BTaO-AP-H…With Fleas

Just a quick update
Time flies when you’re having fun; including sometimes, even when you’re not — sorta like right now.

For the past six weeks, I’ve been ‘flyin’ low’ as my late MIL, Maxine was want to say.

My first issue was negotiating the wake of the inevitable family turbulence generated by the loss of Michelle’s father. That’s the part I won’t talk about (for obvious reasons). It was unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected. ‘Nuff said there.

Next, and more recent, was the equally-inevitable fire drill of the preparation, then post-trauma dance that I must do anytime I go on vacation, which Michelle and I did last week, traveling to Southern California to celebrate my Dad’s 86th birthday. We had a great time, spending time with Dad & Helen, but we also got to spend a day in Laguna Beach, break tortillas with my step-sis, Janice and her husband. We even managed to squeeze in a brunch with MakeMineMike and TheDailyRandi on our way out of town.

So it was a relaxing, but eventful five days, however this week’s process of catching up after the fact has been absolutely maddening.

I'll certainly be writing about it, but I can tell you it won't be on a scale with my LA Stories of previous trips to my old stompin’ grounds. Frankly I’m tired of starting but never finishing those somewhat over-blown yarns. Hell, I still haven’t finished the series for my trip in 2005, let alone 2008. This one will be short.

Other than that, there’s not a lot going on right now, other than work, although I do have a lot of notes from unfinished stories that I could be expending more effort trying to transcribe and post, even if some of them are a couple years old.

Oh yeah, I guess this is something — my laptop’s hard drive died on the plane out to California, taking with it at least three unfinished blog stories with it. I can't freakin’ win. Don’t know whether or not the drive's salvageable; finding out is just one more thing I’ve had to add to my to-do list for this next week. I still haven’t taken the time to send in the thumb drive I lost back in August of 2007 to a data recovery place I found that showed some promise for possibly retrieving the irreplaceable data I lost on that little device. I really need to do that as well.

Speaking of which, could it really be possible that we’ve been in our new house for more than a year and a half already? Sheesh! They say time goes by faster as you get older; well, I’m definitely living that truism right now. Sure hope it starts slowin’ down at some point. At this rate, I’ll be 65 in a couple months...

Sorry for the stream-of-consciousness, but it’s all I really have time for this morning, and even at that, it’s communication to you (or just myself) that’s long overdue.

Painful as it will be (for a variety of reasons), I’ll be finishing up my current series, the tribute to Michelle’s Dad, hopefully before the week is out. I say this here to give myself a deadline — not that I’ve been all that great at following my own mandates, but I suppose it can’t hurt.

Here's wishing us all a pain-free rest o’ the summer.

Talk to you again soon…


finis

A Different Point-of-Hue: L.A. Stories 2008(Part IV)

Road Rage.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering when I’m gonna go off. Given the gloomy title and even gloomier Prologue, perhaps you’ve been anticipating that I’d eventually get to the bad part; that I would launch into some kind of Hell-A tirade. Perhaps you were waiting for me to start spouting off about how ‘in my day’ things were different; how life was so much better in the paradise that once was my beloved SoCal.

And in the beginning, when I first returned home and began pondering what to talk about in this series, you would have been correct.

Meh…chalk it up to jet lag.

Fact is, I was tired — physically and mentally — upon returning from a nine-day vacation to the old homestead. There was never a point at which I regretted going; but I now have considerable regret over perhaps spreading myself a bit too thin while I was there. However, that in no way was anyone’s fault but mine alone — and to be honest I really don’t see how it could have been avoided in the first place. Any other course of action would have meant missing out on seeing someone, and I’d have had none of that.

I love my friends; it’s one of only two legitimate reasons for returning to California as often as I do — save for the far greater purpose of spending time with my Dad and Step Mom. But even after the sad day arrives when my folks are gone, I will still make that trip as often as possible to visit my friends, and to reconnect with the abundant memories of an absolutely awesome childhood spent there.

But then again, not every moment on this trip was exactly what you’d call, awesome.

Traffic — the bane of most working folks in the greater Los Angeles area — was an absolute nightmare. One would certainly have a reasonable expectation of dealing with that when visiting Los Angeles. However this time it really caught me by surprise. I thought at first that it might have simply been the fact that three years had passed since my last visit; that I had been away long enough to somehow forget what L.A. traffic was really like.

Nah. I remembered.

