Total Perspective Vortex
What really happened to Trillian? Theories abound, but you can see what she's really been up to on this blog. If you're looking for white mice, depressed robots, or the occasional Pan Galactic Gargleblaster you might be better served here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/guide/.
Don't just sit there angry and ranting, do something constructive.
In the words of Patti Smith (all hail Sister Patti): People have the power.
Contact your elected officials.
Don't be passive = get involved = make a difference.
Words are cool.
The English language is complex, stupid, illogical, confounding, brilliant, beautiful, and fascinating.
Every now and then a word presents itself that typifies all the maddeningly gorgeousness of language. They're the words that give you pause for thought. "Who came up with that word? That's an interesting string of letters." Their beauty doesn't lie in their definition (although that can play a role). It's also not in their onomatopoeia, though that, too, can play a role. Their beauty is in the way their letters combine - the visual poetry of words - and/or the way they sound when spoken. We talk a lot about music we like to hear and art we like to see, so let's all hail the unsung heroes of communication, poetry and life: Words.
Here are some I like. (Not because of their definition.)
Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Smart Girls
(A Trillian de-composition, to the tune of Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys)
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Smart girls ain’t easy to love and they’re above playing games
And they’d rather read a book than subvert themselves
Kafka, Beethoven and foreign movies
And each night alone with her cat
And they won’t understand her and she won’t die young
She’ll probably just wither away
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
A smart girl loves creaky old libraries and lively debates
Exploring the world and art and witty reparteé
Men who don’t know her won’t like her and those who do
Sometimes won’t know how to take her
She’s rarely wrong but in desperation will play dumb
Because men hate that she’s always right
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Life(?) of Trillian
Single/Zero
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
The wheels on the bus go round and round...
So, my "new" place is too far from my office to walk to work. I can still ride my bike, which I generally do, but, sometimes I have to take public transportation to work.
I'm "lucky." For now, I have the option of the train or two different express buses. Depending on what happens in September. (big scary reverb sound effect, the implications of which will be well understood, scoffed and lamented by citizens of Chicago.) Us Chicagoans are living under the threat of enormous service cutbacks and fare increases on public transportation due to, um, why is it again? Budget problems? State funding? I dunno, there are so many allegations and threats I can't even remember what the actual problem was which started all of this. The doomsday plan, as it's come to be known, is so ingrained in me in terms of service cutbacks and fare increases that the particulars of the budget problems have become secondary to sorting out a personal doomsday plan. Everyone's preoccupied with it, forming car pools, buying bikes, changing jobs or apartments to make their commute walking distance, one woman in my office didn't renew her lease because she lives on a train line slated to be cut so she moved to a neighborhood where service by two buses and a train are not threatened, another person in my office did the worst case scenario math and bought a parking space and hybrid car. For him and his wife, the tax break on the mortgage for the parking spot and credit for the green car outweigh the proposed fare increases for he and his wife to continue to commute on public transportation. I raise a dubious eyebrow at his math, but, come September I may find myself envious of his doomsday preparations. All this Henny Pennying seems a bit, well, much, to me, but I've lived in the luxury of not relying on public transportation for a few years. I haven't endured the daily pain, agony, delays and price gouging the way they have. I understand, I do ride public transportation, now more than in recent years, but I'm not moving or buying a car. Yet. We'll see what happens in September. For now, though, unless and until they cut one of the bus lines which takes me and many, many other people from home to work, I'm "lucky" to have transportation options. I guess. If you call paying $3.50/day for the luxury of waiting sometimes almost an hour for a bus or train and then being packed like a sardine with complete strangers into a confined, cramped space which may or may not have functioning air conditioning or heat lucky, then, I'm truly, truly lucky. Oh boy. Lucky me. Lucky, lucky me.
I have not missed riding on public transportation to and from work. I mean, I like the concept and theory behind public transportation, I'm all for it environmentally speaking. Really. I'm a long time supporter and user of public transportation. It just makes sense - financially, environmentally, civically, socially, it's just the right thing to do. Discomfort and delays aside, it's a good commuting choice.
However, the obvious drawback to public transportation is that you have to share transportation with the public. A bunch of strangers thrown together for a ride around the city.
You can learn a lot about your neighbors by riding public transportation to and from work. I've learned my new neighborhood is inhabited by a lot of professionals who work at a university or one of the big hospitals, college students, senior citizens and professional working stiffs like me who have to or want to take public transportation to work. Most of us, even some of the senior citizens, have iPods. Most of us read books or newspapers. Most of us bathe and wear clean clothes and carry a satchel or briefcase. Most of us are polite and say good morning or good evening or at least "hi" to the bus driver (I used to get chastised about this, I always greet the bus driver and people told me that marked me out as "not from here" or "tourist." I just thought it was the polite and proper thing to do. And now I share my bus ride with a lot of other people who are also either not from here or are polite. I like that. I like that people who are my neighbors have at least a shred of decency, enough to acknowledge the person who's driving them to work.)
For the most part, at least on public transportation, it's a pretty good crowd. Not the hippest, coolest, wealthiest, people in town, but, you know, regular people who go to work every day. There are a few standouts, a few people who are on the same schedule as I am, the people I see when I take public transportation. There's a woman at my bus stop who has casual Friday. I know this becuase on days other than Friday she wears suits or dresses or skirts and blouses. But on Friday she cuts loose and wears baggy jeans, Keds sneakers and a t-shirt with a funny saying, like, "Eat Right, Exercise, Die Anyway!" I'm certain she owns a "Hang in there Baby, Friday's Coming" t-shirt with a cat hanging by one paw from a tree branch. I haven't seen her wear it yet, but I know she has one. I'm not mocking her, that's cool, I like her. She seems nice. Friendly. Quick with a funny comment about how bad the CTA service is. It's just that she's, you know, a type. A good type. There's a woman about my age who has a young son she drops off at (I presume) day care on her way to work. He finds new and inventive ways to entertain himself on the bus, his mother finds new and inventive ways to try to get him to behave. There's one guy, I've seen him twice on the morning train commute, who, when the train goes down a hill, from elevated level to subway, puts his arms in the air and waves them around as if he's going down a steep hill on a roller coaster. It's possible he lives in one of the mental health half-way houses down the street from me, but, casual observation would mark him as a middle aged professional, maybe a financial officer or systems analyst in a big corporation. He has an air of Dilbert about him. The first time I saw him do this I assumed he was joking around with a friend seated next to him. I chuckled at his early morning antics. The next time we were seated in the same car at the same time on our morning commute he was seated alone several seats ahead of me. I didn't recognize him until we hit the decline to go underground and up went his arms, waving in the air a la roller coaster rider. This is apparently something he does all the time. Hey, gotta make your own fun in this life. If going down the hill from elevated to subway is the most fun part of your day, well then, make the most of it. Rock on, roller coaster dude.
Most of us are quick to help the handicapped people (and there are many in my new neighborhood) who attempt to use public transportation. Silly them. Hoping to get around town on CTA. There are ~80 (depending on state of disrepair) handicap accessible train stations on the CTA. That's not many. If you don't live or work close to one of the sparsely placed handicapped stations you're SOL. I spent several months on crutches. I'm extremely familiar with the shortcomings in terms of accessibility on the CTA. Some buses are handicap equipped, but, more often than not the equipment doesn't work or the handicapper is put in risky situations while boarding and exiting the bus. Taking the train was out of the question. The two rickety, ridiculously, perilously pitched and sloped flights of stairs to and from the boarding platform were out of the question with crutches and a cast over my knee. They're difficult to manage under the healthiest of conditions. So it was a two-bus ride for me. I nearly re-injured myself on many occasions trying to board and exit a bus on crutches. On my old route, people were rude and intolerant of handicappers. I'm happy to report that my new routes, and my new neighbors, are generally quick to help a handicapper.
And then there are The Others. Some of the people on the train and bus bring their lattacrappachino with them on their morning commute. The rules of the CTA are clearly posted and blared over a speaker, "No smoking, eating, drinking, loud music or loitering on the CTA trains buses or stations." But apparently the rules don't apply to some commuters because they slurp, slurp, slurp away on their morning beverage and contaminate the air of the bus or train with smell of whatever is brewed and concocted in those cups. I get contact caffeine buzzes just by sitting in the vicinity of the slurpers. I still can't decide which I find more annoying: The loud and incessant slurping or the pungent smell wafting around the train or bus. I think I hate them both equally, and I think they're a tandom offense. My working theory is that people who drink smelly coffee drinks on public transportation by default are people who loudly slurp their beverages.
As bad as the slurping riders, but for entirely different reasons, are the riders who cough and sneeze and blow their noses during the entire journey. I thoroughly wash my hands at the appropriate times throughout the day, use the handi-wipes on the cart at the grocery and use the seat protectors in bathrooms. But I'm not a germophobe. However. After riding on a bus or train I am filled with an urgent longing for one of those showers like in sci-fi or mass destruction movies. The kind the few agents allowed to travel between the outside world and the inner sanctum of the lab or underground society have to use as they enter and exit the core. The first thing I do when I arrive at work or home after a fun-filled ride with humanity on the train or bus is race to the bathroom to wash my hands. I scrub up to my elbows like I'm going into ER. I make a point of touching nothing, or at least as very little as possible on the trains, buses and stations. I have seriously contemplated wearing a nose and mouth mask. I wonder about my childhood vaccinations and whether I should get booster shots. There are times I move away from someone coughing or sneezing on the bus or train. But I know it's inevitable. Sooner or later, no matter how swift and good my hygiene, I am going to catch something.
There’s nothing like the putrid smell of urine and dirty standing water mingling with an odd faintly metallic odor wafting around a confined, enclosed space on a 90 degee 99% humidity day. It’s such a welcoming and lovely start and end to the work day. When I lived in my old-old place, and rode the train more than I do now, one particularly humid morning the smell of urine was so strong and so foul I felt even more nauseous than normal, so it was no surprise that a pregnant woman, upon reaching the platform, gasping for fresh air, didn’t make it to the trash can and vomited all over the platform. Someone called for assistance from the CTA workers in the station below, yet, surprise, surprise, no one arrived. We boarded the train and left the puke behind. The smell on the trains is of a different putrid, vomit inducing nature than the stations. Usually food, coffee, sweat, burning plastic, dust, mud, corrosion, urine always urine, I will always associate a whiff of stale litter box with the CTA, and other unidentifiable smells wafting around the trains and buses. (The buses are, in fact, slightly better because there is more “fresh” air from windows and boarding and exiting passengers, but, there is a smell, an unpleasant smell, a smell of humanity and diesel on buses.) Anyway, on my return trip home the day the pregnant woman vomited on the platform, I was surprised, yes, really, surprised that the vomit remained, still, 10 hours later, on the platform. Someone had put a McDonald’s wrapper over some of it and someone had then stepped on the wrapper, and other people had stepped in it, but it was still there, still obviously vomit. It was gone the next morning, to be fair, someone finally cleaned off the platform. And no, I wouldn’t want that job, and yes, I’m sure whoever finally cleaned it is woefully underpaid. But. On a hot, humid summer day, on an already dirty and smell infested, rat infested (and obviously germ infested) train platform, bodily fluids really should not be left rotting and standing for all to inhale and step in.
