City of angels

I have a complicated relationship with L.A. It's a love/hate relationship, the kind only someone, like myself or anyone who's ever had a high school girlfriend can appreciate.

And when I say someone like myself, I mean a native. Born and raised. Never lived anywhere else.

All too often, the city grabs my arm, pulls it up behind my back until it hurts and makes me start sentences in that way. "When I was a kid..." and "Back when I was in high school..." and "Let me tell you what traffic used to be like."

The major love/hate component of the city is the weather. I've always been torn. On one hand, I'd love to live in a city with real seasons, for example San Francisco. Yeah, yeah, I can hear all the L.A. people whining about how we have seasons too, just not as extreme.

Listen, I've lived here my whole life. There are only two seasons: summer, and construction.

However if I may be allowed to contradict myself (not sure why I'm asking permission for something I do on a daily basis), there are stunningly beautiful days when the east coast is buried in a blizzard or being hit by hurricane Roker and it's ninety and sunny here.

It's the kind of weather that sets Facebook on fire, with everyone posting the same sunny picture of wispy white clouds, the tops of palm trees or the ocean and sarcastic, mocking greetings to the eastern brethren.

Another cause of so much of my agita (look it up) about the city is the fact it's just such a whore. L.A. won't waste a second tearing down its history to put up a strip mall or new fusion sushi restaurant. Cliché but true.

I've watched it tear down or lose places that gave it character and personality. For every Tommy's or Pink's, there's a Spanish Kitchen that's now a beauty salon. Or a Wilshire Blvd. Bob's Big Boy that's a BMW dealership. At least the former Pan Pacific Auditorium is a park people can enjoy. The city gets older but no wiser.

There are even websites, like this one, that revel in articles why L.A. is the worst place ever.

My entire attitude reminds me of the old joke: "Do you have trouble making up your mind?" "Well, yes and no." That's my ongoing debate about the city of my birth.

But I'm nothing if not Mr. Glass Half Full, although not with rain water because we're in the seventh year of a statewide drought. Which in L.A. only means one thing: waiters are required to serve Evian at brunch.

Anyway, for the moment I'm not going anywhere. Even though there are states where I could buy city blocks for what I could sell my house for, I just can't seem to leave L.A. behind.

One last thing that bothers me about this urban sprawl of a city is that, bar none, at every restaurant they always..oh crap, look at the time. I gotta get to my audition.

Hold that thought.

There's a reason it's free

Yesterday, my partner and art director extraordinaire Imke was taking a break and looking at something I didn’t even know existed.

No, not pictures of me with a 32-inch waist. The free stuff page on Craigslist.

When I looked over at her monitor and saw it, I was reminded of what George Carlin once said – “Hammer two pieces of wood together and some schmuck will buy it.” Except you don’t have to buy this crap. Cause it’s free.

Most of the items, like the ratty, I-don’t-want-to-know-what-that-stain-is couches, mattresses (ewww!) and giant piles of dirt are things that won’t fit in the back of the donor's cars. So they want us to cart it away for them.

Not that the idea of a free used toilet isn’t appealing, but sometimes it's just better to pony up the money and sit, lay and pee where no man has gone before.

I don’t know why, but for some reason couches seem to get tossed more than most items. I just wonder who buys couches this ugly, and then decides it’s done and they need a new ugly one.

Maybe Craigslist is the couch underground, like the resistance in wartime France. It's a giant black market couch exchange, where one person sneaks their couch curbside in the wee hours, and then picks up a free one from someone else.

And of course, they're all wearing that damned black beret while they do it.

Whatever, it’s scary and disturbing to think there are that many ugly couches in the world. These couches have spent more time on a curb than Chelsea Handler at the after party.

While it’s pretty safe to say I won’t be hopping in the Land Cruiser to pick up anything off that page, I did like the one ad showing a silhouette of a comb and scissors advertising a free haircut. I'm sure it's probably a Vidal Sassoon or José Eber student looking for people to practice their faux hipster cuts on.

What could possibly go wrong?

As long as I don’t have to sit on one of those couches while they're cutting my hair, I might think about it.