I remember what it was like driving the freeways of Southern California for eighteen out of the twenty-two years that I lived there. I especially remember what it was like back in the mid-80s through the early 90s, when I was driving from Long Beach to the San Fernando Valley nearly every day of the week.

It was bad then; horrendous even, but at least it was somewhat predictable. Rush hour was well-defined; and barring some kind of catastrophic event, like an accident (the occurrences of which are surprisingly rare — a tribute to the skill of SoCal drivers), if you factored in the time of day, you pretty much knew how long it would take to get from point A to point B. And perhaps that’s still the case; but if so, the formula has changed.

And yes, this presented a problem for me on this trip.

As a SoCal resident, one of the things I always prided myself on was knowing the heartbeat of L.A.s freeway traffic patterns — inasmuch as my own sphere of personal travel was concerned, of course.

Not many people drive all of the freeways, all of the time. However that Long Beach/North Orange County-to-Downtown L.A.-or-The-Valley route was one that I knew well. To a lesser degree, but still with a certain amount of familiarity, were the traffic rhythms of Long Beach to the Hemet/Palm Springs area, where my folks retired to in the late 1980s. This was also a path I had worn well over the years.

Bottom line is, I had no reason to expect any dramatic changes in the traffic patterns this time around — but I got ‘em anyway. In the more recent trips I’d taken, in 2000, 2004 (twice), and again in 2005, it seemed to me that things had for the most part stayed the same in the 13 years since our relocation to Nashville.

I especially remember thinking, during that 2005 trip, how little the experience had changed, and what a perverse pleasure driving in congested L.A. Freeway traffic brought back to me. I’m sure I didn’t expect it to stay the same forever, but even the logical anticipation of it getting worse didn’t prepare me for what I experienced on this visit.

It may not have been ‘Road Rage,’ but it was close.

In a State of Flex
I noticed the heavier traffic right off the bat, soon after I arrived on Thursday afternoon. One of the things I had purposely done was to try and take a middle-of-the-day flight; one that wouldn’t force me to leave Nashville airport first thing in the morning for the outbound leg, but also one that didn’t depart so late in the day as to place me right in the teeth of afternoon rush hour traffic upon my arrival at LAX.

Fortunately there has been a longstanding flight on Southwest Airlines’ schedule that I’ve taken before, and was able to do so again this time. Not only is it a non-stop, it leaves Nashville at 12:05 PM and arrives in L.A. at 2:20 PM. I figured that would give me ample time to get my bags, catch the shuttle over to the car rental agency, and pick up my wheels for the week, all before 3:30 PM — the traditional start of rush hour as I had known it in all my years of driving in L.A.. And when I say, ‘the start’ of rush hour, I mean the very start, as in medium traffic, and few if any slow-and-goes. Under those circumstances, it should have taken no longer than 30-45 minutes tops for me to get to my where I’d be staying for most of the week, at my friend Cindy’s place in Cypress.

Heh; and guess what’s changed in L.A. over the past few years?

Enter the wonderful world of Flex Scheduling. It’s nothing new or even that novel a concept. It’s been around for years; but apparently it’s now in wide use in Southern California, according to Cindy.

She says that now, instead of most people working the standard 9 to 5, more and more companies are allowing their employees to stagger their hours to dilute traffic concentration, in an attempt to thereby avoid the traditional tie-ups of the work-a-day rush hour traffic pattern. The upshot of all that being, instead of coming to work at 8 or 9 AM, some people are now coming in at 6, 7, 10, or 11’oclock in the morning, and going home at 3, 4, 7, or 8’oclock in the evening.

The concept is sound…in concept, anyway. Spread out the concentration of peak traffic and you have less congestion, right? Except for one little detail that seems to have thrown a monkey wrench into the works: the obviously increased traffic volume in Southern California.

Well, in my day…”
I haven’t taken the time to exhaustively research it, so forgive me if I make assumptions that aren’t the strongest from a perspective of merit; I’m only going by what I’ve observed, what I’ve been told by longtime residents, and what I have discerned through logic applied to the reality of the situation.

There are just a GOB more people in SoCal now than there used to be!

And because of this, despite the flex scheduling, the effect of traffic is now actually much worse, because rush ‘hour’ is now six hours long!

I assure you, it’s not my imagination. The reality is that you seriously have to plan your travels more wisely now than ever before to avoid getting snarled in a sea of red tail lights. If you’re not well en route to where you need to go (of any considerable distance) by 2:30 in the afternoon, more than likely you will deal with rush hour traffic.