It’s times like these I think about my history classes. Classes where I was taught about the Black Plague and typhoid outbreaks and dysentery deaths. In those classes we were all grossed out and appalled at the lack of hygiene and intelligence to put two and two together and come up with penicillin and regular bathing and ridding surfaces of body fluids and dirt. One visit to any random CTA train station will serve as a living history lesson in communicable diseases.
I was thinking this again, last week, and sure enough, in the middle of Summer, a few days after standing next to a woman who sneezed and coughed the entire bus ride, I awoke with a sore throat, head congestion, fever, night sweats and pounding headache usually associated with colds which make the rounds in the office in the Winter months. You know, when all the cold remedy advertising is at its yearly height? You know, when most people catch colds? Yeah, middle of Summer and thanks to my neighbors who ride the CTA I've already gone through two boxes of Kleenex, two boxes of Sucrets, a bottle of Rubitussin, a carton of Alka Seltzer Cold fizzes, half bottle of Vicks and several gallons of Gatorade. I've done serious research on the symptoms of TB because the cough won't subside. My coworkers, who have so far escaped this disease, are aghast that I'm suffering with such a bad cold, for so long, at this time of year. Well. The coworkers who don't ride the CTA, that is. Those who do ride the CTA look at me knowingly, and suspiciously. They know where I picked up this disease and consequently they're wary. They know this isn't just some random cold. They've seen and heard people coughing on trains and buses, sick people, people carrying and spreading biowarfare to commuters. They know. And, from a far, far distance, behind a surgical mask and rubber gloves, they give me sympathetic looks. "Poor Trill. Rode a bus to work one day, and dying of some strange, uncurable disease known only to exist in dark corners of the Third World the next."
Sometimes on my commute my iPod, set on random, will launch into a funnily incongruous song. This is one of the reasons I am a strong supporter of iPods. The huge collection of music and random choices of songs offers unlimited possibilites for a very funny, apt or ironic soundtrack to life. One morning, when I was dosed up on cold remedies and feeling tired and spaced out, I sat there gazing at other people boarding the bus. Maybe it was my drug induced stupor, but they all seemed to be moving in slow motion with glazed eyes. Were they also suffering with my disease and stoned on cough medicine? Or was it something more sinister? Were they in fact the undead, zombies? As I sat there watching the zombie people board the bus bursting from my iPod came the opening bars of Lust for Life. It's the little things that make the commute tolerable. iPods. All hail the mighty iPod. And Iggy Pop. When they make a documentary on this disease I am currently battling, and they show how it was spread, on public transportation, I really hope some young film maker has the sense of humor to use Lust for Life in the background as the contagious zombie people board the bus while unwitting people aboard the bus have no clue what fate is about to befall them on their commute to work.
I've ridden public transportation in a lot of cities. Some are sterling, shining examples of efficiency, reliability, cleanliness and value. Others, well, not so much. The CTA isn't the worst I've ridden, but it's far from the best. But one universal behavior unites every transit system in every city I've used: Spit.
I don't generally have an urge or need to spit therefore I can't understand or identify with a "need" to spit. So maybe I should just shut up about this because I can't understand what it's like to have to spit. But I think it's safe to assume that even if I were suddenly overcome with the need or urge to spit I would find a way to refrain until was off the train/bus, away from the platform and station, or, very worst case, use the trash can in the station or on the platform. But I'm, you know, polite. Other people don't share this outlook. I know this because I see people spitting on train platforms, train tracks, train station stairs, bus stops, and yes, on buses and trains. Not only do I see them spitting, more frequently I see the, um, spit. The proof left behind. The loogies. Big, gross puddles of spit all over public transportation. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm uptight. Maybe I'm overly sensitive regarding bodily fluids. But. This is one of the main reasons I never, ever wear sandals when I'm going to ride CTA. CTA stations, stairs, platforms and trains and loogie minefields. What was I saying about communicable diseases? Gross, you say? Why is Trillian sharing this with us, you ask? Just attempting to paint an accurate picture of 21st century urban life. And to prove what an extraordinary commuting value the CTA is and why we should happily hand over more money for the privilege and luxury of riding the CTA.
Which is one of the predominant arguments emerging as the CTA doomsday approaches. People, even actual CTA riders, insist it's a great value, even with the increased fares. Um. Yeah. Sure. It's a great deal. Yeah. I guess. If you say so. It takes me at least an hour and a half to travel 6.5 miles from my home to my office on a direct, no transfer, train. If traffic is running smoothly, an express bus takes me an hour in the morning, and as much as two hours at night. If there's a Cubs game or if it's raining, add another 45 minutes to an hour to that schedule. When I ride my bike it takes, at a leisurely pace, 40 minutes. And that's including a stop at 7-11. I could easily push myself, play Tour-de-France and make the commute in a half hour. On a bike. And I am not Lance Armstrong. And yet a train, a direct, door-to-door train, no traffic involved, train, takes 1.5 hours. More if there's a Cubs game. And that's assuming I can squeeze into the first train which appears. More usually I have to wait for at least two trains to arrive. Two or three completely packed trains without room for anyone to board will chug into the station, open doors, no one exits, people try to squeeze on and then fights ensue, the doors close, most of us are left behind waiting, hoping, that the greatest lie of all will, in this case, be true: "There's another train directly behind this one." I don't know why I get my hopes up that this time, this CTA train driver, will be the one who tells the truth. "There's another train directly behind this one." "I did not have sex with that woman." And yet I stand there, hoping, looking down the train, squinting into the distance for the promised train. Eventually, two or three trains and as much as 45 minutes later, we can finally squeeze into a train car full of humanity. And despair. And filth. And disease. And rudeness. Yeah, it's a great commuting value. If you're from the third world I'm sure the CTA seems like a gleaming model of efficiency and cleanliness.
There is a segment, a splinter group of Others, who have embraced all the features of their mobile phones. Even the features which harken back to a simpler time. A time when mobile phones didn't even exist. Gasp! I know, can you imagine such a horrible inconvenience? No mobile phones?! It's like, the Dark Ages, or precivilization. And children, children, young children, were given communication devices as toys, presents from Santa or for their birthdays. And these toys were often not even the most anticipated or played with toys. In fact they were often quickly cast aside and drifted to the bottom of the toy box. These toys were called walkie talkies. Some were better than others, some had a range of about 20 feet and didn't work if there was a brick or plaster wall between the talkers. But the better ones had a decent range. If you took a set of good walkie talkies to summer camp, at night, from the safety and confines of your tent, you could talk to your friends in other units or maybe even at the other camp across the lake. The problem with them was that they were too loud or too quiet. You ended up having to yell to be heard in a raspy whisper at the other end, and everyone on your end could hear you loud and clear, or, you'd talk in a whisper and it would be received so loudly that the person on the other end would spend the entire conversation saying, "shush! shush! not so loud! don't yell! everyone can hear you!" And you'd whisper back, "I am whispering" and the other person would shhhh you again and finally you'd give up the amateur spying and war games and go play MouseTrap instead. Children's toys! Playthings!
And now we've come full circle. Adults, grown people, are walkie talkie-ing all over the place. Except now it's called chirping. Cute. This is perhaps more polite than regular mobile phoning because everyone around you gets to hear the full conversation, not just one side of the conversation, so no one's left wondering or guessing about any details. The chirpers put it all out there for everyone to hear. They've got nothing to hide. They're happy, even eager, to share both sides of their conversation. Full disclosure. I notice a lot of these conversations are very similar to the walkie talkie conversations from childhood. "What?" beeep "What'd you say?" beeeeep "Huh?" beeeeeep "What? I can't hear you." beeeep "I said kchhhhhstch hhisssstch." beeeep "What?" beeeeeep "Huh?" beeeeep "kchhhhhhhhstch hhhhsssssisstch" beeeeep "Wait, what?" beeeeep "Huh? I can't hear you." beeeeeep "I SAID SCHCHTTITTTTTTTCH KCCCHHTCH!" beeep "What?" beeeeeep "Huh?"
I love technology. Don't you? We've come so far, so fast.
And some of the people on the train and bus have really loud and obnoxious mobile phone ring tones. Seriously. When was the Macarena a big sensation? Like, 10, 12 years ago? So why would anyone have that as their ringtone? Still, it's kind of apt, the tinny audio of mobile phones does appropriate justice to the Macarena. However, the tinny audio of mobile phones does not do appropriate justice to Brahms' Concerto #2 in D Major. I was particularly bothered by one woman's nonstop mobile phone ringing one morning. It was blaring a painfully loud, tinny and distorted passage of La Gazza Ladra every time she had an incoming call. After she hung up the, I'm not kidding, sixth call in 15 minutes, I lifted my eyes from my book and said, "Big fan of Rossini, eh?"
"Huh? I don't know no Rossini. Who's Rossini? Is he that new guy on the Sox?" (Only a Chicagoan or Bostonian would understand that last phrase and accept it as a perfectly normal statement. To anyone else it would sound like, "Is he that new guy on the socks?")
I just smirked and said, "yeah," then paused thoughtfully for a moment and said, "Ever watch Bugs Bunny?"
She just gave me a weird look.
A guy seated across from us laughed and leaned over, caught my eye and gave me a knowing thumbs up. Hey, it was some small progress. A small victory for our side. There is an "our" side, it's not singular, not my side. It's a good feeling to know you're not alone in your disdain, misery, loathing and contempt. I wasn't alone. I take a lot of comfort in that. I am not alone. Oh be quiet. If mocking someone for not knowing the composer of their obnoxious ring tone is the most fun part of the day, well, then, make the most of it. Go ahead. Call me a snob. Call me a music snob. But if defending the honor of genius musical masterpieces and raising public awareness on great composers (and Bugs Bunny) is wrong, I don't want to be right.
Some of the people on the train and bus like to talk really loud on their mobile phones. They also like to share intimate details of their lives with everyone on the bus. Hey, we're all neighbors, right? Why not share the details of Saturday night's fight with the boyfriend and subsequent "revenge fuck" in the bathroom of a club? I never really thought about that concept, "revenge fucking," until I heard the lengthy and highly descriptive details of one of my neighbor's plans to get even with her boyfriend after he went out with the guys instead of going out with her on Saturday night. She showed him. She went with Melissa and Kelly to CroBar and hooked up with a guy there and, boy did she get the last word in the fight with her boyfriend, she "revenge fucked" the CroBar guy at the club. "While he was out with his buddies I was fucking a totally hot stranger in CroBar!" She really likes to say the word fuck. I notice a lot of people use the f-word these days. Especially when they're talking on their mobile phones. If you think she's a "certain type" of woman, wipe that skanky vision out of your head. This was a polished, professional looking woman in her early thirties. She exited the bus at one of the big hospitals so I'm guessing she's on the professional staff at the hospital. Or going in for an appointment to be tested for STDs. And thanks to her loud conversation in a crowded public space, shared by her neighbors, on her mobile phone, we're all free to speculate about the status of her sexual health. She made it our business. It would be unusual if we didn't speculate about it, at least in passing. When someone talks, no, shouts, the details of their one night stand with a total stranger at a dance club in front of a crowd of people, the obvious expectation and result is that that crowd of people will speculate, maybe even wager, on your STD status. Especially when you exit the bus at a hospital, still shouting details of the encounter down your phone. Did we want to know any of this? Of course not. And yet we were forced to learn the sordid details. I was playing my iPod for crying out loud and I could still hear her.
