Blech

             Okay, I’ve been to sea.  I’ve experienced seasickness, or if you prefer, the more pleasant French term, mal de mer.  I’ve been in and around the flu and drunkenness, and I’ve held her hair.  In other words, I’ve seen it.  And by it I mean emesis…you know, barfing, throwing up, making a Cosby sweater, blowing chunks, airing out a Jackson Pollack, going to sea by rail, the Technicolor yawn, sowing Dodgers*, paging Wyatt Erp, or selling Buicks. 

                I was watching the TV when a commercial came on for some other show.  I’m not sure what the other show was about, maybe building choppers, or hunting Bigfoot, or growing beards, but from what I could tell it involved plenty of the aforementioned facial hair along with camouflage clothes, being outside in the woods, being inside a garage, and shoulder punching.  Some older gentlemen were making fun of a younger gentleman for reasons I never figured out, when to everyone’s surprise he…well he compromised his camouflage if you will.  In living color in my living room.

                It used to be that when it was necessary for someone to perform this action on TV, in comedies for instance, he would throw one hand over his mouth and bolt from the room.  He had to “act” as if he were going to throw up.  Sort of how like making funny euphemisms for that particular expulsatory function is cleverer** than just showing it, and less gross.  Now they just, I suppose, hold a pint or so of some special effect semi-liquid, or Beef-A-Roni, in their mouths until it’s time to spill it on the couch, the floor, or the person in the scene to whom it would be most embarrassing.  On reality shows they needn’t pretend at all, thus making the special effects guy unnecessary and taking food from his children’s mouths.  Irony fully intended.

                “But Mark, just don’t watch those shows if you don’t like it.”

                I don’t, but it’s hard to tell if you’ll have to endure this activity until it’s on the screen.  Then there is the bearded Bigfoot hunter or chopper builder from the commercial.  How am I to not watch him and his cronies dirtying up the forest floor when I’m not watching their show?  I’m like that Clockwork Orange guy with his eyes clamped open but without the need of nausea inducing medicine for him to associate what he is watching with sickness.  Clockwork Orange Guy eventually made that association, so I suppose, perhaps, the people who insist on showing nausea inducing programming are conditioning us not to watch their shows.  Maybe I’m over thinking this.  Maybe they’re under thinking it.

But are people clamoring for this?  Are e-mails shooting across the Internets to the makers of these programs demanding more vomit, more bile, more of whatever you can take from inside the body and put outside?  Are there angry letter writers submitting the following?:

Dear Masterpiece Theatre***,

                It is with a heavy hand and great sadness that I pen this letter.  I have watched your exemplary programming for a number of years, but I cannot in good conscience continue to both be a viewer and supporter public broadcasting.  This is in response to the gross lack of vomit and other body fluids displayed on screen during your programming.  I can no longer ignore your mindboggling refusal to show a single person evacuating their wafer-thin mints upon the local vicar or Victorian villain.  It shows me that it is as if you think dialog and plot are superior to gratuitous shots of pavement pizza. 

Sincerely,

Former viewer who has switched to The Real Housewives of Broadbottom****

If the producers of these shows are only responding to viewer demands, I suppose I’ll have to monitor whatever is shown during the commercial breaks of the programs I’m watching, with my finger hovering over the remote control, so I can switch to another channel or even turn the thing off when I detect an imminent evacuation.  Thanks The History Channel.

*I made this one up.

** I’m not comfortable with this word, but spellcheck is.

*** I switched the “r” and the “e” because it’s classier.

**** Real town in England.

Six Flags Over California

Are you worried about the people of Mississippi?  Do you agonize over the fact that they are the poorest state in our glorious Union?  Are you unable to sleep at night trying to come up with ways to give the downtrodden Mississippians a self-esteem boost?  In other words, do you want to make Mississippi happy?  If you answered yes to any of these questions, then have I got a deal for you.

There is this guy up in the Bay Area named Tim Draper who used the gigantic pile of money he worked so hard inheriting to make himself an extra-gigantic pile of money in the venture capitalist racket. Since, as we all know, extreme wealth equals extreme intelligence, Mr. Draper realizing that his is a genius, has decided that California has become too large and unruly to govern, so he proposes cutting it up into smaller more governable states.  Sort of a reverse Yertle the Turtle.  Let’s see, how many would work?  Two?  Three?  No, better make it six.