Yep, the place they called ‘Paradise’ is more crowded than ever. The only thing one needs to point to as proof is the cost of real estate — supply vs. demand, baby. The more people looking for a place to live in a given area, the higher the prices will be. And the cost of a place to lay your head has never been so high in SoCal as it has been since the mid-90s.

Square feets have always been worth their weight in gold in L.A.; that’s been the case since the late 70s. I was there, so I can say that authoritatively. I watched the average price of what most people would consider a nice house in a decent neighborhood rise from around $75,000 to $125,000 in a matter of 2-3 years in the early 1970s.

The reason? There were a few chief ones back then. First and foremost was an economy that sent America’s Auto Industry scrambling. A new term for the upper Midwestern industrial region along the Great Lakes was coined in the late 70s: The Rust Belt. Many of the recently-displaced factory workers of that era arrived by the thousands, searching for a piece of the new California Gold Rush: the Aerospace Industry, spawned by the heightened military budget of President Ronald Regan’s first term of office.

There was also the massive influx of Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees; the so-called ‘Boat people,’ who fled to the U.S. following the withdrawal of American troops in Southeast Asia. The vast majority of them wound up in Southern California, adding even more coziness to our little corner of heaven.

That was just the beginning.

Prices continued to climb before seeming to level off somewhat throughout much of the 80s and into the early 90s. But that wasn't any help for us; we couldn’t even afford the 20% required for a down payment on what was a then-average price tag of $200K for a 3-bedroom home in Long Beach. Eventually, due this and other unacceptable conditions in which to raise a family, we left SoCal for the greener pastures of Tennessee in 1992.

And as if real estate wasn't crazy enough at that point, it went completely nutso over the next few years.

The L.A. market had softened for the first time in decades, and apparently that's all it took for whatever it was that had been ailing it to get well like never before. By the mid-to-late 90s, home prices began to jump — dramatically.

The 1200 square-foot, two-bedroom, one-bath cracker box in Long Beach that we’d rented for eleven years, which had been assessed at a value of $205,000 in 1990, was suddenly worth $500K. Until recently, those appraisals have continued to climb; bestowing mansionesque value to dwellings that were by any other standard, modest homes at best. The ‘million-dollar house’ was no longer the exclusive domain of the 90210 zip code. The exception had now become the rule.

But aside from the obvious assumption that every property-owner in SoCal had suddenly discovered oil in their back yards, back in Nashville, the question on my mind was, ‘how?’ and ‘why?’

I mean, at the time I left Southern California, I wasn’t the only one. Large numbers of families were fleeing L.A. for the promise of a more affordable life elsewhere. The blush had fallen off the rose, so to speak; it just wasn’t worth the struggle for a lot of people. Multitudes relocated to places like Seattle, Phoenix, and (of course), Nashville and the Southeast.

But as I said, something happened just a few years later. Something changed and sent folks streaming back into the area. There’s no other explanation for the sharp up-spike in property values.

There simply seem to be more people living in Southern California now than at anytime that I’ve ever known. Housing trends would certainly bear that notion out, as the cost of real estate has so famously shot up to the record levels seen over the past ten years.

So the question is, where did all these extra people come from? I can’t say authoritatively. As I mentioned, I haven’t researched this thing as I normally do when I make my famous wild generalizations. And I’m gonna keep it that way. No sense in spoiling a good yarn with needless facts.

Obviously I’m kidding here, but the reason I’m not all that concerned about taking a stab at the answer by my own self is that the authority I do have on the reason is pretty solid, and it makes perfect sense.

Blame the Mexicans
No…not really. I just wanted to see if you were paying attention. But actually, to a lot of folks, that might seem like a plausible suggestion.

The truth is that over the past 30 years, the influx of illegals crossing into California from south of the border has been practically unabated. It couldn’t HELP but play a role in the growing population of SoCal, and by way of extension, participate in the increased traffic and higher housing prices as well. And that’s not just my opinion, but that of a number of residents I spoke to while I was there in August. These people are not bigots, and really don’t begrudge the idea of their new neighbors being there. They’re just pragmatic about the whole thing. The fact is that ther ARE there, and somehow, local government officials are just going to have to find a way to make it work.