Speaking of STDs, I "met" an interesting guy on the bus! Woo hoo! The old love life's turning a corner! Things are looking up for Trill's romantic options! The ride home was absolutely packed on the bus. Shoulder to shoulder, bum to bum. The guy behind me had to lean into me to hold onto the overhead handrail. In doing so he was crammed so close to me that I could feel his hip and, um, "groin" on my bum. And every time the bus went over a bump (frequently on Chicago streets) he was jostled into me. So as we bumped along Lake Shore Drive he was a few layers of clothes and penetration shy of sodomizing me. Bump, jostle, hip in right cheek, "groin" in the crack, jostle away, bump, jostle, hip in right cheek, "groin" in the crack, jostle away, bump... you get the idea. Pretty much in-out-up-down-in-out.
Okay, the bus was super, super crowded and thanks to the coincidence of our relative heights and random (I hope) positioning, this unfortunate forced intimacy was pretty much unavoidable. I kept trying to move forward or over or somewhere out of reach of his, um, "groin" but I was already smooshed against the baggage shelf and sandwiched like peanut butter on bread between the people on either side of me. I fought for every centimeter away from the guy behind me I could get. But, I was no match for the bumpy roads.
Okay, you know, we're all adults, right? This will be over soon (just relax and enjoy it, you might feel a slight tingling sensation, it will all be over soon) just try to put as much space as possible between your bum and his, um, "groin" and deal with it. The thing is, as the ride continued there was less hip contact (I thought due to my finagling of space away from him) but more um, "groin" contact. And with each passing bump-jostle it became increasingly obvious that the, um, pressure point of contact from him was decreasing in its "general groin area-ness" and increasingly, um, hard. And direct. One specific pressure point jabbing into my bum.
You heard me. The guy had what I hope was an involuntary erection and with each bump and jostle he was effectively thrusting it into my ass. I guess I can understand that, the steady vibration of the bus, the sharing of personal, and I mean personal space. But. Still. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww.
Okay. I'm making two assumptions for the preservation of my emotional well being. 1) I've still got something positive going on in the bum department which can cause a "stirring" in at least one man, and 2) his erection was involuntary and he was embarrassed or unaware of what was happening below our waists. I've since consulted a couple of guys who told me it's possible, though not probable, that he didn't even realize he had an erection and/or, likely, he was aware of his erection but unaware that he was thrusting it into my bum. I have to make these assumptions because the alternatives make me feel, well, not very good. Violated. Used. Disgusted. Scared.
Making the alternative scary assumptions, he's a creepy pervert who purposely rides overcrowded buses and positions himself behind women's bums for the sole purpose of some sort of "doing it in public with a complete stranger" fantasy. I have no doubt there are people who fantasize about having sex on public transportation and I have no doubt that it happens every day. I'm certain I've seen it happen a few times, once on a train to O'Hare a college aged couple were obivously having sex in the back of the train car, and once I witnessed a guy getting a hand job by a woman, who, not to make assumptions, appeared to have been, perhaps, a hooker. People tell me certain train lines are known to have riders willing to perform services for other riders. I didn't believe it, thought it was an urban myth, but when I saw that display one night after a long day in the office, I had to admit there might be some credibility to the legend.
But, this guy behind me, well, I didn't know him and he didn't ask me for money, or offer me any. So let's just go with the assumption that it wasn't as creepy as it could seem. The couple of guys I told about this asked me if I said something to him. Huh? What would I say? What should I say? "Erm, excuse me, yeah, hi, could you please stop thrusting your penis on my ass?" "Dude, stick your erection somewhere else?" "oooooh, baby, oh yeah, oh yeah, baby, yes, such a big boy and such a baaaad girl, spank the bad girl big boy, oooo yes, yes, don't stop, oooo oooo oooo?"
The problem with telling off a guy who might be literally getting off on your ass while riding a crowded bus is that eventually you reach your stop and have to walk home. Especially on crowded buses with a lot of people exiting and boarding at each stop, it's difficult to keep track of who exits the bus with you. I didn't like what happened on the bus. (though it is kind of funny, you know, if you can take a step back from the disgusting implications of the whole thing) I didn't like it. But, and this is what I was thinking about the entire time: I have to exit this bus. When I do, is this guy going to follow me? If I say something now, he could get mad, either sincerely or pretend to be offended at my accusation, and then what? The retribution scared me most. I did everything I could to get away from the guy as soon as I could. As soon as there was a spare four inches of standing space down the aisle of the bus I squeezed and pushed my way to that space, three feet away and a world apart from his either unwitting embarrassing predicament or creepy perversion. And when I exited the bus I stood on the corner through two lights to be sure he didn't exit with me and the bus was way, way down the street with no way for him to catch up to me or see where I live. Overly cautious? Maybe. But. I'd had enough intimate contact with a complete stranger for one day.
And speaking of intimate behavior, gotta hand it to the woman who, while standing near the front of a crowded bus, pulled a new shirt out of a shopping bag and, right there on the bus, changed her shirt. She did it so deftly that only those of us in the immediate area noticed what she was doing. She clearly had a lot of practice at this because there was only a slight flash of bra as she switched from old shirt to new. Maybe this happens all the time. I mean, really, what's the big deal? Date after work, stop to do a little shopping on the way, change into new clothes on the bus and voila! Ready for that hot date. Oh. And. So adept was she that she also managed to apply a fresh coat of deodorant. But that's nothing. I've seen that maneuver several times on the bus and train. I dunno. I guess I'm weird. I apply deodorant before I get dressed. In the bathroom. In the privacy of my own home. It's not generally something I forget to do. And I don't think. "Oh no, I'm running late! I know! I can save time by putting on my deodorant on the bus! That'll save me loads of time!" Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful they are thoughtful enough to bother to wear deodorant. (Which, in my public transportation experience, is not the status quo. Spend time standing or sitting thisclose to complete strangers and you realize how few people bother with deodorant.)
I could, I guess, tolerate some of this (though I’m not sure why I feel unworthy of basic cleaning efforts and basic polite, adult behavior), I could tolerate it at a bargain price. But for as much as $4/trip and service cutbacks, I have a right to expect to not have to worry about figuring out if that putrid smell is truly rotting flesh or just someone’s lunch vomited up on the platform a few days ago. For as much as $4/trip I have a right to not be afraid of what I may be infecting myself with by just breathing in the foul air. $4/ride gives me the right to not have to watch rats scavenge for their breakfast or dinner while I wait for a train. $4/ride makes it a reasonable expectation to not have to wonder if that puddle I had to step over (or in, if I wasn’t watchful enough as I climbed the steps to the platform) was “just water” or if that strong urine smell wafting around the station was in fact emanating from that puddle. One thing I’m concerned about regarding the proposed fare increases is the increased sense of entitlement riders will have. I expect more litter, more rudeness, more inappropriate behaviors as a result of the increased fares. I can hear it already, “I paid $4 for this ride, I can leave my trash wherever I want,” “I paid $4, I can talk on my cell phone as much and as loudly as I want.” “I paid $4 to ride this bus, and my backpack is going to sit on the seat next to me.” “I paid $4 and they’re making me wait an hour for a train/bus, I’ll piss/spit/litter/jerk off on the track if I want to…” And yes, putting the fare increases aside, most of us already endure long waits for trains and buses. With service cutbacks those waits are going to be even longer. People, lots of people, are going to be spending a lot more time at the stations. There will be more litter, more coffee, more public urination, more loud cell phone conversations, more creepy perverts hanging around looking for trapped prey, more angry outbursts and fights among passengers, more of all the unpleasantness already associated with public transportation. I don’t think the CTA has thought through the social implications and ramifications of their doomsday plan. But I have. And I’m scared.
Years ago when I ventured off to a big city for the first time on my own my dad gave me a bit of advice about public transportation, "Never, ever board an empty train car, always board the car with people already in it. If it empties out and it's just you and one other person, leave that car and board a more crowded car." This is good safety advice, on some levels, and I have heard about victims who've been assualted in empty train cars, trapped, no one to help, no one to call for help, no way out until the next station. But given my current city of residence I have to laugh, too. Empty train car?! I think those of us in Chicago are relatively safe from that particular form of stranger danger. I cannot remember when, if ever, since I've lived in Chicago, anyway, there's been a time when I've had to avoid an empty train car.
Just when I thought I'd seen and heard it all on public transportation, a guy seated next to me had a heart attack and I think, presume, died. Right there on the bus. Next to me. It was during a very, very and humid spell. At 7 AM it was already 85° and 99% humidity. The sun was already unable to burn off the haze which was still hanging in the air from the day prior. I was seated in the rear of the bus next to a window. I had my iPod on and was reading a book. We stopped at one of the stops prior to the express portion of the ride. A bunch of people boarded the bus and a guy sat down next to me. He was well groomed, but had his dress shirt unbuttoned over his undershirt and his tie draped around his neck. Hey, it was really, really hot and I totally understand he was trying to keep cool and fresh for work. He was kind of chubby and when he sat down he bumped into me. He apologized. I smiled a "that's okay, no biggie" smile. I noticed he was sweating profusely. He squirmed in the seat. I thought he was having difficulty getting comfortable, and, it was really hot and uncomfortable, so, you know, it seemed normal and he was apologetic about the disturbance. I squeezed more tightly into the side of the bus to give him more room. I said, "really a scorcher today," to try to make him less self conscious about his sweating and discomfort from what I thought was the heat. "Yeah," he said in agreement, out of breath, "a real scorcher."
As we started the express portion of the ride he started kicking my foot. I looked over at him and noticed even more sweat. He was clearly very uncomfortable and maybe in pain. He looked at me, a weird look, a look that said, "something's not right." I asked him if he was okay. (Okay, duh, of course he wasn't okay, but you just always ask that, don't you? Are you okay? I mean, I didn't know this guy, for all I know this might be normal behavior for him. You don't go around launching into something like CPR or the Heimlich Maneuver on a total stranger without first asking "Are you okay?" and confirming that they are in fact not okay. And, asking the question also shows that you are concerned and this gives a green light to the person in distress who might otherwise not want to bother a complete stranger with their health problem. When you ask someone if they're okay you're inviting them to unburden any of their problems onto you, you're showing that you're the person in the crowd concerned for them and they can turn to you for help rather than worrying about bothering someone and potentially risking further pain, anguish or death. It also gives the person the option to suffer alone or at least without your help. If you ask, "Are you okay?" and the person says yes and gives a "leave me alone" look, you're relieved of civic and social responsibility. "Hey, he said he was okay. So I didn't call a paramedic to remove the knife from his throat. He said he was okay." You're absolved. The person may not be okay but not want your help, either. So really, asking, "are you okay?" no mater how obvious it is that they're not okay, stupid as it may seem to ask in certain situations, is really the polite thing to do.)