But Mark, how does this help Mississippi?

Hang on, I’m getting to that.

So back to six.  Converting California into six states, adding five to The Union, is the way to go according to Mr. Draper.  He even says he has enough signatures to add it to the November ballot which I guess proves that people will sign anything if you’re a good enough salesman. (Turns out he doesn’t have enough, even after paying college students $2 per signature). Five more stars on the flag, five more governors, ten more senators, and who knows how many congresspersons.  He’s even drawn the borders and named them, although I don’t get why he gets to name the states in which he will not reside.  There is a saying that goes something like, from the ridiculous to the sublime.  The names Draper has picked for the six new states, there will no longer be a simple California, range from the ridiculous to the snooze fest.  Mostly snooze fest.

Mississippi?

Patience.

Anyway, the names (their position on ridiculous / snooze fest scale) and general boundaries of the proposed new states are as follows:

South California (Snooze fest).  Pretty much San Diego and all the rest of Southern California that isn’t exactly L.A.  Mostly desert really, with some nice beaches along the coast.  San Diego would most likely be the capital of this new state unless Disneyland lobbies really hard.  And trust me, you don’t want to get into any litigation with the Disney people.  (Disney is a registered trademark of the Walt Disney Corporation and should not be used without explicit, written permission of the Walt Disney Corporation or their legal representatives).

                West California. (Snooze fest).  Here is where you’d find L.A., Hollywood of course, Santa Barbara, the Hated Dodgers, somehow San Luis Obispo, and very little water.  (More on that later). It’s called West California even though most of the current California, and even Reno are further west than Los Angeles, which would likely be the capital, but don’t let that enter into naming the place.

                Helloooo?  Mississippi?

    It’s coming.

                North California. (Snooze fest).  They get Tahoe, Napa wineries, the Gold Rush country, a little bit of coast, and Sacramento.  Sacramento would probably be the capital since they already have a capital building and a bunch of politicians running around the grounds like squirrels.  But Auburn has a pretty nice courthouse too and it became California’s capital in the book “The Last Days of the Late Great State of California.”  North California would have most of the water currently used by the rest of the state.  In fact they have so much water they have to build levees to keep it away from the places they don’t want to have water.  This actually sounds like a pretty nice state, it’s just that every time I look at it I almost read it as North Carolina.

Jefferson. (Ridiculous)  Yes, there will be no North, South, East, West, or Outer California here.  Everything between the new North California and Oregon (and maybe even some of Oregon) would be called Jefferson.  These guys have wanted to be their own state since long before Dapper Draper showed up on the scene, citing the old standard; taxation without representation.  Talk about your callbacks.  Don’t know why they want to name it after Jefferson other than he is beloved and Washington is already taken, twice, but I suppose could think of less popular President’s names to hang on it.  Nixonland anyone?  Fillmoria? As an article in Slate.com says, it consist of “both weed and Weed.”  It would be the capital of the former but not use as its capital the latter. 

One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi?

Soon Grasshopper.

                Silicon Valley. (Ridiculous).  Here’s the rub, to misquote Hamlet.  This is where the architect of this brilliant plan would live and presumably where the government would be friendlier to Mr. Draper and his business associates.  Hell, the government would probably be Mr. Draper and his business associates.  This is all he really wants out of this grand plan, to live in a (his) business friendly state that doesn’t include Oxnard or those Dancing Raisins.  It comprises San Francisco, the East Bay, Marin, San Jose and the rest of the currently named Silicon Valley, and Monterey Bay.  It would instantly become the wealthiest state in the union.  Pretty nice digs for the most part but I don’t know how he gets Monterey.  Weirdly named though for a region where only a small percentage could be correctly described as a valley.  The name Silicon Valley dates back to the early 80’s and the silicon chips used in computer manufacturing, plus the valley where San Jose is located.   So for about 130 years before that this was called Santa Clara Valley.  But Saint Clara (the patron of eye disease, telephones, and laundry) is out and Silicon is in so I guess we need to name a whole state after it, albeit a small one that kind of looks like Bart Simpson.  Using this convention they should name Jefferson “Trees and Weed,” North California “If it Keeps on Raining the Levee’s Gonna’ Break,” Western California “Kardashinia,” and South California “You want sand? We got sand.”  The capital would likely be San Francisco.

                MISS-ISS-IPP-I!!!!???