Personally, while I can see the logic, I still don’t understand the necessity for the circumstances that SoCal’s overpopulation has wrought in the years since I left. Yes there are more people now. Yes that will naturally express itself in a higher cost of living, higher traffic volumes, and lower boiling points for the tempers of everyone involved.

But to pin it all on the illegals is ridiculous. And I guess this is where the rant rears its ugly head in this story.

The hardship of living in Southern California is not in dealing with longer rush hours and tighter traffic; it’s financial. It’s being forced to pay in excess of 40% of your monthly take-home on housing. It’s being forced to submit to a ridiculous interest-only, ‘Prime +’ or another stupidly-flimsy creative financing vehicle just to try and buy a house there, only to find that you really can’t afford those $3500-a-month payments after all, and you default on your mortgage.

However and whomever is responsible for the obscenely steep increase in home values that have made life hell for nearly everyone over the past 15 years should be shot. And no, I’m not talking genocide on the Mexicans. I’m talking about the mortgage bankers and real estate speculators who just this week nearly brought down our economy single-handedly.

In the movie Wall Street the saying ‘greed is good’ entered our pop-cultural lexicon. But it wasn’t Gordon Gekko who first coined that phrase; it was the blood-sucking real estate industry in Southern California, who has been perfecting it since the 70s.

It’s what drove me out of the state, and it’s what began the trend that now threatens our entire financial system.

Believe me folks, I’m as much a capitalist as the next guy, but I hate greed; I hate exclusivity; I hate injustice. And to see how much worse the cost of living has gotten in my former homeland this past trip just made me want to puke.

Don’t mind me…I’m just blowin’ off a little steam. I’m not offering any answers — ‘cept maybe the part about shooting the bankers and real estate developers.

But seriously, something’s got to give out there. I think what we’ve seen here nationally this past week, that it’s obvious just how thin that bubble has become, and that we need to do something before it bursts.

So that’s it. Rant over; on to happier subjects…

(Hmmm…seems I’m saying that a lot lately, huh?)


Next: Et Cetera ‘08

A Different Point-of-Hue: L.A. Stories 2008 (Part III)

I just love it when a plan comes together.
Okay, I have to say going in, I’m probably gonna embarrass a couple folks, but that’s something else I do — call it a gift — I love to tell people how great they are. I just don’t think most folks get enough of that; but that’s not why I do it. I do it because I feel like it. And it’s my blog, so sue me, aiiight?

Anyway, sometime around February 17, 2008, I read the comments in another post on Kay Reindl’s blog, Seriocity. It was yet another offering from a fellow TeeVee industry person, which understandably, is pretty much the norm.

Now I would say that most of the folks who comment on Kay’s blog are either working or aspiring writers themselves; her stuff has a way of attracting those types of folks. Some are more compelling than others. Some have an axe to grind, joining in with Kay on one of her famous industry rants; others may offer support or mild disagreement with her subject du jour. Then again, some just sorta come off as folks who just like to hear themselves talk, but…judge not… I guess, said the pot.

But in this particular comment however, I did not derive any sense of the latter intent. The setting was soon after the WGA strike had ended in February as most everyone was stopping by to offer well-wishes to Kay in addition to expressing the relief they themselves felt in returning to work after being out on the picket line since November.

The fellow commentor in question wasn’t a writer, but he sure seemed to know how to spin a nice paragraph or two. He mentioned that he was a lighting technician, a juicer; a ‘below-the-line’ member of the industry.

Being the industry-jargon virgin that I am, this was a totally new wrinkle on my melon. “How funny,” I thought. “What a cool nickname.” As I read on, he mentioned that during the strike he’d kept quiet, but now that the strike was over he felt it was time to comment.

He went on to talk about the importance of solidarity from this time forward between the so-called ‘Above-the-Line’ segment of the industry, among which the WGA is a part (along with directors and producers), and the ‘Below-the-Line’ segment: the craft and technical services personnel (including lighting and camera operators, film editors, sound technicians and make-up professionals).

This so-called ‘line of demarcation between power and no power’ was apparently somewhat of a sore spot early on in the strike, as the below-the-liners were out of work, and truly powerless as they were forced to sit on the sidelines and wait out another union’s strike.

Perhaps it was the diplomatic way he put it, even quoting Kay’s arch nemesis, Craig Mazin, in the process. Maybe it was that cool nickname. Or maybe it was that shameless plug he slipped in for his own blog there at the end of his schpiel (not unlike what I had done in my initial comment on Kay’s blog a year earlier, BTW). But whatever it was, my interest was piqued. I copied his web address and visited his blog, and as I mentioned earlier, became immediately hooked on Blood, Sweat, and Tedium: Confessions of a Hollywood Juicer.

