country was to drive down Sunset and check out the background on the Marlboro billboards. Cowboy in snow? Must be winter. When the PC police had those taken down, you were basically on your own.
We had "Faux Fall" at our house in the hills owing to the huge number of sycamores and oaks. But lacking the hard freeze necessary to get the color ball rolling, the leaves usually just went from green to dead and bypassed the pretty part. So we got all the leaf cleanup, without any of the magic.
But here in Bako they have the real deal. About two weeks ago the temps briefly dipped below freezing at night, and it's as if someone fired a starter's pistol - all the trees seem to be racing through the full color spectrum. Most of them are still in the golden orange phase, but quite a few have moved on into brilliant reds.
I'm pretty sure it all natural, and not the trees rusting in the toxic air, but either way, it's beautiful.
Eric and the F Word
That would make a great children's book title.
Actually, I was looking over the blog and grew a little alarmed at how often I drop the F-bomb. My mother, the school teacher, would be mortified if she read this. I really have no excuse. It's just a sloppy, lazy habit picked up during my years in the entertainment biz. In Hollywood, the F-word is used so casually and so often it doesn't even raise an eyebrow. It's become kind of the go-to, catchall word suitable for all occasions. Spoken in anger or in joy, frustration or despair, it's a noun, a verb, an adjective, whatever you want. It has 101 uses, like baking soda.
But I need to clean up my act, especially now that I live in Bako. People here don't cuss, as far as I know. The harshest thing I've heard was SWEET MOTHER OF PEARL, and that was by a grown man. A grown straight man. I accidentally dropped the bomb in a meeting with a new client, and if it were a movie, it's where everyone would freeze and the music would cut out with the sound of a needle scratching across the vinyl. Which come to think of it is another sloppy and lazy Hollywood habit - how many times have you heard that in movie trailers? Anyhow, I still got the job, but I think they're keeping an eye on me. So from this point on, I vow never to use vulgar language unless it's absolutely fucking necessary.
Actually, I was looking over the blog and grew a little alarmed at how often I drop the F-bomb. My mother, the school teacher, would be mortified if she read this. I really have no excuse. It's just a sloppy, lazy habit picked up during my years in the entertainment biz. In Hollywood, the F-word is used so casually and so often it doesn't even raise an eyebrow. It's become kind of the go-to, catchall word suitable for all occasions. Spoken in anger or in joy, frustration or despair, it's a noun, a verb, an adjective, whatever you want. It has 101 uses, like baking soda.
But I need to clean up my act, especially now that I live in Bako. People here don't cuss, as far as I know. The harshest thing I've heard was SWEET MOTHER OF PEARL, and that was by a grown man. A grown straight man. I accidentally dropped the bomb in a meeting with a new client, and if it were a movie, it's where everyone would freeze and the music would cut out with the sound of a needle scratching across the vinyl. Which come to think of it is another sloppy and lazy Hollywood habit - how many times have you heard that in movie trailers? Anyhow, I still got the job, but I think they're keeping an eye on me. So from this point on, I vow never to use vulgar language unless it's absolutely fucking necessary.
Monday, November 9, 2009
There's Something About Mary
So we both started smoking again. There's a shocker. This particular effort to quit was doomed from the start. When my partner announced in early August "we" would be quitting that week, my first reaction was "Are you out of your fucking mind? NOW?"
He was on unemployment, with absolutely zero prospects. I hadn't worked in months, nor been paid for the work I did prior to that. The house was about to enter escrow as a short sale, in an effort to stave off foreclosure. We were in the process of packing up our things with no idea where in the world we were going. What a simply fantastic time to sneak up behind me and kick out the last crutch I had. "But we need to think about our health" he said. No shit. I thought about my health everyday, wondering if the constant chest pains were merely from stress or the warning signs of a major coronary. I didn't have time to worry about my health sometime in the mythical future. But he was undeterred, and just to maintain peace in the family I went along with it.
And the first few weeks were actually OK. Didn't miss it at all. It looked for awhile like this time would finally be IT, the final triumphant attempt to kick the habit. And then we found out we'd be moving to Bako.