    But a moment to go.

                Which brings me to the sixth and final state in our little experiment, and the area from which I hale; Central California (Snooze fest).  Central California would be the largest of the six new states.  It would have Yosemite, a big chunk of the rest of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and both Fresno and Bakersfield.  It would also have some of the most productive farmland in the world.  I read an article that stated if you ate three meals today, and that you were in the United States, there is a 90% chance that something on your plate came from what is and what would become Central California.  Also, this new state has a valley, the San Joaquin Valley, which is about 15 times bigger than Silicon Valley.  So who should really get “valley” in their name?  Plus what fun we would have watching those on the East Coast mispronouncing Joaquin?  (Jo-a-quin? Jock-u-in?) But here’s another rub; Central California would have about 90% of West California’s water, in the Owens Valley. 

                Speaking of water; water rights are argued, fought over, and generally the biggest legal and political headache in the current state of California.  Imagine what those arguments, fights and headaches would be like when six different governments are involved.  The term Herding Cats comes to mind.  Didn’t think about that one did you Timmy Boy?

                Em-eye-ess-ess-eye-ess-ess-eye-pee-pee-eye.

    Okay; Mississippi.  Thought I forgot didn’t you.  If this split happens, the state of Central California replaces The Magnolia State as the poorest in the nation.  Yup, the people of Mississippi, overnight, have their self-esteem rejuvenated and their power ranking moved up a slot.  Hear footsteps West Virginia?  Not only would Central California be the poorest state out of the new 55, it would actually share a border with the wealthiest.  How’s that for contrast?  Hey, but at least they’d be a strong conservative state, like most of the current poorer states.

 

                Now, what about the flag?  I think California has the best flag of the fifty.  Love the bear, love the patch of grass, and love how the red star hangs up there like a mysterious little icon to befuddle those who don’t understand its origin (something to do with solidarity with Texas, I think).  The bear is actually modeled after a real grizzly bear that lived in captivity in Golden Gate Park for 22 years until his death in 1911, when he was stuffed and put on display in the Academy of Sciences, which is a story on its own.  He’s still there.

By the way Mississippi, if you want to get some respect in the world, in case this six Californias thing doesn’t work out, which it probably won’t, perhaps you should consider taking that Confederate flag off of your state flag.  I’m just saying it seems silly to have an image flying over your capital that is usually reserved for the wife-beater T-shirts and truck bumpers of people on TV reality shows catching catfish with their feet. 

                Yes, the ship SS California has problems, but breaking her up into six lifeboats won’t fix any of them. 

Robin Williams

          San Francisco is not where I was supposed to be when Robin Williams died.  I’m not a San Franciscan, I just work here.  But around me on Monday afternoon were plenty of San Franciscans.  These people grew up with Robin Williams in a different manner than I.  I saw him on TV and in movies, they saw him in their hometown.  Just minutes after we learned of his death, stories of him winking at someone in a coffee shop, smiling as they passed on the sidewalk, or delivering a surprise routine at a local comedy club started circulating.  On Monday it was like I was the guy at a wake who is not a member of the family, and didn’t know the deceased.  I could smile and enjoy the stories, but I could not really participate in the remembrances.

            I think making someone laugh is hard.  Really hard, but man, when it happens it’s like a drug.  I didn’t pay a lot of attention to Robin Williams.  Although he is in one of my all-time favorite movies; The Fisher King, I was only aware of him when he was actually on the big or small screen in front of me.  But there was one time he made me laugh.  One time, he killed me.  As the genie in Aladdin he was, in my opinion, perfect.  As soon as he was released from the lamp, he owned that movie (“he” being both the genie and Robin Williams).  If the Disney animators were smart, they would have waited until he was completely done before drawing a single cell of his character.  It gave me the kind of enjoyment where I miss something like a third of what he was saying because I could not hear over my own laughter.  That to me is Robin Williams, and while all the accolades he’s received for his dramatic work are well deserved, it’s the blue cartoon with no feet who will embody him from now on.  For me.  I hope he experienced some of the enjoyment making that character as I did watching it.   

          That's it.

Car Pool

I am a member of the San Francisco Police Department, but as my ID boldly states across the top, a civilian employee.  I’m not a sworn officer.  Not even close.  I don’t wear a uniform, badge, or firearm and I most certainly do not travel in a black-and-white squad car.  I do travel around The City maintaining and configuring the SFPD computer systems and infrastructure, but in a far less interesting manner.  Occasionally we walk from my office to the closer buildings, but usually we drive.             