He kept kicking my foot, looked at me, pleadingly, and his body started spasming. I took that as a no to my are you okay question. But went in for confirmation.
"Sir, sir, are you okay?" He was still focusing his pleading eyes on me and trying to say something and then his body jerked and convulsed. As this happened, the top half of his body fell off the bus seat, across the aisle onto the lap of the woman seated across the aisle, then onto the floor of the bus. His legs were all caught and twisted on the seat so I couldn't move to do anything to try to help him without stepping on his legs. Not that I would have known the right thing to do anyway. During Girl Scout Red Cross First Aid Training Day they never told us what to do for a person who's having a heart attack in the close confines of a bus.
This is where everything went into that slow motion effect they use in movies, except instead of everything being blurry it was all in ultra vivid sharpness. Simultaneously the woman across the aisle and I yelled out "Stop the bus! Stop the bus!" I think I also yelled, "There's an emergency! is there a doctor? I think he's having a heart attack!" I think it was me who said that. I thought it and heard it but I don't know if I'm the one who actually yelled it because I was dialing 9-1-1, trying to help the guy and trying to communicate to entire rush hour bus full of people at the same time.
Gotta give huge, huge, HUGE credit to the bus driver. Everything other than the guy dying in front of me ceased to exist at that point. However, I did notice it was only a matter of seconds that the driver had the bus pulled over to the shoulder and apparently radioed someone for help and was coming up the aisle to assess and help the passenger. I, and several other people, were on our phones to 9-1-1. But I think the bus driver had some code red button on his CTA walkie talkie thing because a CTA emergency services van appeared in like, I dunno, three minutes.
In that time the driver got everyone safely off the bus - everyone who could get off the bus, that is. There were a few of us who were stuck behind or around the patient. At this point I was kind of kneeling/standing on the seat trying to get the guy's legs untangled from the seat so at the very least if anything was still circulating he wouldn't get cramps or clots or pinched veins or a million other health problems I imagined happening to him as a result of his legs being twisted and caught on the seat. Turns out there was a nurse on the bus. She'd made her way to the back of the bus and tried to get a pulse on the guy as best as she could given that his arms were splayed under the seats and he filled the small aisle. She attempted to get in the proper position for CPR. The problem was that the bus aisles are narrow and the guy was kind of big. And all twisted up in the seats. And those of us remaining on the bus were at awkward positions to help move him into a better position for CPR. Basically, the few of us remaining were at a loss. Once the paramedics arrived they were able to quickly get him off the bus and loaded into an ambulance.
The rest of us boarded a bus which had pulled up behind our original bus. And off we rode, continued on our way to work. You could have heard a pin drop on that bus. Everyone had a dazed, what the heck just happened, that could have been me, poor guy, holy swutting cow what a way to start a day look on their faces. We were all stunned into a silent reverie. I noticed a woman counting her rosary beads.
The thing that kept playing over in my mind was the nurse saying she couldn't get a pulse. She had that look on her face like, "it's too late."
What got to me was the normacly of the rest of the day once I left the bus. We'd all shared that experience so even on the second bus, after the incident, it was still "happening" to all of us, we were all dealing with it in our own ways, together. We all witnessed it, we all experienced it. We all have that in common. But one by one, we exited the bus, stepped out into the city and resumed our normal lives, away and apart from all the people with whom we just watched a man die. It was as if we were turning off the television or putting down a book. We were engaged with the characters in the story, but then turned off the television or set down the book and the were gone, or at least trapped in their television or book world, waiting for us to return and pick up the story where we left it. The difference is that this time there's no resuming the story. That was the story, we were the characters. Away from each other there's no longer commonality or at least no continuity. To say the rest of that day, and most of the days since, have felt surreal and slightly disjointed is an understatement.
I think I watched a man die. I hope he was saved, I hope and beg the Universe to let him be okay, that the paramedics knew what to do and got there fast enough to help him, save him. But the pleading look in the guy's eyes haunts me. It's not like on TV or in movies where people grab their chest, keel over, close their eyes and go still. The eyes stay open and the tongue hangs out, frozen in the moment of pain and realization that this is the last stop on the bus of life. The body spasms. I keep hoping, keep trying to be optimistic that because everyone acted so quickly and efficiently that the guy survived the attack. Heck, maybe it wasn't even a heart attack, maybe it was something like a seizure or something treatable. Hopefully not contagious. But that look in his eyes... and the nurse's words, "I can't find a pulse..." keep nagging at me. I was with my cat when he died. I saw the life go out of his eyes. I know that look.
I have thought about emergencies on public transportation. Once I saw a woman fall when a train lurched to a sudden stop. She hit her head on the hand rail and fell to the aisle and it looked like she broke her arm. She limped off the train at the next stop. That was, you know, scary and sad and made me think about what you do when there's a health emergency on public transportation. But I never thought about what would happen, or what I would do if someone seated next to me keeled over and died on my morning commute. Have you ever thought about that? You might want to give it some thought because it's swutting freaking me out. I think I did all I could, I guess. I'm not sure. But I feel responsible for him. If he died I was the last person he saw. "Yeah, a real scorcher" were possibly his last words. And the last person he spoke to was me. I keep making myself will him to health and life. If he did die, he died on my watch. Oh sure, his health is not my responsibility, not really. But. We're neighbors. He was sitting next to me on the bus. And in my mind that puts him on my watch, just as I was on his. If the situation were reversed I would have been on his watch. He seemed like a nice guy, I think, hope, he would have asked me if I was okay and tried to help me.
I'll never know what happened to that guy, but, when I do ride the bus to work I'm on the lookout for him. I have a hunch I always will - every time I ride the bus and pull up to "his" stop I will look for him, hoping to see him standing there, iPod and newspaper, waiting to board the bus for just another daily commute. And I keep wondering, if he hadn't been forced to wait 45 minutes for an overcrowded bus, if there'd been better (or any) air conditioning on the bus, if he'd been commuting in a city with clean, efficient, reliable, sanitary, air conditioned public transportation, would he have been spared his life? Or, at least, could have have suffered his mortal blow someplace more, well, comfortable, or at least more clean. To die on a CTA bus floor, breathing in that putrid, humid air, is more insult than anyone should have to endure. What I learned from this is that, again, I don't mind dying, but I do not want my final breaths to be drawn on CTA and I do not want my body flailed onto any CTA surface. I can hear the ER doctor consoling my parents, "We could have saved her, you know, could have got her through the heart attack/stroke/brain seizure/whatever, but modern medicine is no match for whatever disease she picked up when she fell onto the CTA bus/train floor/platform." And that is not worth $4.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Yeah, so, um, there were some technical difficulties with the music file sharing. I think we're back up to speed, now. I loaded some new old stuff for your listening and downloading pleasure and will keep at the trial run by loaing more stuff this week. Take a look and a listen, you might find something you like. Apparently I'm feeling troubled. Or something. What's new there, you ask? Yeah, not much, I answer.
11:19 AM
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Okay, so, I’m a mortgage holder now. Woo hoo. Yay me. I’m an adult now. I guess. I’m not sure what I was during all the years between 18 and now. Apparently without a mortgage I was in some sort of limbo (purgatory?) between adolescence and adulthood. That’s what people keep telling me. Now that I have a mortgage. I dunno. I miss renting. I miss the luxury of apathy and irresponsibility about home repairs and property taxes. Wiring problem? Call the landlord. Plumbing issue? Call the landlord. Neighbor blasting their stereo at 3 AM? Call the landlord. Tax assessment and bill? Huh? What’s that?
But, I’m a mortgage holding adult now, so these issues are now my problem. Oh joyous happy day, I'm a swutting adult with a mortgage. I can't believe I ever wanted one in the first place. I can't believe I longed for that thing like a prize just out of my reach. Be careful what you wish for and all that.
Oh c’mon, I’m not stupid or naïve, I knew what I was getting into with a mortgage. I thought the pros would outweigh the cons. Everyone told me they would. On paper it seemed logical that they would. Everyone told me it would be so worth it. Everyone told me I was making the best decision of my life. Everyone said I would never look back or regret it.
Well.
No surprise on my part: They were wrong. This place is costing me a lot of money in terms of repairs, maintenance and taxes. Sure, my mortgage payment is substantially lower than my rent was, and it’s a fixed expense, so no big surprises in the form of a huge rent increase with the new lease. And the building already went condo, so no surprises in the form of no new lease arriving because the building’s going condo. I guess that’s a good feeling. I guess it’s worth it in that sense. As long as I make my mortgage payment every month and pay my taxes I won't be homeless.
But I don’t agree with the other aspects. There was an outlet issue in the bathroom which came to light (nyuck nyuck) during the pre-closing inspection. It was to be fixed prior to the closing. It wasn’t. So the smarmy seller’s lawyer “gave” me $100 in concession in the closing fees to cover the repair. The lawyers and agents present reckoned the repair wouldn’t take long, an electrician charges about $100 and hour, hence the $100 concession.
Well, I think we all know that’s a ridiculously low amount of money. I think we all know that if the seller hadn’t fixed the problem while they were living in the condo, there was probably a reason why. That reason was probably expense and aggravation in the form of dealing with electricians and a problem more complicated than it appeared on the surface. Or maybe I’m psychic. Maybe my experience with home repairs in the many, many apartments and homes I’ve lived in are irrelevant and I am, in fact, psychic. Because as the debate about electrician’s hourly rates was being held at the closing, I was sitting there thinking, “There’s more to it than meets the eye. The inspector told me to get this fixed before closing on the condo. He wrote it specifically on his report. Therefore it could be a deal breaker. So it’s in the seller’s best interest to have it fixed. Yet they didn’t. There’s probably a very, very good reason why. An expensive reason why.”
Maybe I wasn’t using common sense but was actually channeling the seller’s psyche. When I spoke up during the debate I said the inspector specifically told me to have the seller make the repair because I didn’t want to get stuck paying a lot of money for an electrician and related expenses. The seller’s smarmy lawyer said, “You’re going to back out of the deal because of a $100 repair?!” My lawyer went into pit-bull mode (have I mentioned how much I ♥ my lawyer? I really do. No one ever says that. Which is a shame. Because my lawyer is great. I ♥ him.) and said, “It doesn’t matter what we think this is going to cost, the inspector noted that it needed to be repaired prior to closing. There is a signed document from the seller and their attorney, you, stating that repair would be made by the closing date. The seller did not live up to their agreement and we can walk out of here because of that. My client does not have the time to find a competent electrician and shouldn’t have to find the time to find one. She’s a very busy professional. She is purchasing this condo specifically because she does not want to be involved in home repairs.”