Riding the news cycle

If you've been anywhere on planet earth this week, you know Harrison Ford crash landed his vintage plane on Pen Mar Golf Course in Santa Monica. As you'd expect, the farce and con that is social media ran rampant with Han Solo, Millennium Falcon, Chewie, Indiana Jones and Brian Williams jokes. I've included a couple of my favorites.

Fortunately Mr. Ford survived the landing with a cut head, broken ankle and fractured pelvis.

He's a big star so it's a big story. But here's the thing: is this story about his wife racing to the hospital to be at his side news?

Obviously Calista Flockhart has read the celebrity wife manual, which states very clearly in section 4a, paragraph 3.1.1, that a wife must race to her husband's side if he's been in a plane crash.

It's a good thing she has the manual, because how else would she have known what to do?

It's sad when something so natural and decent and expected becomes a news story. It exploits their pain, and even though they're public figures I believe they have a right to privacy - such as it is with the interwebs - just like the rest of us.

Besides, if the news uses headlines to report on a wife going to her husband after an accident, it means I have to look harder for the story about Kim Kardashian dying her hair blonde.

Opening Night

Since the beginning of the year, both my kids have been in rehearsals for the annual production their school does as a fundraiser. It’s called Broadway Showcase, and they’ve been a part of the production for years.

I think it could also be called I didn’t think it was legal in this state to make kids work that hard.

In addition to their regular curriculum, they also have to go to rehearsals every day after school. At first, they got out at 9 p.m. But as it started getting closer to opening night, rehearsals let out at 10 p.m.

Then of course there was the President’s Day rehearsal which went on for about 10 hours. I’m sure show tunes are exactly how Washington and Lincoln wanted to be remembered.

There is also no cutting of the slack. When my kids drag their tired selves home at 10:30 or 11 from rehearsals, that’s when they have to open the books (iPad) and start on the hours of homework they’re still expected to turn in the next day.

But tonight and tomorrow night, it all pays off. The wife and I will be at the Theater for Performing Arts in La Mirada, watching our beautiful, talented kids sing and dance their hearts out to an appreciative, loving audience filled with classmates, parents and grandparents.

Safe to say it’s not a tough crowd. But they give it their all as if they were performing at the Majestic Theater on 53rd St.

History tells me that the second night will be better than the first because they’ll have gotten the nerves and the bugs out. And the second night is also closing night – it’s a short run. So there’s a looseness to the production that’s pretty entertaining.

Afterwards, they’ll have the wrap party. And then, while no one will be getting a Tony for their work, they’ll be getting something even more valuable when they get home.

Sleep.

One of these is not like the other

People, jealous petty people, are fond of saying Los Angeles doesn't have seasons like real cities do. As someone born and raised here, I can tell you we most certainly do have seasons.

We have two. Construction, and Girl Scout Cookies.

If you've been to a market, home improvement store, mall or gentrified shopping district, you already know right now we're in the thick of Girl Scout Cookie season. And the cuteness is definitely in full bloom.

Tonight the wife and I had a dinner date. The kids were out at a rehearsal for a school show, so we took advantage of the alone time and went to a local place called the Deli News, which is neither a deli or a newsstand.

Anyway, in front of the restaurant was a GSC table being manned (womanned?) by two parents. In front of them, close to the curb so cars could see her, was one of their daughters - about eight years old - jumping up and down with the energy of a cheerleader on Red Bull and holding a stop-sign shaped sign that read "Please buy cookies!"

The wife and I exchanged a look, and we walked up to her. I said, "Excuse me, you know where I can get some thin mints around here?" She thought for a moment, then a big smile came over her face and, pointing at the table, she said, "Right over there!"

The wife and I went up to the table, and made the purchase you see in the picture. Now, I was willing to stop at the two boxes of Thin Mints. My needs are few, and two boxes meet them just fine. However, the wife had a hankerin' for something in the peanut butter family. And since Mr. Peanut wasn't available, she opted for the do-si-dos.