There is a pool of cars available to those who don’t belong in a black-and-white.  Most of these have been seized.  That means that an arrested and convicted felon not only lost his freedom, he also lost, in one case, his silver 2003 four-door Pontiac Grand Prix.  This is the car the engineer I’m shadowing over the next few weeks and I have been assigned a few times when we head out.  Grand Prix is French for grand prize, but the car we’ve been driving around in is hardly grand and certainly no prize.  If this is the return on their hard work that local drug dealers aspire to, then perhaps it’s not as rewarding a profession the countless movies and television shows have led me to believe.

The Grand Prix, the 2003 model we’re using anyway, is about an unremarkable car as can be found.  It has a 6 cylinder engine that gives it about as much pickup as a street sweeper heading uphill on California from Grant (it’s very steep there), a dashboard that sags to the right as if the glove compartment has been filled with lead or stuffed with a body that was filled with lead.  It has a long scratch along the right side that may have been caused by a close brush with an iceberg, no hubcaps, no rearview mirror, a battery-powered plastic light like the kind that you stick on the wall of your closet that has been “attached” to the headliner because the factory light stopped working and no one was interested in fixing it, and a dishwater gray paintjob that is so dull it’s guaranteed to send Bobby McFerrin into a spiral of depression from which only years of therapy will extract him.*  

That’s how we roll.

We head down to the basement, past the evidence locker that has so much pot in it that the entire floor smells like unwashed skunks, into the large parking garage where motorcycles with the SFPD logo are lined up like a Harley Davison showroom, to an office where we are assigned a car by parking space number so we don’t know what we’re getting until we go to the lot under Highway 80 and find it. This lot is surrounded by 15 foot high chain link topped by barbed wire and holds about 50 cars.  The Grand Prix sits in spot 21, under what I can only assume is a nest of incontinent pigeons. 

Driving around San Francisco in this car kind of makes you wish the felon from which it was seized was out of prison and upon finding the car of his dreams parked outside a nondescript office building, would steal it back.  No such luck.

Once we were assigned a Ford Crown Victoria, the stereotypical cop car. It was more platinum than gray and had no scratches or aftermarket non-automotive light fixtures, and sat under pigeons who were more “regular.”  Like the Grand Prix it had no hubcaps but somehow that made it look more… bad ass.  I don’t know if this car was seized or just never got the paint job for a patrol car.  We took this car to Hunters Point where the Police Crime Lab is housed.  Rolling across town and then meandering through ancient and abandoned buildings on the former Navy base with the windows down, I finally felt I worked for the police instead of a tier two drug dealer with low ambitions when it comes to his ride. 

I can’t help it but someday, I’d like to walk out to the parking lot and find the 21^st parking spot occupied by either Steve McQueen’s 1968 390 V8 Ford Mustang GT Fastback (325 horsepower) or Karl Malden’s brown 1970 Ford LTD (horsepower unknown but probably less than McQueen’s).  But I suppose there are cars even drug dealers can’t get anymore.

*Bobby McFerrin sang the song Don’t Worry, Be Happy.

The Coldest Summer

The week before I left Fresno for what is likely, the final time, the temperature hit 108 degrees.  Weathermen, trying to put a positive spin on the god-awful conditions, talked about “plenty of sunshine for rest of the week.”  Sure, there is melting asphalt and the city setting up cooling centers for the elderly so they don’t die in their homes, but at least we have plenty of light.  When it’s beat-down hot like that I often think of the part of The Grapes of Wrath where Tom Joad is thinking of a single tree where he can stop and sit in the shade for a moment on his long walk home, but when he gets there finds the spot is already taken by another man.  The preacher I think.  Something like that can make you curse the heavens, and stalk TV weathermen with extreme malice.

 I’ve gotta tell you, those killer temperatures didn’t make it difficult for me to move to a City where the fog routinely sneaks over the hills to invade the streets and wade around the buildings, in July.  On my forth day it did just that.  The window behind my cubicle looks down on Highway 80 where the traffic ramps up for the final push to get on the Bay Bridge to head to the East Bay, and that window also looks over at a hill full of buildings stacked up like stadium patrons, where I couldn’t name a single one, but collectively convey what could be described as the San Francisco look.  That morning those buildings sat in fog like cardboard boxes sitting in water in a flooded basement.  I didn’t check the weather in Fresno that day; that would have just been cruel.  Mark Twain probably never said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco,” but it’s still a quality line.  After a lifetime of triple digit summers (and springs lately), bring it on.

