12 minutes to the LOOP

1.3.2k9

Thank Christ I don't drive in LA. Not only are the drivers distracted, most are terrible at driving. Most, despite a law prohibiting it, are on the frikkin' phone. Most are the only occupant in the car. I avoid driving in LA as much as possible, and I'm really, REALLY lucky that I can ride my bike to work.

When I did drive in LA, in 2006 for three months, I had a "reverse commute." Although it was still an average 32-minute trip - which to me is a lot - it woulda been a LOT worse had I been driving in a non-reverse commute. The side streets I take to and from work these days are usually a "solo commute," with no one driving down the streets I choose, except for the garbage, recycling and street cleaner trucks each Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.

But guess what? In LA, if one thing happens, even sleepy side-streets become choked with cars. Much like my commute last night. Not sure what happened up on Lincoln Blvd (CA 1), but something big enough to close the goddamn street happened, and desperate commuters invaded my sleepy commute.

It's not unlike seeing a city bus full of passengers on a side street. I was on such a bus, one summer afternoon in my beloved Chicago. It was a 13 mile ride south to downtown from my apartment, and the bus chugged along Sheridan Avenue, following the lake shore, until a point when it entered Lake Shore Drive itself, for the haul onto Michigan Avenue, downtown. But at the time of the neighborhood incursion, we were way way up in my neighborhood, Rogers Park. Sheridan Road, southbound from Rogers Park, takes a left turn at the neighborhood called Edgewater. If one is on Sheridan and doesn't turn, one will find oneself on Broadway Street, which is what our bus driver did. It took less than a second for damn-near everyone on the crowded bus to moan and say out loud, "wrong way!!!" The bus driver must have shaken her head and figured that she'd haul through the neighborhood to hook back up with Sheridan Road, so after a block or two, she took the left down a narrow street.

I happened to have a window seat, and it being summer, and hot, the window was open wide. The bus came to a stop sign and stopped. Two kids who were drawing on the slate sidewalk with big pieces of chalk, looked up at the city bus, clearly out of place. They caught my stare and I said, loud: "We're lost!" The two kids, god bless them, did not hesitate to jump up, heave their chalk at us, give us the finger and yell, "FUCK YOOOUUUUUU" as they took off chasing us, as we had started moving again. Those little fuckers chased us for three blocks. I laughed my ass off the whole way downtown.

Tonight - Doc's Clock.



bye-ee!

whrr ... clik!

Date

1.2.2k9

People who go apeshit for celebrities get me wondering: Why bother? They're bums! Well, most of 'em.

My little wife came home from the Whole Paycheck the other day and said, "that midget from "The Hobbit" was shopping with his bodyguard." I said, "Do you mean "Lord of the Rings?" She told me to eat it. I said, "Elijah Wood?" as I looked it up on the imdb. She said yeah. "I saw him at least three times throughout the store. I think he was stalking me." I said, "Who wouldn't?"

She said, "Who wouldn't what? Stalk me? The fuck is that supposed to mean?" "You are kinda stalkable. Stalk-worthy. It's not out of the question that someone would stalk you through Whole Paycheck. You know," I said. She said: "Are you on dope?"

DUH!

Tonight - Lone Palm.

Convenient large ashtrays out front. Trees grew outta'm over tha years.

bye-ee!

whrr ... clik!

Vernon II

12.3.2k8

Gettin' up in the morn and going to work is the engine that keeps the modern world running, although in these troubling financial times fewer people need do because they done been laid off. Been there.

There's a bloke in my neighborhood that goes as far as getting up, getting dressed and getting into his car, but that's it. I've observed him for quite some time doing this: Just sitting in his car, an old, junky, tan Astrovan or some such. At times he reads the paper. Other times he smokes. Just recently I spied a tiny TV on his dash. How long he sits there I don't know. What time he starts in the am, I don't know. How long he's been doing this, again, I don't know.

I wonder if he tells the wife, "bye honey, see you tonight," like that guy in that crappy Joel Schumacher movie (which one? They're ALL crappy! ha ha ha!) and pretends to go to the office. Ain't likely, though, as he's always in the same place. One trip to the Ralph's by his wife and a chance drive-by of his spot and the jig would be up. No, I don't think he's lying to anyone. I think he's just a guy that sits in his car.


Tonight - Homestead.



bye-ee!

whrr ... clik!

Believe it!

12.2.2k8

Quiz! What do these two nimrods ...


... have in common with these two nimrods?


Give up?? They all eat off the same plates!

Ya see, the cats' diets have changed over time and they now eat canned food. Only thing, their cat dishes were deep for a pile of dry food, not flat for a glob of wet. So my little wife went over to the second-hand shop (quote: "I don't want those fuckers eating off the plates WE eat off") and scored a foursome of small plates. Here are two:



The do the job very well. We got four so we could have two in action and have a pair clean at the same time. I was washing the cat spit off one when I turned it over and saw the stamp:




Braniff Airlines? I've flown Braniff! I don't remember such in-flight service, er ... service. Further inspection shows they were dishes for 747s ... likely First Class service, for folks like the nimrods pictured above.


I showed this to my wife and she didn't care. But I couldn't help but think of the exotic ports-of-call these simple dishes have visited in their time in service. The adventure! The wonder! Then I thought of their sad fates ... a dish for sliced chicken hearts and livers in thick gravy. ick.

But oh! the glory days!




Tonight - Club Deluxe.

Burlesque night!!

bye-ee!

whrr ... clik!