To be honest, I had already thought about possibly trying to meet Kay at some point in the future, though it really seemed like a longshot, given the obvious obstacle of geography — and the even more obvious potentially creepy Internet blog fan factor. I mean, why in gawd’s name would she want to meet me? I knew that my intentions were honorable, but would that certainty go both ways?

I’ve gotta give my wife Michelle credit; she didn’t even bat an eyelash when I told her I was going to meet Michael and Kay for brunch on the Sunday after I arrived in town. Now had I not mentioned Michael, well maybe we would have discussed the matter a little more. But the good news is, we didn’t have to.

Once I knew for sure I was going to be able to make the trip I contacted Kay and floated the idea. To my utter shock, she said she thought it would be fun. I then contacted Michael and over the course of a few days, synchronized our three respective schedules.

Hey Big Boy…Why don’cha come over and spend some time with me…
In order to make things as convenient as possible for her, I had asked Kay to choose the place to meet. To my delight she chose the landmark Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant on Riverside Drive in Burbank, just a few blocks from NBC and Walt Disney Studios, and about two miles from the record company where I used to work in the early 90s. Finding the place wouldn’t be an issue, even for my senior moment sense of direction.

In thinking about traveling to the meet I had actually relished the idea (yeah, that’s what a nutcase I am) of retracing the commute route that I used to take to get to work from Long Beach to Burbank. I was sure I wouldn’t have any trouble remembering it.

But sure as shootin’ I missed one of the three freeway exchanges required to get to my destination. In the stretch where the I-5, the 101, and I-10, all converge, I took the 101 instead of the 5, which took me toward downtown Los Angeles instead of northwest toward Burbank and the San Fernando Valley.

I immediately realized my error, but my first opportunity to get off and turn back around was about four miles in. That, along with the fact that the same exit wasn’t available going the other way, meaning I would have to overshoot AGAIN and turn around a second time, meant that I was now 15 minutes behind schedule.

We had agreed to meet at Bob’s at 10AM, and I left Cypress (in North Orange County where I was once again staying at my pal, Cindy’s place) at 9:00am, assuming that traffic would be light on a Sunday morning. Fortunately I was right. When I got myself tuned around, just past the Downtown Civic Center area, I glanced at my watch. It was only 9:25 AM. I had gotten all the way from North Orange County to Downtown L.A. in less than 30 minutes! That as much as anything is a pretty good indication of just how drastically L.A.’s suffocating traffic can affect commute times. And it wasn’t like I was the only car on the road either. The difference was, there were no bottlenecks due to the lighter traffic, unlike the circumstance as it would be 24 hours later and more than likely was 24 hours earlier.

At any rate, I knew I would at that point probably be right on-time, which I was.

I know I had driven past that Bob’s dozens of times in years gone by, but I really couldn’t see it in my mind’s eye when trying to remember just where it was. However I knew I wouldn’t miss it when I saw it. Sure enough, it stuck out like a beacon as I came around the bend on Riverside Drive in the light of a sunny SoCal Sunday mid-morning, and at once the entire scene came flooding back into memory.

Kay had said the landmark restaurant had become one of her favorite places over the past year, as with its close proximity to the TeeVee studios it had become a sort of hangout for the writers during the strike.

Bob’s restaurants carry some history with me as well. The stores in Long Beach, including the one near my parent’s house where my sister Janice worked in high school, were the quintessential ‘cheap date’ destination throughout my teen years. That and their great coffee made it one of the prime late-night-java and/or-early-morning-breakfast haunts where my friends and I liked to meet.

Unfortunately the franchise began to die in the 80s and four of the Long Beach area restaurants had disappeared by the time we moved to Tennessee. It had been a very long time since I’d even seen a Bob’s Big Boy, let alone dined at one.

Michael had thrown me a shout on my cell while I was en route, telling me how to recognize him; I returned the favor. We all must have arrived within seconds of one another as there was no one standing in front of the restaurant doors as I was pulled into the parking lot. However, by the time I got out of my car and walked the 15 yards or so to the front entrance, there was a man and a woman standing there facing each other talking. The guy was wearing a ball cap matching the description Michael had given of the one he’d be wearing, so I made the split-second decision that I was either going to make a complete ass of myself, or a grand entrance — one of the two.