                The building I currently work in is a big, grey, flat-faced and has been the San Francisco Hall of Justice since the early sixties, and frankly has all the charm of a Soviet DMV office.  It is the County Jail, headquarters for the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department, Courts, the California Highway Patrol San Francisco headquarters, but most importantly to me the San Francisco Police Department headquarters.  My current employer.  Surrounding it are bail bonds offices, tow yards, and parking lots that look like they might hold 10 small cars but usually “fit” about 100.  It’s not the cleanest part of the city but it’s a short walk to the train station I use for my commute, and there are cops of different flavors everywhere.

                I’ll work in this building until the new San Francisco Public Safety Building is completed in July, November, December, well it will be completed someday.  When it is there will be new cubicles, in new offices, with a view of new apartments and million dollar condos in the Mission Bay part of San Francisco.  I won’t see the old buildings marching up the hills but I’ll still see that fog sneaking over those hills into the City. 

            I’ve finished two weeks at the new digs now and so far so good.  I’ve spent some pretty cold winters but cold summers are new to me.  I no longer have to worry if I’ll find someone else in the shade of that single tree on that long hot road.  The preacher can have it.

*Photo is from my cell phone of San Francisco on June 25th.

A Central Valley Hick in St. Francis' Court

                From 1985 to 2011 I worked at two places.  For 14 years I was at a paint manufacturing plant (Duncan Enterprises) and for the other 12 years a telephone company / Internet service provider (Sebastian).  Starting on Monday morning, June 16^th, I will have had three employers in the past three years; Fresno County, Community Hospitals, and at 9:00 am that morning the San Francisco Police Department.  I never meant to be a person who jumps from job to job, and in fact I’m hoping my newest employer will be from where I retire. 

                I’ll start my new career working in the San Francisco Hall of Justice.  Home of Dirty Harry, Karl Malden, Michael Douglas on TV and Michael Douglas in the movies, Steve McQueen, and the real cops who hunted the Zodiac.  Then in November they’ll (we’ll) move, lock, stock, and barrel, to a new building south of the ballpark, in an up and coming area called Mission Bay.  The name is old but the construction is new.

                There are a million things I’ll need to do.  I’ll need to learn the Streets of San Francisco.  I’ll need to find a place to live in a place with some of the most expensive housing in the country.  I’ll need to configure a commute that will not shorten my life through stress.  I’ll need to learn the systems and procedures for yet another IS team.  And the list goes on.  Every day may end up being a learning experience for me.  I probably should have done this at 22 and not 52, but men plan and gods laugh.

                I guess this will also give me an opportunity to reboot my blog.  I can chronicle my journey from a Central Valley hick to a sophisticated and urbane San Franciscan (at least during the workday).  Although I don’t consider myself the former and think there are other goals to shoot for than just the latter.   

                So wish me luck.  Drop by if you’re in The City and I see if I can’t find a decent restaurant for lunch.  Maybe Italian?

 

Extra:  The motto on the SFPD shield is oro en paz fierro en guerra, which translates to "Gold in Peace, Iron in War."  I didn't realize they were so much into geology.

What's the Word?

Why is there no word for the feeling you get when you finish a good book?  Nothing that captures that feeling of accomplishment and loss.  Reading a book is like being in a relationship really, and finishing it can sometimes fell like a breakup.  You meet these characters and places early on and you’re not sure if you’re going to get along.  You experience their lives as if they were real people.  You grow to like, or maybe hate these characters.  You feel like you’ve been to these places; even those that are fictional.  Characters live and die, they commit great feats of kindness or unbelievable acts of evil and everything in between; they generally behave as real flesh and blood people do.  Then it's over.  Shouldn’t you feel “something” when, as you turn the final page of a book, they are simply…gone?