The seller’s lawyer, who was an immature prick, sorry, there’s just not a better word for him, started mimicking my lawyer and mocking me. We adjourned from the closing room for a brief recess. My real estate agent made a couple of phone calls to electricians and my lawyer called the inspector who originally noted the problem. The best guess at the time was an hour or two of work, barring any unforeseen issues. Again, this might be some new psychic ability kicking in, but I had a pretty strong “feeling” there were going to be unforeseen issues. But my lawyer and real estate agent both said, “Look, you are completely within your rights to walk away from this. There is no pressure to sign if you are not comfortable with this. But we’ve made the calls and it sounds like you’re looking at a $100 repair. We can write in an amendment covering you if it ends up costing more than that.”
Okay. Now. Let’s take a brief moment to recap my emotional and mental state at the time. I went to the closing after a very long weekend watching my cat die. I had to leave him literally alone on his deathbed to go to the closing. If he was miraculously still clinging to life when I returned from the closing I was going to have to take him to be "put to sleep."
Suffice it to say that I was not exactly clear headed, astute, savvy and on top of my mental game during the closing. Even if I could freeze my emotional issues for those hours during the closing, I was exhausted. I was as close to being a zombie as you can be without actually dying, or, well, undying dying or whatever zombies do to be zombies. My mental acuity, apart from possible psychic or telekinesis with the seller, was not exactly sharp. I trusted my lawyer and real estate agent, they knew I was in a bad emotional state, they were supportive and wouldn’t take advantage of me. I developed that sense about them in the weeks prior to the closing, and I still stand by that opinion. I trusted them and so when I asked them what I should do and they said take the $100 with an amendment and proceed with the closing, I said, “okay, let’s go, then.”
So, I moved in and yes, of course, the problem is huge. And, I haven’t even fixed the problem yet and it’s already expensive. I went to the local home gouge you in the checkbook repair store hoping to get a referral for a electrician. I've seen ads on television where smiling, friendly competent guys in orange or blue smocks help a homeowner complete a home repair. I know, I know, me, of all people, suckered in by television advertising. Oh whatever, you would have done the same thing if you were me. I went to one of those places and talked to the “expert” on home wiring who told me I should at least try to follow his instructions and fix it myself. So, even though I wasn’t convinced and was more than a little apprehensive about my electrician abilities, I took his diagrams and instructions, paid a lot of money for a bunch of stuff he said I’d need for the job, picked up a book on home wiring, just in case, went home all nervous and excited about tackling this project on my own, (there may have even been a “take that! HWNMNBS” ) shut off the fuse switches, took off the switch plate for the light and . . . nothing looked at all like the guy at the store told me it would.
Surprise, surprise. So I referred to the book I’d bought, just in case, and what do you know? What I was beholding before me looked nothing like anything they showed in the book. So I replaced the switch plate, thought, “Nice try, at least you tried, Trill, at least you made a real attempt,” and trotted down the hall to turn on the fuse switches.
And that was when I took a bunch of volts from two popping fuses, volts so strong I was thrown to the ground and had char marks on my fingers. Mind you, I hadn’t done anything except turn off the fuse switches, unscrew the light plate, peer inside, look at the instructions and the book, peer inside the cave behind the light switch, screw the switchplate back into the wall and turn the fuse switches on again. No wires were crossed, touched, or in any way altered. But now, instead of a dim and flickering light in the bathroom, I had two blown fuses and no light in the bathroom, hallways or living room
It was about that time I began to question the existence of a supreme being. “Maybe, ‘God’ really does exist and he just struck me down for being smug and self righteous regarding the ‘take that! HWNMNBS’ thing when I really need to just let it go, even in moments of perceived personal triumph or failure. Or maybe, as suspected, this all really is just one huge test of character and apparently I keep failing so I keep being re-tested. Either way, if that’s the way the God thing works, I don’t really want to be part of it because it all seems very mean spirited and not exactly helpful in terms of growing as a mortal and preparing for a splendid afterlife. Well, okay, no one should go around smug and self righteous, but am I not entitled to something after all HWNMNBS put me and my parents through? Yeah, I thought so, too. I’ve more than earned a few moments of ‘take that’. So the God theory kind of falls apart in practical application, doesn’t it?”
I had to pack up and be at the airport the following morning, so I was pretty much, well, there’s no appropriate other way to say this, fucked. I called a few electricians, you know, just for a laugh. Sunday afternoon emergency in home wiring repair. I think you can do the math and realize I don’t have that kind of money. But I wasn’t going to be home during the week, 9 – 5, to get the “standard” non-triple time in home rate.
So I called my lawyer from the airport and asked him about that amendment. And he told me to get two written estimates.
Okay. I’ve been traveling. A lot. And when I’m not on the road for work, I’m either in my office working late trying to catch up with what hasn’t been done while I’m gone, or it’s the weekend and I’m trying to get caught up on things like laundry, bills and life in general.
Getting an electrician to come to your home on a weekend is expensive, even if it’s not Sunday evening. The standard rate on a weekend before Sunday evening is double the normal week-day rate. Which is already very high. Okay, sure, anyone who can deal with volts and amps and make electricity and wiring work properly and safely without shorting out all the fuses or burning down the building is worth a large amount of money. I agree with and understand the necessity for a competent professional with years of solid training and experience. I agree that experience and training has a monetary value and I’m willing to pay it. But. Holy swutting robbery. Have you had to have an estimate done on wiring lately? Not even the real work, the repair, just an estimate? Cripes. I should have been an electrician.
Just one problem with that career path: I don’t possess the smug assholeness required for the job. Even my "take that! HWNMNBS" moment doesn't give me cred in the electrician smugness arena. Electricians, I've learned, have a certain smugness unto their own.
And worse than their smug, “heh heh heh, I’ve got you right where I want you, alone and in need of an electrician” attitude, is the overriding impression that every, yes, every electrician I called gave me. The impression that before the phone rang they were sitting around listening to the Allman Brothers smoking a huge joint and drinking beer with the other electricians. You know that voice guys get when they’ve been drinking beer and just took a huge drag off a joint or smoked an entire pack of cigarettes? That half choking, half baked, half hiccoughing, half sleepy voice? (read: Cheech and Chong) Every single electrician I called had that voice. And worse than that, they have that voice combined with a smug cockiness over the fact that I am obviously in need of an electrician and therefore close to desperate for help only they, or one of their kind, can give me. I keep getting this image of all the electricians in the city sitting around smoking weed and drinking beer and listening to the Allman Brothers, with a main guy, the head electrician, coming in once in a while to send them out to unsuspecting people in need of emergency wiring repairs. Sort of like on Taxi when all the drivers sit around waiting for Louis to bark out their assigned fares. Okay, I don’t remember any episodes of Taxi where the drivers sat around smoking dope and drinking beer or even listening to the Allman Brothers, but it’s the best simile I can come up with to paint the picture of what I envision when I call an electrician. That may be telekinesis kicking in again. Or just plain old life experience and a decent ability to gauge character.
So, I’m trying to get estimates for an electrical repair so my lawyer can present the estimates to the seller’s lawyer and we can proceed with the reimbursement and I can then get an electrician to come to my place, fix the wiring and then, oh happy day, then, I will have a functioning light and outlet in my bathroom and hallways.
Because until I get reimbursement from the seller I cannot afford to have this repair made and that is why I take a shower in the dark, dry my hair in the kitchen and put on my makeup in the dim light of the bedroom – dim because, what do you know, surprise, surprise, that wiring is the same wiring as the bathroom and also has some “issues.”
Which is why I didn’t realize that persistent annoying itch on my neck was actually a huge full blown nasty welt, increasing in size with each passing day, until I returned to work and a guy who works in another department and with whom I have miraculously been able to remain friendly for a lot of years at work, said, “Heh heh, getting’ a little action out on the road, eh Trill?!” Okay, now we’re friendly and even though this innuendo was crossing a line, he and I have joked around before this so it was not completely weird for him to make a joke, albeit an odd and uncalled for joke because he knows how hard I work in and out of the office. So I said, “Oh yeah, you know me, party, party, party. Just one big libidinous good time on the company’s dime,” and then, later that day when one of the bitchy (speaking of self righteous and smug) Nordies girls said, “Gawd, Trill, at least wear a scarf or a turtle neck or something. Do you really think we’re impressed by that? Tacky, Trill, just tacky.” I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about so I went into the bathroom and saw, there, on my neck, proudly displayed, with my hair pulled back in a chignon and a v-neck top for extra emphasis, what appeared to be an enormous, and I do mean enormous, skanky low budget porn star quality hickey.
Which is how it came to pass that I was sitting my doctor’s office and saw a guy also waiting for an appointment, a guy obviously recovering from major burns on his hands, arms and face. My heart went out to him. I’ve burned myself in the past, not anywhere as badly as that, but boy, oh boy, even the small burns I’ve had really hurt, like, really, really hurt. I have two scars on my inner arms from burns I used to get from my old oven, several apartments ago. They’re nothing compared to what this guy is enduring. So, you know, I was feeling really sorry for him and making up all sorts of theories on what happened. Fireman, went into a burning building to save an old lady and then went back in for her cats. A Marine just back from Iraq after dismantling a car bomb, saving an entire village but burned and scarred for life. A AAA road repair guy who tried to help a stranded motorist with an engine problem and he was in the wrong place when the thing just blew, man. A fireworks technician instructor who valiantly cleared the area and went in to sap a dud rocket.
Then this old guy, another patient, came in and sat down by us. Not exactly tactful, or quiet, the old guy said, “What happened to you, son?!” (I love that about old people, one of the great things about being a senior citizen is being able to just blurt out what you’re thinking without any (or few) ramifications.)
Wait for it, wait for it . . .
The burned guy said, “I was working on a rehab over in Pilson and someone hit the fuse box before I was ready and the whole thing just blew on me.”
“You’re an electrician?” I said, trying to not sound too enthused and sarcastically bemused.
“Yep.”
The old guy said, “Dangerous line of work.”
“Not usually, but we’ve got a lot of new guys on the crew, these rehabs are killing us, we get these guys who don’t know what they’re doing and then something like this happens.”
Okay. I still felt really sorry for the guy. Of course. Good grief, do you really think I’m that miserable and spiteful?
But the irony of the two of us crossing paths in the doctor’s office cannot pass without a mention or slight chuckle.
So, feeling buoyed by the old guy’s assertiveness, I said, “So, erm, do you do private work, you know, not through a contractor or whatever, just, you know, jobs on the side?”
He looked me funny. Like I’d crossed a line of decency. Maybe I had. But, hey, I’m new to this whole home ownership thing. I’ve been walking around with a swutting welt the size of Rhode Island on my neck and didn’t realize it because I don’t have functioning lighting in my bathroom for crying out loud.