I started cheating immediately. Sneaking them when he was at work or when I walked the dogs. I thought it was curious he didn't smell it, but it ends up that's because he was cheating too. He denies it to this day, but when you do a load of laundry and out fall a half a dozen lighters, and they aren't yours, then I think it's safe to say he's being a bit disingenuous. But no matter - it is what it is.
So we're out on the patio having a smoke last week (we don't smoke in the house), and all of a sudden, from over the fence we hear a horrible hacking cough, followed quickly by a door slamming. And it was a fake cough, the kind you do when you're calling in sick, but you really aren't. The type of over-production that isn't fooling anyone.
It's Mary. The neighbor. And she's sending us a signal.
My boyfriend thought I was being paranoid. Maybe she was sick. Maybe she just accidentally slammed the door. Why did I always have to think the worst of people? ( I just do.)
Anyhow, the next day it happened again...
Cough, cough, HACK, cough... SLAM
Oy vay. OK, we get it. We decide to do the considerate thing and if we must smoke, we'll just go to the opposite side of the yard, at the edge of the dead lawn, next to the fence we share with Cindy, the nice neighbor. And Cindy's a smoker too, so it's cool. Forty feet from Mary's fence, I light up a smoke and...
Cough, cough, HACK, cough... SLAM
You have GOT to be kidding me. Doesn't she ever go inside? And how could she smell it two seconds after it's lit? Mary's a bitch. But neither one of us are in any mood to start a feud with someone we share a wall with. So we decide we just won't go outside if Mary is outside. You can usually tell when she is, because her yard is festooned with tiny white Christmas lights and she turns them on when she goes outside. Such a magical look for such a miserable person. So that becomes the drill - we poke our heads out the door and see if the coast is clear. And that worked exactly twice. The third time, we see no lights and step outside on the patio and light a smoke, and 10 seconds later we hear a window slide open and then hear
Cough, cough, HACK, cough... SLAM
Now I'm just pissed. At least have the decency to talk to us. But no, she always just scurries away whenever we run into each other in the front yard. Just like her little cockroach friends. I'm beginning to wonder where this is all headed. Well, yesterday, we found out.
We came home Sunday afternoon to discover Mary has shrunk-wrapped her patio. Hung heavy gauge plastic and turned it into an outside ICU. Never say Mary doesn't know how to make a point.
My boyfriend looks at me and says "Do you think that's because of us?" Um... exactly what other reason could there possibly be? That the City of Bakersfield has quarantined her with an infectious disease and neglected to mention it to us? No, I think it's safe to say it's because of us. God I hate her.
So the saddest thing about this whole episode is we were going to give quitting another shot around the holidays. With the house gone, and things starting to settle down in our lives (albeit in Bako) we figured we should give it a serious try. But not now. We're going to keep smoking to spite her. I'm on my way out to pick up a carton right now. Fuck her. And her little dog too.
He was on unemployment, with absolutely zero prospects. I hadn't worked in months, nor been paid for the work I did prior to that. The house was about to enter escrow as a short sale, in an effort to stave off foreclosure. We were in the process of packing up our things with no idea where in the world we were going. What a simply fantastic time to sneak up behind me and kick out the last crutch I had. "But we need to think about our health" he said. No shit. I thought about my health everyday, wondering if the constant chest pains were merely from stress or the warning signs of a major coronary. I didn't have time to worry about my health sometime in the mythical future. But he was undeterred, and just to maintain peace in the family I went along with it.
And the first few weeks were actually OK. Didn't miss it at all. It looked for awhile like this time would finally be IT, the final triumphant attempt to kick the habit. And then we found out we'd be moving to Bako.
I started cheating immediately. Sneaking them when he was at work or when I walked the dogs. I thought it was curious he didn't smell it, but it ends up that's because he was cheating too. He denies it to this day, but when you do a load of laundry and out fall a half a dozen lighters, and they aren't yours, then I think it's safe to say he's being a bit disingenuous. But no matter - it is what it is.
So we're out on the patio having a smoke last week (we don't smoke in the house), and all of a sudden, from over the fence we hear a horrible hacking cough, followed quickly by a door slamming. And it was a fake cough, the kind you do when you're calling in sick, but you really aren't. The type of over-production that isn't fooling anyone.