Years and years ago I read the book The Bastard by John Jakes.  It was about the American Revolution and came out right around the time of the Bicentennial.  Not Steinbeck to be sure, but not among the worst wastes of Canadian timber I’ve slogged through.  Somewhere in the middle of the book a man’s wife dies.  Just up and dies at a place where he’ll never know what happened.  I remember thinking through the rest of the book that he’ll eventually find out and heap vengeance upon the man who was responsible for her death.  He never did.  I finished that book realizing the husband would go to his grave not knowing what happened to her.  Unfair!  I didn’t lose any sleep over it but I remember it nearly 40 years later.  That seems somewhat powerful.

But what is the feeling?  Can you feel nostalgia about something that you just lost a minute ago?  Can you mourn for the death of someone who never existed?  Finishing a book, and I’m talking a good book here, a book that really engaged you and swallowed you into its world, that emotes a variety of feelings.  There’s sadness along with fulfillment.  There’s perhaps satisfaction at making it to the end tempered by the loneliness of losing all these new “friends” in a Band-Aid rip finality.  There can be a lot going on.

                There is a specific word for the action of throwing someone out a window.  There really is.  One word that means throwing someone out a window.  It’s defenestration, from the Latin for down or away (de), and window (fenestra).  I can see a couple of cops standing over a body in the street and one says to the other, "Cause of death?" and the reply is "defenestration."  The word was coined in Prague a couple few hundred years ago when it was, apparently, all the rage to toss civil servants with which you were unhappy out of windows.  That’s probably why there are few windows in legislative chambers.  Those Pragainians, Praguenosticators, Praguers?, what a bunch of kooks.  So it’s nice that throwing someone out of a window has its own word, which is probably used worldwide, outside of the Prague City limits, about once every hundred years or so.  But how often does someone, somewhere finish a book?  A lot more often.  We can’t take defenestration because of the Latin root words only makes sense when the local mayor is flung out into the rose bushes.  So we need to build our own.

                The Latin words for finish and book respectively are consumo and libri so the word could very easily be consumolibri.  Okay but that’s a sterile and emotionless creation.  The Latin words to describe the feeling one might experience when finishing a good book are sadness (tristitia), contentment (contenti), satisfaction (plenus), lonely (sola), and happy (felix).  (Felix, really?)  Anyway, cramming those words together gives you tristiacontentiplenussolafelix.  Sounds like the guy at the Vatican who sets up dates for the local cat population.  If I had to say that word I'd probably toss myself out a window.

                What about saying that you know there is a feeling but words can’t describe it.  You could always throw in the French phrase “je ne sais quoi” which I believe literally translates to “shrug.”  Brilliant if you think about it, but kind of like surrendering. 

                Or maybe…over in Hawaii they have something they say that means hello and goodbye.  But it also can mean affection, peace, compassion, and mercy.  Since it’s is already carrying half the Hawaiian dictionary, why not toss a few more words on the pile and have it also mean the feeling of finishing a good book.  So from now on, that feeling you get when you turn the final page of a really good book will be called, “Book ‘em Danno.”

Clubbed

“I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member.”

-Groucho Marx  

 

Her cheeks were rosy, her attitude was cheery, but her customer was wary.  "Would you like a bottle of wine for five cents?"
Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth* I said, "Yes," and grabbing a $30 bottle of zinfandel said, "I'll take this one."
The rosiness dropped from her cheeks and her attitude took a downturn too.  "No, you buy one bottle and get the second for five cents."
I grabbed a $6 bottle of Gallo something-or-other and setting it next to the zinfandel said, "I'll take these two for six dollars and five cents."
Again she said, "No.  The second bottle must be the same wine."  Then she hit me with, "You also have to be a member of Club Bev."  She held up a little red card.
 

                Everywhere I go I’m bombarded with offers to join this club or that just to get past the checkout.  There’s ExtraCare Rewards Program (It’s at CVS Pharmacy, as if to suggest if you’re not a member that you only get regular care), Club Orchard-Ace Rewards-True Value Rewards (all hardware stores), Balanced Rewards, Prescription Saving Club, Vons Club, and Save Mart Cares (I’m curious what Save Mart cares about.  Other than having little selection and higher prices that is), the aforementioned Club Bev, Frequent Car Wash Club, Customer Loyalty Club, Office Max Rewards (where I shop maybe once a year.  Maybe.), and Subway Club (for sandwiches not trains).  If I joined every one of these clubs, and was issued a card for each one, my wallet would look like the shoe at the two dollar blackjack table in Caesar’s Palace.  (Pictured above)

                Also, what makes them clubs?  Is there a clubhouse for Orchard Club meetings?  If there is then I wonder what it’s built out of since the Orchard “hardware” store doesn’t sell lumber anymore.  What are the bylaws of the Frequent Car Wash Club or Office Max Rewards club’s secret handshake?  If I only get club sandwiches from Subway would that make it the Subway Club Club?  Is there drinking allowed at Club Bev meetings?  Encouraged?