And I swear, I swear it’s true, he responded in a markedly different voice, that stoner Allman Brothers voice, “Not right now, but maybe in a few weeks. Why? You need an electrician?” If he had a full, unsinged eyebrow this is when he would have raised it, coyly. Like a snake about to bite. Through his stoner voice he also used a tone which implied if he could have rubbed his hands together in sadistic glee, he would have. (“Ehhhxzellllent.”)
“No, just curious,” I said and politely yet curtly as possible, and with that decided that he will now forever be known to me as Mr. Burns. Then I wondered if any of his electrician buddies gave him a hard time about his accident and call him something ironic or sarcastic, or if they are humbled knowing how easily it could have been one of them. Then I wondered if electricians have a sense of humor. In my heretofore encounters with electricians in the public sector, the Cheech and Chong sounding electricians, I have not been privy to any indication that they do. Not that I would call this guy Mr. Burns to his face. Well. Maybe if he actually followed through with implied rubbing of hands in glee I would, but he didn’t and my perception might be totally wrong. And c’mon, I feel bad enough for even being able to manufacture that sort of chiding to a guy obviously suffering and in a lot of pain, I would never actually say it.
So, about that time I was called into the exam room, the doctor took a good look at the welt, said I’d had a reaction to a bug bite, gave me a shot of Benedryl and then asked me why I waited so long to have it looked at because I’ve had bug bite reactions in the past and she knows I know I’m not supposed to mess around and think it’ll go away because it probably won’t and in fact will probably get much worse. And I told her it was because I wasn’t home, and then when I got home I didn’t realize how bad it was because the light in my bathroom doesn’t work and I didn’t realize how large it was until I went to work and saw it in the bathroom mirror, then I took Benedryl but it didn’t have any effect.
“Why don’t you have a light in your bathroom?” she innocently asked.
“I bought a condo and there’s a wiring problem and I’m waiting for a reimbursement from the seller so I can get it fixed.”
“Oh. Huh. Don’t try to fix it yourself, okay? I don’t want to see you in here with third degree burns.”
Thanks for the warning, doc. Tell that to the guy out in the waiting room. I triple dog dare you. Got any other home repair advice while you’re at it? Perhaps, “Don’t try to fix that faucet in the kitchen, I don’t want to see you in here with lungs full of water!”
What I want to know is, when does home ownership “pay off?” When will I feel like it’s the best decision I’ve ever made? When will I reap financial rewards? Because so far it feels like a huge, expensive mistake.
1:00 PM
Friday, July 13, 2007
There are tons of reasons to ♥ Prince. But here's why I ♥ him now more than ever. What a shame, poor little BMG. All they want to do is charge $10 for a CD which costs them pennies to produce and along comes Prince and beats them at their own game. Cry us a river, BMG, we'll be in the other room "reading" the Sunday paper.
(My new euphemism for listening to Prince: Reading the Sunday Mail.)
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Another day, another flight delay. Had I known the Furry Creature was going to die before I moved, had I known someone in my office was going to quit and leave me stuck schlepping back and forth and up and down around the continent I wouldn't have bothered to worry about, much less actually gone out and found a home. I could be like John Candy in Planes, Trains and Automobiles, schlepping around the country with a big trunk full of my life's accumulation of stuff. Seriously, being homeless wouldn't have been a big deal because in the past couple of months I've rarely been there - two or three days at home is a long stretch for me lately. I'm not complaining about that. I have zero motivation to "do" anything with my new place. I don't care that most of the moving boxes are still exactly where the movers dropped them. I don't care that there is an electrical problem which needs tending - I'm rarely there so a functioning light source, much less using my hair dryer in the bathroom is a non-issue.
None of this matters to me. I was forced to move, I found a place to live, it's just yet another place I sleep on the list of many, many residences I've had in my lifetime. There's nothing special about it and mostly, my cat's not there. There's no reason for me to want to be home, nothing holding my heart there. The only thing behind that door are walls and lifeless space.
Which is fine. That's fine. I knew life after the Furry Creature was going to be rough, I knew it was going to be an enormous adjustment. So, the constant travel is actually welcomed - it spares me the daily agony of walking into an empty abode without his funny, furry, friskiness there to greet me. It spares me the long lonely nights, absolutely truly alone now, not even a cat to keep me company.
A lot of people don't like traveling on their own because they feel lonely in hotel rooms. I understand that. I know that loneliness. But. It's a better loneliness than being in your own home, alone, and lonely. That loneliness and emptiness has a much more omnipotent oppression to it.
And of course I don't exactly miss my office and coworkers. Being away from that environment is a really good thing.
But I know this isn't "normal." And I know it's enabling me to avoid dealing with all the changes that were forced on me and enabling me to avoid dealing with some serious issues in my career and professional life. The irony in that statement is that I'm traveling for work. And out here, on the road, I like my job. People respect me and listen to me. People treat me like an intelligent, professional human being. It's, you know, nice. Unfortunately that spell is broken every time I call or email the office. My harsh reality crashes down on me and reminds me that there's more to my job and career than being out with clients and other professionals. It reminds me that at some point this will come to an end and I will have to spend long, tiring, soul sapping days in the office.
And no, it's not like it's fun and games and no stress out on the road - or in the air - it's not. The truth is that I work even longer days than when I'm in the office. Ask anyone who regularly travels for work and they'll tell you the same thing. Longer days punctuated with travel days full of delays and stress about making a connection or meeting on time. Longer days filled with thinking on my feet with clients, forced to be "on" for 10 - 12 straight hours, and then back to a hotel room to work on ideas created during the day, prep and present them before catching the next flight to the next town. I'm road worn and weary to say the least. But there's nothing at home for me - a new empty place to sleep, alone. So I'm out here in this limbo land. I'm tired and sick of traveling, but I don't want to go home.
I've pushed myself too hard without a recharge and I know my enthusiasm and creativity are suffering because of it. I admit, I've "phoned in" a couple of ideas lately and I'm not proud of that. Yet. Going home and going back to the office for any real length of time holds no appeal. I simply do not care. There's little for me out here, but there's nothing there.
A client recently asked me about all the time away from home and if it bothered me and if I found it difficult to maintain relationships. Relationships?! Well, you know, thanks for assuming I could actually have a relationship, there client, but that's a non-issue for me. Out of the mouths of babes, she said, "If you're never home you can't meet people and start a relationship." She's right, of course, so that hit home pretty hard. This is a comfy little shell of excuse for me in that regard. Oh sure, it's not as if I was meeting all sorts of eligible and interesting bachelors and this traveling is preventing me from getting serious with one of them, but, you know, just in case some fluke situation were to occur and I would meet a viable relationship guy, it's not going to happen as I schlep over, around, up and down North America.
Spending the majority of your time traveling for work does things to you and your life. To summarize: Life as you know it ceases to exist. Social life? Are you kidding? When you are home you're trying to catch up on work in the office which has piled up because no one fills in for you back in the office while you're gone, and the rest of your precious home time is spent doing laundry, sorting mail and bills, and trying to sleep like a normal person, in your own time zone, in your own bed.
Because of time constraints (no free time during business hours) on the road I've been reduced to shopping at airports. I bought my dad's birthday present, a second wedding present for friends, a birthday present for my sister, and presents for the godkids. Oh, and, I sent flowers to the funeral of a friend's father from an FTD kiosk in Denver. These airport planners aren't stupid. Forget American Airlines' claim to know why we fly. It's the marketers of airport merchandising who know why we fly and why we are reduced and captive to buying their goods. They know we're harried, tired, dazed and under the gun to procure normal items of life, like birthday presents, goodies for the kiddies and flowers. They know people in our situation could rely on online purchasing, but sometimes that $9.95 connection fee is too much for us to stomach for a 30 minute session or we have a long delay and nothing to do but wander the concourses, think about our friends and family and how we wish we were with them, forget that our expense accounts won't cover gifts for family and friends, and voila! a merchandise marketer's wet dream is actualized.
For me it's borne of necessity. I don't have much money to spend on gifts, but I have to buy something. Everyone who knows me knows I've been spanning the globe without an hour to spare for shopping for gifts. So I've got a good excuse, erm, reason, for not searching out perfect gifts far in advance of the event. However, given the particulars, I've done extremely well to spend very little money on gifts which do not scream "airport present!" I'm not proud of this. I know I'm playing into the hand of marketing and captivity, that I am a hostage of the airline industry. Not only do I (well, my company) pay hugely overpriced airfares, they get more money out of me at the airports because of their delays. Food. Beverage. Books. Magazines. Newspapers. Bottles of water. Gifts for the family because I don't have time to shop in real stores due to the flight delays. Makes my stomach hurt to think about the vicious circle of marketing and money and my place in that circle of marketing life.
But.
On the other hand. I can't argue the convenience. And I can't argue that I found reasonably priced, decent, okay, at least appropriate gifts. My dad loved the Abe Lincoln book, my friends have already used their wine decanter and have it displayed in their dining room (they emailed me a photo) and my godkids have had a blast growing and shrinking their grow toys. My sister's t-shirt is as good as one I would have found if I'd scoured Haight Asbury for one. Or maybe I'm just so tired I'm delusional. Maybe they're all just being polite and extra kind to me because of all the stress, travel and lack of time I have. To be fair, I could give my dad anything, anything and he'd rave about it. My godkids are well grounded youngsters who don't expect presents and therefore appreciate any token given to them. My friends who remarried got very few gifts (and less support) so I think the fact that I acknowledged their unity in any form other than criticism hit a tender chord with them.
Once the necessary shopping is done, the magazine is read, the iPod only has enough power left for the flight, the people watching becomes tedious, and the delay has been extended another two hours, again, I find myself pulled to the place I generally avoid.
Airport bars.
"I don't want to be one of those sorry people who sits in airport bars by themselves," has been my lifetime motto. You know what I mean. You've seen them. Weary, sad, vacant eyed people, usually middle aged, sitting alone in bars in airports, engaging in conversation with the bar tender or other weary passengers stuck on a layover or delay. This is it, this is the sum total of my social life, an hour or two at an airport bar. Note to self: Get a life.
It's an interesting phenomena to me: When I'm traveling, especially at airports, men are nice to me, friendly, even. And no, don't go there, I mean in casual, non-"interested" ways. I think it's because I'm obviously a business traveler, and the guys who are nice to me are also business travelers. We have an instant kinship because of why we're stuck at yet another airport in the first place. It's a sort of Stockholm Syndrome wherein we identify with our co-captives and commiserate about our captor. Not really Stockholm Syndrome, more of a Hogan's Heroes syndrom. And our captors are just as stupid and evil as Col. Klink and Sgt. Schultz. (More on that in a minute.)