It's Mary. The neighbor. And she's sending us a signal.
My boyfriend thought I was being paranoid. Maybe she was sick. Maybe she just accidentally slammed the door. Why did I always have to think the worst of people? ( I just do.)
Anyhow, the next day it happened again...
Cough, cough, HACK, cough... SLAM
Oy vay. OK, we get it. We decide to do the considerate thing and if we must smoke, we'll just go to the opposite side of the yard, at the edge of the dead lawn, next to the fence we share with Cindy, the nice neighbor. And Cindy's a smoker too, so it's cool. Forty feet from Mary's fence, I light up a smoke and...
Cough, cough, HACK, cough... SLAM
You have GOT to be kidding me. Doesn't she ever go inside? And how could she smell it two seconds after it's lit? Mary's a bitch. But neither one of us are in any mood to start a feud with someone we share a wall with. So we decide we just won't go outside if Mary is outside. You can usually tell when she is, because her yard is festooned with tiny white Christmas lights and she turns them on when she goes outside. Such a magical look for such a miserable person. So that becomes the drill - we poke our heads out the door and see if the coast is clear. And that worked exactly twice. The third time, we see no lights and step outside on the patio and light a smoke, and 10 seconds later we hear a window slide open and then hear
Cough, cough, HACK, cough... SLAM
Now I'm just pissed. At least have the decency to talk to us. But no, she always just scurries away whenever we run into each other in the front yard. Just like her little cockroach friends. I'm beginning to wonder where this is all headed. Well, yesterday, we found out.
We came home Sunday afternoon to discover Mary has shrunk-wrapped her patio. Hung heavy gauge plastic and turned it into an outside ICU. Never say Mary doesn't know how to make a point.
My boyfriend looks at me and says "Do you think that's because of us?" Um... exactly what other reason could there possibly be? That the City of Bakersfield has quarantined her with an infectious disease and neglected to mention it to us? No, I think it's safe to say it's because of us. God I hate her.
So the saddest thing about this whole episode is we were going to give quitting another shot around the holidays. With the house gone, and things starting to settle down in our lives (albeit in Bako) we figured we should give it a serious try. But not now. We're going to keep smoking to spite her. I'm on my way out to pick up a carton right now. Fuck her. And her little dog too.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Turkey Club
I have glimpsed the future. I stumbled across one of those corporate experiments, a "test concept". It was out of the way, incognito, with little or no signage.
It's a deli. It's a bakery. It's a gas station!
"Gimme pastrami on rye and ten bucks on #4..."
Who the hell comes up with this crap? Do they just throw darts at a wall full of options? Pull random businesses out of a hat and see if they can Frankenstein them together?
"Hey Phil - you got 'lube job/pedicure', see if you can make that work".
I don't know.... I'm not sure this thing is going to fly, but who knows - it certainly wouldn't be the first deli where I got gas. Ba Dum Bump.
And they cater! I sure hope the aren't counting on word of mouth -
"Betty, these canapes are divine, wherever did you get them?"
"The Shell station".
I don't see that happening, not even here in Dogpatch, where they worship the oil companies. And obviously Shell Oil (who I'm guessing is behind it since it's their product out front) figured that out too. That's why they've given it the focus grouped, market tested, blandly idyllic, yet utterly meaningless name of "Brookside". Sounds nice, right? Well this one is across the street from a vast, vacant dirt lot. The nearest "brook" is the fetid irrigation canal a block away.
It's obvious this aint no mom and pop operation - there is some serious money being thrown at this thing. Richly appointed, all dark wood and marble inside. And charging exorbitant prices that should defray the cost pretty quick. If people go for it, which I'm not sure they will.
Listen, I love people watching as I sip my latte as much as anyone - that's why God made Starbucks. I'm just not sure "watching people pump gas" is much of an incentive to switch to Brookside. Although there were quite a few people inside.
Ad therein lies a major problem, one I would think would be fairly obvious to the geniuses who thought this up - while every pump was occupied, no one was pumping gas. Not a soul around. They were all inside having nosh.