                So I finally broke down and joined Club Orchard at OSH, which stands for Orchard Supply Hardware.  The girl at the checkout counter said that if I joined I would get $5.00 off.  All she needed was my name, phone number, and e-mail address.  Since I was buying what added up to about $1.50 worth of PVC, which stands for polyvinyl chloride, I figured I’d join, get my discount, and not only walk out with my sprinkler parts, but an extra $3.50 in my pocket.  “No,” she said like the girl at the top of the page, “you get the discount on your next purchase.  You’ll get an e-mail where you register for the $5 coupon.”  So I gave her my real e-mail instead of a fake one, and left with my PVC from OSH, but as far as she knows that mailbox belongs to Jethro McHappymeal whose phone number is (123) 456-7890.  When the e-mail showed up there indeed was a $5 coupon, but only for purchases over $25.  Now, along with job offers for jobs that don’t exist and messages saying that I’ve won a cruise, my inbox is stuffed with weekly communications from OSH telling me what an awesome hardware store they are, sans lumber that it.

                I’m thinking of making my own club and printing up cards.  I’ll call it Club Friends of Mark Rewards Loyalty Club Cares Savings Club Club.  Then, the next time I’m asked at a store “Are you a member of our club?”

I’ll answer, “No I’m not.  Are you a member of mine?”

I could really use that wine. 

 

*I would never look any horse in the mouth, gift or otherwise.  Horses kind of creep me out and I find their mouths and teeth just this side of terrifying. I’m pretty sure that if it wanted to, a horse could bite my arm clean off.

Middle Man

                “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you.”

                                                                                                 -Stuck in the Middle by Stealer Wheel

 

When I attended middle school, middle schools didn’t exist.  There were schools between elementary school and high school but back then they were called junior high schools.  At least where I was they were.  Perhaps back East or down South things were different, but here in the Big Valley there was no middle.  My school between elementary and high was grades seven through nine.  When I finally entered high school I strode through the gates as a sophomore.  There were about as many freshmen in Fresno as there were Fremen outside of the Dune books.

                Recently my younger boy had some trouble at his “middle” school.  He was being picked on by a bigger kid in gym class, and also the target of verbal bullying in the classroom by others.  He told his mother and me about the former but we were ignorant about the latter.  We told him to stand his ground and let this kid know, in no uncertain terms, that he wasn’t going to take it anymore.  His mother and he notified the vice-principal, the counselor, and the gym teacher about the first bully and after that the kid left him alone.  But I guess the boy who was leading the teasing in the classroom didn’t get the memo, because when that started up again one day, our boy decided he’d reached his limit and punches were thrown.  Three punches to be precise, all by my boy and all in the face of the other boy.  The results of this episode were; he got suspended for three days, the other kid came by a week later and apologized, his mother and I while not happy violence had occurred were happy he stood up for himself, and most of the people I’ve talked to have come to the agreement that middle school sucks.

                Maybe therein lies the problem.  Maybe it’s the “middle” in middle school that makes it what it is.  The Middle Child Syndrome suggests that older children are given more freedom while younger children are fawned over more, and given more attention if you will.  This can create a middle kid who grows resentful of those kids who came before and after, causing him to act out negatively; like climbing on the roof of Cedar Lanes Bowling Alley or spending so much time playing around an old abandoned milk truck near Chestnut and Weldon in Fresno that his parents come this close to calling the police when they’ve become convinced he’s been kidnapped.  Just to name a couple of completely random and generic possibilities.

Could the same behavior be happening in our school system?  Do high school kids have less restrictions and do elementary school kids enjoy more protection and attention than middle school kids?  Seems so.  Is middle school where those kids start feeling their wings and testing what they can and can’t get away with?  Yup.  The name “middle,” to me anyway, comes across as more of a dumping ground or holding cell than a place to transition from one school to another. 