Here's something you don't know about me: I'm not a peanut butter guy. Never liked it, never will. For me, the only reason peanut butter exists is to get my dogs to take their pills. But if it makes the wife happy, I'm glad to pony up the fin.

Besides, you know what they say - happy wife, happy you won't get killed in your sleep over something you said three years ago.

The problem with Girl Scout Cookie season is once you buy from one cookie pusher, you're pretty much stocked up and have to say no to all the other ones. As they learn all to quickly, it's a first-come-first-sold world out there. But I hope they all sell out their entire cookie inventories, and get all the badges their little hearts desire. They've earned it.

I also hope they do it before construction season starts and makes it harder to get to those tables.

Back story

This isn't the first post I've written about my aching back. I wrote this one last time it went out on me this bad.

Well, it's happened again and I don't know why. God knows I haven't been doing any physical labor (the only thing Jews know how to lift is the Yellow Pages). But for almost a month now, I've been in excruciating pain when I make certain movements.

Like standing. Or walking. Lying down. And sitting.

Not a good situation anytime, but especially bad since I've been freelancing for a month. It involves a lot of chair time, and twisting around to talk to people. Which is fine, except for the Game Of Thrones sword that pierces my back every time I make a move in that chair.

I've always been one to try to ride things like this out, but about a week ago I came to the pain-ridden decision that enough was enough. The ride was over.

I've now been to my chiropractor five times in the last eight days. Each time I go, they do a whole bunch of stuff to me: cold laser therapy, massage, some device that sounds like a jack-hammer to break up adhesions. There may also be ritual dancing and war paint involved, but I'm face down on the table so I can't say for sure.

Anyway,I usually feel a little better when I leave, but it's a one-step-up-two-step-back situation. By the time I get home, it starts to hurt again. I have two gel ice packs like the one you see here, and I alternate them so my lower back is constantly frozen.

The cautiously optimistic news is my back was a lot less swollen tonight, and it actually feels better than it has for awhile. So I'll stay the course as long as it keeps improving, and hope that soon it'll be back to normal.

By the way, Back To Normal was my second choice for the title of this post.

Tsunami adjacent

One trick to making the day a little better when you’re working at an agency is to work at one that follows the tried and true first rule of real estate: location, location, location.

I’ve worked at agencies located in industrial parks, in the corner of run down shopping malls and alongside an airport runway. As I’m sure you know by now, I’m not particularly picky as long as – say it with me - the checks clear. But it is infinitely more pleasant to be someplace with a spectacular view to distract me from having to come up with the next earth shakin’, product movin’, sales increasin’, consumer viewin’, client pleasin’, award winnin’ banner ad.

Which is why I quite like where I happen to be working right now.

It’s an agency in Huntington Beach. I don’t have to get on a freeway to get here – I just fly down PCH from my house for about twenty minutes, and enjoy the view of the naval ships refueling, and rearming, at the Seal Beach Naval Weapons station. I try to count the bumper-to-bumper cargo ships backed up in the ocean because of last week’s dockworkers strike at the port. And then, a little further down the road, I watch the surfers and wish I were one of them. I don’t surf, and I’d probably get smacked in the head with my own board, drown and die, but you know what I mean.

This agency is spread out over four buildings, and the picture above is the view from the one in front. The one with the café. And the happy hour on Thursdays. And free breakfasts on Fridays. I file it under things could be worse.

Of course, being me, while I sometimes appreciate the full impact of gazing out at the ocean in the middle of the workday, another thought does cross my mind no matter how hard I try to keep it out.

It looks like this:

Now, this isn't the first time I've posted about tsunamis. About three and half years ago I put up this post. But when I wrote that post, I was just passing through. Now, I spend at least eight hours a day tsunami adjacent, not counting my leisurely lunches I love so much.

I don't think it matters if I see it coming or not, because either way, once it hits, I'm going to be one big, fat, soggy piece of humanity floating down Main St. past Sushi On Fire and the Pizza Lounge.

I just light up a room don't I?

Anyway, I'll enjoy the view for now and try not to worry too much about tsunamis.

On the bright side, it's Huntington Beach. I can always get a pair of board shorts in a hurry if I need them.