Generally the men I meet are good guys. Guys I'd be interested in if they weren't, you know, married. Ladies, if your husband is out traveling for work and he's never had a fidelity infraction in the past, then trust him. These guys wear their wedding rings like badges of honor and while, yes, they initiate conversations with me, within one or two sentences they're talking about you. Their wife thinks this. Their wife does that. They went here or there on their honeymoon. Most of these guys would much rather be home with you. They don't seek me out as a little potential fun in the Admiral's Club, they're just frustrated, bored, sick of their coworker traveling with them and missing you like mad so they talk to me. We're no commitment required surrogates for real family and friends. We're all in the same boat, filling in empty hours waiting for a flight. We don't talk about politics, religion or sex. Well, that is, apart from guys in sales who scour these joints for fresh prey, and the guys who've imbibed a bit too much. The over-imbibed guys will breach the airport conversation topic etiquette. The rest of us just share a knowing glance. Most of us have had a bad day, hit a low and overdone it at the airport bar. Most of us can tell the difference between a bad day, long night, dinner from the mini bar, a bad phone call to the office and the one too many drinks which can follow if there's a long flight delay versus a professional airport bar drinker.
Recently, one guy who reminded me so much of my brother it was uncanny and a bit scary, confided that he'd do anything to find a job with no travel so he could be home with his wife. "We want to have kids," he said longingly, wistfully, "how are we supposed to have kids when I'm gone all the time and when I'm home I'm so tired all I want to do is sleep? How can I be a good dad if I'm never home?" These guys are good guys, real guys, thoughtful guys. Guys stuck in jobs which pay a decent salary but, here's the thing, as much as they'd love to find another job without as much travel, they can't search, much less interview for those jobs because they're always flying here or there for their current job. They're as stuck and trapped as I am, and sadly, they want out as badly as I do. Another guy, down the bar from us, who, oddly, looked a lot like HWNMBNS (I see a lot of his type lately, must be the fatigue and loneliness) chimed in and said he'd been through a divorce for that very reason. He said it was the best thing that could have ever happened to him, but I sensed that was false bravado, that he was trying to convince himself the job was worth it and the ex was only holding him back and getting in the way of his success. Those two guys and another guy who looked like pre-arrest era Nick Nolte and I grew silent and turned our travel weary eyes to the television.
And there we all were, stuck waiting for departure because of yet another weather delay. We were lucky this time, though, because we weren't on the runway stuck on an immobile airplane. This time they didn't even board us. Not because the airline was being nice and conscientious and respectful of the passengers and their comfort and emotional well being, but because, well, they couldn't board us because our plane hadn't yet arrived. Believe me, if there had been a plane for us to board they would have herded us onto it, pretending that we were going to take off as scheduled, pull away from the gate and then leave us sitting there in runway takeoff limbo. But that didn't happen this time. This time I hit the weather delay lottery and got to spend two hours in an airport bar watching America's Got Talent.
Oh lucky day. Oh lucky me.
Sure, I could have got up and left at any point, but I was held spellbound not by the Hoff, but by the enthusiasm and interest my fellow delayed air travelers had in this show.
If you haven't had the, um, "experience" of America's Got Talent, well, you haven't missed much. It's the faux reality formula so wildly popular these days wherein millions of everyday people, your friends and neighbors, line up for hours, even days, to try out for a spot on the show and a shot at fame and fortune. If they make it past the preliminary approval of "producers" (most of whom know absolutely nothing about actually producing a television show or how to gauge the particular talent or ability which is the theme of the show they are "producing.") The contestants who make it past the producer filter are then judged by a panel of three judges, people allegedly esteemed and worthy of the big comfy judging chair and carefully placed soda product. Simon, Randy and Paula. Insert new names and faces, put a spin on the ability required by the contestants and away you go. Dancing, inventing, cooking, automotive customizing, interior design, writing (oh wait, that one hasn't hit the US yet, it'll be interesting to see if it does) or the catch all free for all: "talent."
Apparently anything goes here. If you have some kind of "talent" you can try out for this show. Interestingly, though, there seem to be a lot of singers. Maybe they were confused. Maybe they didn't realize this isn't American Idol. Or Maybe they didn't make the producer cut on American Idol and thought they'd give it a go in the general "talent" show.
Back in the old days, the days before politically correct vernacular, days before cable television, days before YouTube, there were traveling freak shows. Like a circus except instead of animal acts and trapeze acrobats, "freaks" were put on display. Mostly human "freaks." People born with physical abnormalities or "freakish" abilities. Many of the contestants on America's Got Talent fall into the "freakish" abilities category. Apart from a side show at the early Lollapalooza concerts, freak shows died because shows like The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show showcased people with actual talent, giving the public something "worth while" to watch in the comfort of their own homes. And also because people honestly became more sensitive, intelligent and savvy. We've all seen The Elephant Man. These people are not animals and should not be treated like animals, paraded around with their physical abnormalities flaunted and taunted at gawkers with enough money and lack of sensitivity to view them. Yes, we did take big steps forward, away from "freak shows." But now, in one fell swoop, we've digressed, stepped back a century in our evolution. If you haven't seen Idiocracy, I recommend it. It's a scary look at the future which, based on the current state of things, will easily be our reality very soon.
Why am I running around all Henny Penny about the state of the nation because of some formulaic insipid television show I saw in an airport bar? Because I looked on at the people who were utterly captivated by this show. The same men who expressed a longing for a different life, a family, more time at home, were sitting there spellbound by the freak show. Is that what they would do with more time at home? Sit around watching this crap? If so, then their jobs may be doing them a great favor. Their jobs, which keep them out on the road and away from home, are keeping them from falling into a pit of mind numbingly stupid, uninspired, lowest common denominator, formulaic despair.
I couldn't stand to watch the contestants put themselves through the indignity of displaying their "talents." I was embarrassed for them and worried about them. Why would they do this to themselves? Don't they have friends and family who care about them? Friends and family who would step in and say something, tenderly, gently telling them the truth and preventing them from becoming an object of ridicule? Most of them seem to be there of their own free will. Most of them seem fully aware and able to make personal judgment calls regarding what they were getting themselves into, so they're hardly lambs to the slaughter.
But.
Still. C'mon, people, how about a little personal pride and integrity here? How about saving your little party tricks for little parties with family and friends? Heck, even I've got those kinds of talent, but you don't see me on television doing my impression of a big panting dog after a run on a hot day. (which is so good it freaks out my friends' sheltered cats and it used to crack up the Furry Creature) You don't see me doing an freakishly accurate Robert Plant impersonation. (I do an incredible "Ramble On" and when I combine my panting dog impression as an intro to "Black Dog," well, I mean, it's, it's unsurpassed in its unbelievability. Finish with an encore of me impersonating Billy Corgan impersonating Robert Plant singing "The Immigrant Song" and you've got a real show stopper. I do a fair Billy Corgan impersonating Liam Gallagher, too.) You don't see me on television doing my creative advertising design and marketing jargon rap. (Hey, it brings down the house when us creative nerds get together, and really, what's more entertaining that a white girl rapping?) You don't see me putting together flat pack items from IKEA in record setting time with nothing but an allen wrench and my bare hands. (Seriously, put me in a 12 room house full of boxes of stuff from IKEA and nothing but an allen wrench and time me.) You don't see me playing Shriekback songs on the oboe. (I'm not kidding. I do an awsome Gunning for the Buddha. You know, when everyone else in the room is drunk.) I've got talent. Lots of talents, in fact. Weird, stupid, boring talents. But no. You won't see me performing these remarkable talents on televsion. Why? Because I have a) a small shred of self respect, b) friends and family who care about me and won't let me embarrass myself and shame my family on television, and c) very few vacation days to waste camping out in front of auditoriums and schlepping to LA and Vegas for call back auditions. Because, you know, I have a job and responsibilities. I'm a productive member of society. I don't have the luxury of nothing but time on my hands to go around to reality show auditions. And that, my friends, is what separates reality from reality TV.
Why are there no credible judges on these shows? Why have we never, or barely, heard of the panel of judges on these shows? Why do nefarious nobodies from England suddenly become "esteemed" household names in America? Why are D list washed up has-been "celebrities" called upon to judge?
Well, here are a few theories. Because anyone with actual experience, ability or a knack for finding the next big thing is busy. Busy doing their jobs. Like most of us, they have responsibilities, jobs, families, outside interests and cannot take a six or eight week hiatus from that life to go off and be a judge on some inane formulaic "reality" show. They have already achieved success on their own, worked really hard for it, probably, and don't need or want publicity in the form of a big comfy swivel chair on a judge's panel. They have personal integrity. They're not wannabes or has-beens.
They're not desperate.
I couldn't stand to watch them, the apparent friendless, family-less, talentless auditioners. So I turned my attention to the judges. The people being paid to judge the freak show. The only people more desperate than the auditioners.
Piers Morgan, Sharon Osbourne, and, oh, the token actual American on the judging panel, David Hasselhoff.
Okay.
Let's go over the title of the program again. America's. Got. Talent. America.
So, um, call me naïve. Call me unimpressed, jaded, cynical and fed-up with the reality "celeb" judge format. Go ahead. Call me all those things. All true. But. Am I the only one to notice and question why, on a panel of three judges of American talent, two of them are English? Okay, if we're to believe what we saw on Meet the Osbournes, Sharon did actually reside in America for a brief stint. But. Um. She's bloody English. And Piers Morgan, um, well, just how many friends and relatives does Simon Cowell need to put on a payroll, anyway? Give us the tally of Simon-dependant "celebrity judges" so we can accurately calculate how many more of these spin-off shows with a judge "kind of" like him on the panel we have to endure on our television airwaves. And Sharon. Is it possible for Sharon to get and hold a job without being being backed by Simon Cowell?
None of the back story really matters, at least in the context of my disgust with this show. America's Got Talent. And yet the only American judge is David Swutting Hasselhoff? What? Was Paula Abdul too busy (read: weird) to take a seat at the comfy swivel chair on the panel?
Oh, oh! And! Jerry Springer, Jerry "Don't call me white trash" Springer, is some sort of back stage commentator. Jerry Springer? What does he know about talent? He can't even keep things on an even keel on his own show, and here he is, back stage, commenting and consoling the talent? What the...? Though, in the context of modern day freak show, who better to tend the freaks than Jerry Springer? It all makes sense in that sense.
And all the more reason for us to rise up, flaming torches in hand, and storm the Bastille of insult to intelligence otherwise known as reality television. Take the ringleader of the suffering, abused talent and hold him captive. The problem is that I don't think anyone would really care if Jerry Springer were being held hostage by a small but intelligent and human rights sensitive crowd of anti-pop prime time terrorists.
David Hasselhoff and Jerry Springer?
Okay. You know, I like the Hoff. I mean, in terms of making fun of himself while at the same time taking himself way too seriously this guy set the bar, the gold standard by which all aspiring no-talent celebrities will be judged. The Hoff had a big golden orange tan to fill in this niche. Becoming the next George Hamilton couldn't have been an easy task. But the Hoff came running in, in dramatic slow motion, no less, with a tan and the ability to take cheesy lines as seriously as a trained Shakespearean actor takes Hamlet. You gotta love a guy who apparently has absolutely no concept that a) all he had going for him was a sort of look a lot of women liked in 1977 (but those days are over), b) he's a really, really bad actor, and c) a singing "career" in Germany doesn't mean squat in the rest of the world, but, yet, he a) appears to believe he's still got it in the looks department, because Tom Selleck, his one time competition and contemporary in the TV hunk category, hasn't done anything lately and they didn't ask Selleck to judge talent, now did they?, b) carries on overacting and misusing dramatic pauses because he apparently doesn't realize this isn't like Baywatch where there are camera cuts to bikini girls or a drowning victim, and that the cameras will continue to roll on him and will air unedited, so he sits there, mouth agape and arched drama eyed waiting for someone to yell "cut!" and c) feels he's an authority on musical ability.