No, this one need to go back to the lab for a re-think. Start with "parking".
It's a deli. It's a bakery. It's a gas station!
"Gimme pastrami on rye and ten bucks on #4..."
Who the hell comes up with this crap? Do they just throw darts at a wall full of options? Pull random businesses out of a hat and see if they can Frankenstein them together?
"Hey Phil - you got 'lube job/pedicure', see if you can make that work".
I don't know.... I'm not sure this thing is going to fly, but who knows - it certainly wouldn't be the first deli where I got gas. Ba Dum Bump.
And they cater! I sure hope the aren't counting on word of mouth -
"Betty, these canapes are divine, wherever did you get them?"
"The Shell station".
I don't see that happening, not even here in Dogpatch, where they worship the oil companies. And obviously Shell Oil (who I'm guessing is behind it since it's their product out front) figured that out too. That's why they've given it the focus grouped, market tested, blandly idyllic, yet utterly meaningless name of "Brookside". Sounds nice, right? Well this one is across the street from a vast, vacant dirt lot. The nearest "brook" is the fetid irrigation canal a block away.
It's obvious this aint no mom and pop operation - there is some serious money being thrown at this thing. Richly appointed, all dark wood and marble inside. And charging exorbitant prices that should defray the cost pretty quick. If people go for it, which I'm not sure they will.
Listen, I love people watching as I sip my latte as much as anyone - that's why God made Starbucks. I'm just not sure "watching people pump gas" is much of an incentive to switch to Brookside. Although there were quite a few people inside.
Ad therein lies a major problem, one I would think would be fairly obvious to the geniuses who thought this up - while every pump was occupied, no one was pumping gas. Not a soul around. They were all inside having nosh.
No, this one need to go back to the lab for a re-think. Start with "parking".
Friday, November 6, 2009
It's The Water, And So Much More
All these posts about the shitty air, and not a single one about the shitty water. I'm being remiss.
We get mineral water here. Oh no, not the fancy schmancy Pellegrino stuff. I'm talking real minerals. Probably lead and arsenic too. And God only knows what else. It comes out of the tap white as milk. If you let it sit for about 10 minutes, all the crap it in settles and it resembles "water". But it didn't go anywhere. It's still there... waiting for you. Nobody here drinks it. God no. Not even the locals. The first week we were here I asked a waiter for a glass of water and he looked at me like I just ordered blowfish. If you want to get rich in Bakersfield, go into bottled water.
Most of the houses in this neighborhood sport wooden fences between them, and walking the dogs through the 'hood, you can't help but notice that wherever the sprinklers hit the fences, they've become bleached bone white. And then you think... "I bathe in this crap!" Wash my clothes. Do the dishes. Maybe it's something that occurs naturally. I doubt it - nothing here appears to occur naturally. Maybe the people up north, watching us steal it and waste it have poisoned it out of spite. Can't say I'd blame them.
I tried to do some research online. I googled "Bakersfield's Shitty Water" and got the City's website, which made me laugh. And there I learned "Anyone who has lived in California knows that water is a precious commodity that has been a source of rivalry between northern and southern California since the early Gold Rush days..." No shit. That's why they steal it.
At any rate, I never found out the secret to our "White Gold". I did find out some other fun facts though. I discovered that the municipal reservoir, Lake Isabella, northeast of Bako, is held back by a dam considered the #1 risk of failure in the entire United States. It even showed a map of what the flood would look like when the dam fails (their word, not mine) and basically Bako will be under 3 or 4 feet of water. Something to look forward to.
So the moral of the story appears to be, if the air doesn't kill you, one way or another, the water will.
We get mineral water here. Oh no, not the fancy schmancy Pellegrino stuff. I'm talking real minerals. Probably lead and arsenic too. And God only knows what else. It comes out of the tap white as milk. If you let it sit for about 10 minutes, all the crap it in settles and it resembles "water". But it didn't go anywhere. It's still there... waiting for you. Nobody here drinks it. God no. Not even the locals. The first week we were here I asked a waiter for a glass of water and he looked at me like I just ordered blowfish. If you want to get rich in Bakersfield, go into bottled water.