In the naval services, officers are ranked as follows; ensign, lieutenant junior grade, lieutenant, lieutenant commander, commander, captain, and then a smattering of admirals.  Notice how one rank leads to the next.  You have to be a lieutenant junior grade before a lieutenant and a lieutenant commander before a commander.  It’s almost as if each rank is and encouragement to gain the next.  I particularly like the “junior” in lieutenant junior grade, as if they are saying, “You’re not a lieutenant yet but you’re on the right path.”

Why don’t we take a cue from our find naval services and switch middle schools back to junior high schools?  Instead of making kids feel like they are “stuck in the middle” as Stealer Wheel sang above, we instead tell them, “Hey you’re not in high school yet, but you’re on the right path.”

An Open Letter To...

An Open Letter To…

…Auto Manufacturers. 

Dear Sirs,

Please go ahead and make the keyless remote open all the doors of my vehicle when I press one button, once.  I can’t seem to get the cadence of the double press.  Does the second press count as a second press, or does it count as a new single press, or is it the first press of a double press, or does the car think I’ve pressed it three times now and has somehow reset to no presses?  Pretty soon it’s like I’m out in my driveway clicking away on it like some kind of deranged flamenco dancer with his castanets.  I know the odds of a hook-handed ax murderer jumping in the other side of my car, because all the doors are unlocked, are slim.  So I can pledge right now that I will not sue you if by chance I get ax murdered. Even if it’s in a hook-handed way.

…On-air Radio Personalities

Dear Sirs and Madams,

Nobody, absolutely nobody, likes it when you talk over the first, instrumental, part of a song and only shut up one beat, or less, before the singer starts.  I think the guitar at the start of Ohio, by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young is one of the best of the 70’s, or all time, so I’d like to hear it without your “We’ll take caller number seven for tickets to Wrestlemania” voice.  We don’t listen to a music station to hear the DJ, we listen to hear the music.  That would be like going to an airport to listen to the announcements of arrivals and departures and never getting on a plane.  Oh, and update your play lists.  I believe I’ve heard Ted Nugent’s Stranglehold at least twice a week on my daily commute over the last year, and that just on the way home.  Oh 2.0, traffic reports work in L.A or San Francisco, but in a town with three freeways, everyone knows ahead of time where and when the traffic is going to bunch up.  So drop the traffic report and perhaps, oh I don’t know, play a song.

…The Fresno Bee

Dear Editor,

Why is it that I can read the online versions of The San Francisco Chronicle, The San Jose Mercury News, and even the L.A. Times without having to login as a paying reader, but can’t do the same with The Fresno Bee?  I understand that you don’t make a lot of money when you give your product away, but all those sites, and The Bee’s, have banner ads across the top and other ads along the edges, and I’m pretty sure someone is paying you to put those there.  But The Bee adds a screen for paying customers to login when ever I try to go to any article.  Plus, to add insult to injury, you have more pop ups than a Whack-A-Mole game.

…M&M/MARS, Maker of M&Ms

Dear Sirs,

You’re doing God’s work.  That is all.

…Baseball Writers of America

Dear Sirs,

First of all, understand that the Baseball Hall of Fame is a museum, not a cathedral.  The cathedrals are AT&T Park, Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, and all the other ballparks hallowed by their congregations… um fans.  You created the Frankenstein’s Monster that is the steroids era when you ignored the obvious enhancements to Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa when they were “saving baseball” from the ’94 strike during their homerun race, likely to also save your jobs, so drop those pitch forks and torches and let that monster out of the windmill.  Museums should have everything related to their subject in them, good and bad.   By your criteria you’d have an American History museum that makes no mention of slavery, a European History museum and leaves out Hitler, and a Rock and Roll museum that has absolutely nothing related to Madonna.  I mean seriously, have you heard her rendition of Don Maclean’s American Pie?  It’s really awful stuff. 

…My Fellow Motorists

Dear Drivers,

You suck.  You’re not paying attention.  It’s not all about you.  There is a device on your car, and it’s been there since day one, that you can use to indicate a turn or lane change.  It’s called a “Turn Indicator.”  Freeway traffic has the right of way when you are merging, so you, yes you, have to adjust your speed to that traffic.  Anyone who slows down (dangerous) or changes lanes (equally dangerous) to allow you in is doing it as a courtesy, not because it’s the law.  By the way, I suck at driving too so watch out for me.

…Me.

Dear Mark,

Let it be.