Like I said…caution to the wind.

“Nice Shirt.”
This image of my coolest shirt EVAR courtesy of someone else out on the InterTubes who thinks he’s as cool as me...

I approached the couple rather quickly and neither really seemed to notice me until my head was practically between theirs and I quipped, “So, I guess this must be where it’s all hap’nin, right?”

They both reared back a little at first, no doubt wondering who this weirdo crashing their conversation was. Then I saw Michael’s eyes light up as he smiled and pointed at the t-shirt I was wearing, which I had described to him on the phone earlier. It features the heads of sixteen retro Marvel Comics Super-Heroes, including The Fantastic Four, Spiderman, The Incredible Hulk, The Silver Surfer, Thor (God of Thunder), and The Inhumans; A very cool shirt indeed if you’re a comics nut like me, not to mention instantly recognizable, which is why I wore it and why Michael was pointing and smiling.

“Nice shirt,” they said, nearly in unison.

So immediately following the formal introductions and handshakes, we proceeded on into the restaurant, where we inquired about a table outside on the patio, of which there were several available. It was just the setting I was hoping for. The receptionist walked us out; we sat down and started talking.

I doubt that that goofy smile left my face for the entire two-and-a-half hours we were there.

Above the Line meets Below The Line meets What’s My? Line
It was perfect. Two new bloggers whom I’d only known via their words floating through cyberspace, who live in L.A., whose blogs I have grown very fond of and who seemed to be extremely interesting people, had actually agreed to meet with me pretty much out of the blue.

Only in Blogland, folks, only in Blogland. No matter how many times I do this, it still blows me away.

Awesome.

The aforementioned two-and-a-half hours seemed like about 25 minutes. The conversation never lagged. We talked quite a bit about The X-Files, a subject that I was particularly keen to get Kay’s opinions on, and which will also be the sole subject of a future post. Yes, I’m an X-Phile, and I unlike Kay, still think the series still has legs as a feature film franchise. But I’ll get into all that at a later date.

Needless to say it was all highly interesting. We talked about the strike briefly, but it seemed to me that it was a subject Kay and Michael just would have assumed be left in the past; and that was fine with me; far better to look forward than backward, I suppose.

Kay and Michael offered details of their daily lives in the business. Kay is of course right now in perhaps her busiest time of the year, working ten hours a day on scripts with her writing partner. They call it, “being in the room.” And when you’re in the room, you don’t run out to pick up the dry cleaning at lunch time. You’re there to write. Lunch comes to you; you don’t go to it.

As I mentioned earlier, Michael is also well-acquainted with 10-14 hour workdays. He related a few anecdotes on the matter, giving insights to some of the stories I had already read on his blog.

So despite the fact that Kay, as a writer, is regarded as ‘above the line’ and Michael, as a lighting technician, is ‘below the line,’ they both work their respective bums off.

When it all comes down to it, the only ‘line’ that matters is the bottom line of getting a project created and sold to the networks, and hopefully, on to TeeVee. It’s a rough business; brutally competitive, and one for which those who involve themselves in it are absolutely required to suffer for their craft. There is no easy path to the staying power that everyone seeks, but when achieved, the rewards obviously are tremendous.

I’ve experienced a small sampling of that type of frenetic activity in the record biz, but nothing like this. In my experience most of the unrealistically short turnaround times of my former profession were artificially if not arbitrarily so. However with TeeVee, there are so many more people involved in the process, it’s pretty tough to imagine how they could get it done any other way. It’s a high price to pay, and I say god bless those who can submit to the taskmaster’s whip and succeed where others have failed.

Horsin’ Around
The conversation inevitably gravitated to one of if not the chief passion (outwardly anyway) in Ms. Kay’s list o’ favorite diversions: Horse Racing. Seems it’s not just a passing fancy with her but something she’s been into her entire life. I was astounded at her intimate knowledge of the breeding process and physical indicators that horses give off to lend credence to whether or not they’re in top form on any given occasion. I wish I could have been more conversational on the subject; I just sort of sat there and listened, not being able to do much else than nod my head.

I did manage to relate my memories of the great Triple Crown horses of the 70s, Secretariat, Seattle slew, and Affirmed; three horses who won that great triumvirate of races, all over a mere five year span from the mid-to-late 70s.