Most of the houses in this neighborhood sport wooden fences between them, and walking the dogs through the 'hood, you can't help but notice that wherever the sprinklers hit the fences, they've become bleached bone white. And then you think... "I bathe in this crap!" Wash my clothes. Do the dishes. Maybe it's something that occurs naturally. I doubt it - nothing here appears to occur naturally. Maybe the people up north, watching us steal it and waste it have poisoned it out of spite. Can't say I'd blame them.
I tried to do some research online. I googled "Bakersfield's Shitty Water" and got the City's website, which made me laugh. And there I learned "Anyone who has lived in California knows that water is a precious commodity that has been a source of rivalry between northern and southern California since the early Gold Rush days..." No shit. That's why they steal it.
At any rate, I never found out the secret to our "White Gold". I did find out some other fun facts though. I discovered that the municipal reservoir, Lake Isabella, northeast of Bako, is held back by a dam considered the #1 risk of failure in the entire United States. It even showed a map of what the flood would look like when the dam fails (their word, not mine) and basically Bako will be under 3 or 4 feet of water. Something to look forward to.
So the moral of the story appears to be, if the air doesn't kill you, one way or another, the water will.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
A Roz By Any Other Name
I'd begun to think perhaps I'd only imagined her, I hadn't seen her in weeks. Roz. Or rather "Wild Roz"... that's what it says on the vanity plates on her late model Vette - WLD ROZ. She's been elusive, the neighborhood sasquatch. I saw her twice in the first weeks we'd lived here, tooling around the neighborhood. But then since then, nothing. Until this morning.
I like Wild Roz. She's a magical glimpse into the past. 1985, to be specific. You can tell by the hair, bleached blonde and teased up like a standard poodle. She looks like Joan Cusack in "Working Girl". And the clothes. The first time I saw her, and then again today, she had shoulder pads on the size of an aircraft carrier. The second time I saw her it was a red "Thriller" leather jacket, although I'm guessing it was probably pleather. She's gotta be in her mid 50's, but I get the impression in Wild Roz's world, it's always Morning In America and We Are The World. She looks to be a former all-access kinda gal, a groupie. I can easily see her lolling about backstage at a Bon Jovi concert. Or more likely, Poison.
But what tips Wild Roz from being "mildly interesting" into the "fascinating" column is her doppleganger - we'll call her "Lil Roz". Perched on the edge of her dashboard, staring back at her, is a doll. Could be a Barbie, although it looked to be a little too plus -sized for that. A doll clutching a guitar.
Rock on Lil Roz.
Every time I've seen them, Lil Roz is decked out in exactly the same outfit as Wild Roz. Twins. They must dress each other every morning. Creepy, yes. But also kind of oddly sweet. I think Wild Roz's world is probably blissfully happy.
In fact the only thing that probably pisses Wild Roz off is the fact that someone else in California got the WILD ROZ plates first.
I like Wild Roz. She's a magical glimpse into the past. 1985, to be specific. You can tell by the hair, bleached blonde and teased up like a standard poodle. She looks like Joan Cusack in "Working Girl". And the clothes. The first time I saw her, and then again today, she had shoulder pads on the size of an aircraft carrier. The second time I saw her it was a red "Thriller" leather jacket, although I'm guessing it was probably pleather. She's gotta be in her mid 50's, but I get the impression in Wild Roz's world, it's always Morning In America and We Are The World. She looks to be a former all-access kinda gal, a groupie. I can easily see her lolling about backstage at a Bon Jovi concert. Or more likely, Poison.
But what tips Wild Roz from being "mildly interesting" into the "fascinating" column is her doppleganger - we'll call her "Lil Roz". Perched on the edge of her dashboard, staring back at her, is a doll. Could be a Barbie, although it looked to be a little too plus -sized for that. A doll clutching a guitar.
Rock on Lil Roz.
Every time I've seen them, Lil Roz is decked out in exactly the same outfit as Wild Roz. Twins. They must dress each other every morning. Creepy, yes. But also kind of oddly sweet. I think Wild Roz's world is probably blissfully happy.
In fact the only thing that probably pisses Wild Roz off is the fact that someone else in California got the WILD ROZ plates first.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)