Seriously, I do like the Hoff, I really do. I find him wildly entertaining simply because he is David Hasselhoff. I love his Hoff-ness. Unaware, stupid, untalented, fading looks and ridiculous singing "career" and all. He's the whole package, the real mimbo deal. I love him for that. I loved him in the Spongebob Movie, and I love that he did the movie. They didn't offer Spongebob to Selleck, did they? No they did not. They went straight to the Hoff. And we have the memorable line, "I got to ride the Hasselhoff" out of it and that alone makes every ridiculous aspect of his "career" worth it.
But. From coast to coast, Americans who either have nothing else/better to do with their time or used some of their precious few vacation days* to be there, lined up to show their stuff, their talent, in front of three judges who will be responsible for bestowing a $1 million prize to the "most talented" American. When I think of talented Americans a lot of people come to mind. I personally know a ton of talented Americans. And on the edition of the show I watched, some of the contestants on the show were truly talented. Which makes this whole atrocity and crime against humanity even worse: There were actual talented people on this show. And who's the judging them? Two no-talent English Cowell-ite clones and David swutting Hasselhoff.
What the...?
One more time with feeling, what the...?
Okay, first of all, ahem, a couple hundred and some years ago America won a long and difficult war against England and declared independence from English rule. The problem? The reason for the bloodshed? England was far away, uninvolved and apathetic about issues over in the new worlde. The American settlers felt the folks back home in merry olde just didn't get them, didn't understand them or life in the new worlde. And it was true, they didn't. England thought the folks who set off to America were quirky, religious fanatics, weird and/or stupid. The people who couldn't fit in in England made their way to America. And, well, ya know, ahem, well, yeah, it was probably true in a lot of cases. I have to remain, um, humble on this because my relatives were the ones waving good-bye and rolling their eyes and dismissing them with a sardonic "I thought they'd never leave." But nonetheless, they set off for America to make lives for themselves and you have to at least admire that innocent hope for a new and better life, a fresh start and the willingness to put in the hard work to achieve it. America was and is a very, very different place from England and the settlers were cut of a different jib than the people they left behind in England. That hasn't changed. Believe me, I know, probably better than many Americans, I know the differences between English and American. So why, now, are there two English citizens judging American talent? Huh? I don't get it. And I don't get why other people apparently don't notice, don't care or don't understand why this is just wrong. Isn't this just another form of taxation without representation?
And it's not just that they're English. It's that they're nefarious and infamous in England. Morgan was a tabloid "journalist" (read: Sleaze and scandal headlines) who somehow found a loophole (put it in your wife's name) and was spared conviction (by the skin of his teeth) of insider trading, while Osbourne simply married Ozzy Osbourne.
Um.
Why are they qualified to judge any talent, much less American talent? Were it America's Got Parole then yes, Piers Morgan would be a great judge. Or America's Got Litigation or America's Got 20 to Life or America's Got Corporate Pigs with Balls and No Conscience, then heck yeah, he'd be the perfect judge. Get Martha Stewart and Jeffrey Skilling on the panel and you've got a fantastic panel of judges qualified to critique and rate law breaking, insider trading contestants. And sure, every couple of years I like a little Crazy Train as much as the next person, but it's not even Ozzy, it's his wife. Crazy only by association. Okay, well, yeah, she did marry Ozzy so her mental stability could be questioned. We're not talking about credible people who have talent or even integrity. We're talking two friends of Simon Cowell. And David Hasselhoff. I mean, c'mon, Larry, Moe and Curly would be more qualified to judge American talent (or any talent) than these three.
I know, I know, I'm taking this stupid show way too seriously. Don't like it, don't watch it. Were it not for a weather delay holding me captive at the airport with my fellow Hogan's Heroes syndromites, I wouldn't have.
But. This speaks to an all too prevalent issue I'm confronted with in life away from the airport bar and television. Other people watch this stuff. Other people enjoy it. Other people buy into it. The zeitgeist of all of it is staggeringly, mind numbingly stupid, and yet people, people you and I know, our friends, neighbors and family, are tuning into this fodder and if not buying into it, at least enjoying it.
Why?
Are we really, as a society, that stupid and bored? My life sucks. Really bad. I mean really bad. But holy swutting pabulum, I can find a lot of other ways to spend my evenings. Heck, even other television shows have more to offer than this sort of freak show mentality.
You know, Star Search was stupid. We know that. And yes, people tuned into it. But it seemed like everyone knew it was stupid, it seemed like everyone, especially the home viewing audience, was in on the joke. Ditto the Gong Show.
Now, when I watch people watch these shows or talk about them, they seem duped. They seem to be buying into it and loving it. Maybe it's just easier to sit in front of the TV and just embrace the experience rather than question why.
I get that, I understand that. I watch Spongebob, for instance. But. My line between real reality, real culture, real inspiration and insipid forms of entertainment meant for nothing more than a quick, short fix is not blurred or confused. Pop culture bites with a good merchandising deal. Here today, gone tomorrow, throw away society. It is what it is and I understand that and even see a need for it. We all need a mindless escape now and then. A guilty, but innocent, pleasure. Spongebob. '80s dance music. Pinball. It's not high art or culture or in any way worthwhile and we know it. It's dumb and pointless and we know it. It's just, you know, fun for few minutes.
But, the sinister freak show aspect these faux reality shows have taken on scares me. As a species, we'd come a long way in terms of compassion regarding our less fortunate fellow speci-ites. Freak shows were a thing of a very distant, uncouth, insensitive, embarrassing past. We'd moved on, we'd evolved. And now, in a span of a few years and a lot of money in a few (English) pockets, we've slid backward on the evolution chart. It's supposed to be monkey to man, not man to monkey. And who's leading us backward in evolution? David Hasselhoff.
Lately I've been thinking a lot about an old Twilight Zone episode. The one where the airplane is supposed to land in New York City, but as they descend they find dinosaurs roaming what should be LaGuardia. They go back up and attempt to un-do their wrinkle in time and then find themselves in the distant future. The show fades to black and we're left to assume that plane is still flying out there lost in some time-space continuum wrinkle.
Lately, when a plane touches down, I feel like I'm not quite in synch with the people on the ground, like I'm a few years behind or ahead, the same but slightly different, slightly not quite the same reality. Part but apart. Knowing, or unknowing. Just kind of weird. This adventure in television viewing at the airport bar solidified that feeling for me. Surely this cannot be the state of my species? Surely we touched down in some different era, maybe even some different planet. Surely these people, who look normal, intelligent and even sensitive are not sitting here happily enjoying this utter insulting drivel? The only explanation possible is that somewhere, one of my flights touched down in a different era or planet or bizarro world which is not my own.
True, I've felt that way for most of my life, but this experience combined with all my flying lately makes me think something's gone horribly wrong, the fabric of time and space unraveled and I'm hanging by a thread on the frayed end. Sending gifts from another dimension, making phone calls and sending emails from beyond, before, or after 2007. Because this surely cannot be the natural order of things, the way we're supposed to evolve.
*Something else that really bugs me about the whole English judges thing- people outside of the US do not understand that most Americans have at most a mere 14 days of vacation a year, and that many of us can't even use those because of cutbacks at our companies or fear of losing our jobs, or, we have to use vacation days for things like going to the doctor, dentist or staying home because we are literally so sick we are unable to move from our beds or toilets. Got the flu? Bummer, get well soon, really, get well soon, because those days sick in bed are eating into your vacation days. Have a broken leg? Oooh, that totally sucks, what a pain. And what a shame your vacation days will be spent on visits to doctors and physical therapists instead of visiting your family during the Christmas holiday. Other countries in the First world have more generous paid holiday benefits for hard working employees. They have paid sick days apart from vacation days. Five to six weeks is normal in Western Europe, and many companies shut down between Christmas and New Year's and consider those days to be paid holidays. Value is placed on down time, life balance and letting employees not feel chained to their office chairs. You can say a lot about Dickens, good and bad, but, he did Western Europe a huge favor by bringing to light the negative ramifications of not only child labour but also adult labour - all work and no play really does cause problems. Now, when a company suggests reducing vacation day benefits, the concept is usually vetoed because they don't want to come across as Dickensian. The stigma is so entrenched that the 5 - 6 week vacation benefit stands to remain for a long time. But not here in America! American's have always been a hard working bunch. Not afraid of no life outside of work, uh uh, no way. Americans just love, love, love to work and work hard. Vacation? A week, two at the most is all anyone really needs. If you can't unwind and get your life in balance in one or two weeks, well, maybe you need to re-evaluate just how badly you want to be American. Maybe you're just not cut out for the American way of life.
Right, so, very little (or no) vacation time is the norm for Americans. These reality shows, run by English citizens with generous paid vacation benefits, are completely ignorant and/or insensitive to the fact that Americans do not have vacation days to waste or spare. Simon Cowell blathers on about contestants wasting his time. His swutting precious time. Shut the swut up you overpaid fuckwit. Your time? How many days do you actually have to show up somewhere for "work?" How many vacation days do you have? These kids, if they're working and we hear a lot of stories about crap jobs so some of them actually do have jobs, are using some, if not all of their truly precious vacation days to be there. Heck, I'm guessing most of them don't even have paid vacation days so they're losing money by being there in the first place. Yes, they're wasting their vacation days, but they're buying into the dream, they're hoping the sacrifice will pay off for them, which is the whole premise of these shows, the shows that are making Simon and Co. so ridiculously wealthy.
Right. So if they're working, the auditioners are using several of those precious days to chase a dream by standing in line for days, if they're lucky, going to a call-back, only to be shot down or worse, ridiculed on national television. Sure, if they want to waste their vacation days standing, sitting, sleeping, eating in an audition line, that's their choice and problem. But. I'd like to see a little more respect for these auditioners in terms of the sacrifices they're making to even show up to the audition. And I don't mean made for television great back story sacrifices, I mean the every day reality of using precious vacation days and what that's going to mean when they don't make the cut.
And let's hear it for all the unsung real heroes of "reality" television. The people back in the offices filling in and covering for a co-worker or colleague who's decided to chase a dream, take time off work and audition for a "reality" show. The auditioner left their co-workers in the lurch when they trotted off to audition for a reality show and these workers stepped in and picked up the slack left by the "reality" wannabe. Yay, you, hard working Americans who held down the fort and kept business running while your co-workers left you to chase a $1 million dream. I wonder if any of the winners of these shows give anything back to the people who covered for them at work when they took time off to audition. 8:59 AM