Kay mentioned something that I wasn’t aware of; that prior to Secretariat in 1973, there had been a twenty-five year gap since the previous TC winner. That’s why it was such a phenomenon to see it happen again, twice more in the next five years, including consecutive years in 1977 and ‘78.

I admitted to figuring in my enormous naiveté that such a string wasn’t that big a deal; that it almost seemed commonplace to someone like me whose only knowledge of the Sport of Kings was pretty much limited to what I read in the sports pages following the big races.

However Kay went on to give a brief synopsis of why the Triple Crown is such a rare feat, and why now, 30 years removed from Affirmed as the last horse to accomplish it, we may well never see another one, due to changes in the way horses are trained and their value as commodities for breeding purposes. Fascinating stuff.

Eventually the conversation turned to baseball, and Michael talked about his affinity for his childhood local team, the San Francisco Giants. Kay of course bleeds Dodger Blue.

I was stayin’ out of this one, yo.

The Juicer floated his opinion that the Dodgers, who had recently re-acquired pitcher Greg Maddux, had done so primarily to keep the Giants at bay during the NL West Pennant stretch run, as the Dodgers played their arch rivals six times down the stretch in the final weeks. You see, Maddux has more wins again the Giants than any other team in his imminent Hall of Fame career. It was a very interesting proposition, just like 99.9999% of all the other things that came out of the mouths of these two very entertaining, talented, and intriguing bloggers.

Shortly after 12:30 PM, Kay received a phone call on her cell and realized how much the time and coffee refills had gotten away from her. I think we could easily have talked for another hour, but it was a good point at which to call it a wrap.

She obviously had things she needed to do with this, as her weekly routine in the midst of script season obviously leaves only the weekends for errands and other personal business. I knew going in that Kay would probably be mindful of how much time she could spend, but was very happy to notice that up to that phone call, she never once looked at her watch.

However now she needed to go, and actually, I did too; I had also received a call earlier during this marathon confab from my friend Az. He and I were loosely scheduled to get together later that afternoon once I got back to Cindy’s and he was calling to touch base.

So we all threw down some cash for our breakfast and coffee, then made our way towards the door.

After a few ill-fated photos captured in front of the huge trademark Big Boy statue near the restaurant entrance, we took leave of one another, thanking each other for a wonderful time. I was particularly gratified that Michael made the point to thank me more than once for putting it all together. I was just relieved that they didn’t say...“I’ll call you,” if you know what I mean…

So I called them instead.

As I was preparing to get back on the freeway, I dialed up Kay to again thank her for taking the time out of what I knew was an extremely busy time for her. I really appreciated it.

The ride home was a no-brainer, as my mind went on auto-pilot, tracing my old work commute. It was a great day, and a tremendous opening weekend for my nine-day L.A. vacay.

Next: Road Rage

A Different Point-of-Hue: L.A. Stories 2008(Part II)

Another Shot in the Dark
I dunno. Maybe I’ve always been this way. Despite the fact that I’ve never considered myself much of a risk-taker, I had a brief-but-memorable stint as lead singer in a garage band when I was in fifth grade; and I don’t recall the two ensuing public performances I had in that endeavor being overly scary. Then in eighth grade I ran for student council, delivering my campaign speech from atop a chair I had to stand on because I couldn’t see over the freaking podium; yeah, that was sorta fun too.

Then I subsequently spent fifteen years of my life as a competitive gymnast, swinging around on the rings, taking my life into my hands on a daily basis even after a missed dismount in a college meet once left me with a broken back; I never had a second thought about quitting.

Off and on throughout my adult life I’ve done a limited amount of public speaking, and can’t remember the last time I’ve felt intimidated in a crowd of strangers. All of these things, I’ve been told by folks over the years, take a bit more nerve than the average person possesses, yet I’ve never thought of myself as overtly courageous, in public settings or otherwise.

My son Shawn has rock-climbed El Capitan in Yosemite and bungee-jumped off 150 foot-high bridges; now that’s courageous — or dumb — I don’t know which.

The fact of the matter is, I’m somewhat of a ham; a reserved ham, but a ham nonetheless. I’m not afraid to walk up to and talk to someone, regardless of the situation. I don’t like to be embarrassed anymore than the next guy, but if I want to meet someone, I’m generally willing to toss caution to the wind.

As the saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I mentioned in the previous post of this series the story of how I met Michael (A.K.A. MakeMineMike). I sought him out because that’s just what I do. It works for me. I’ve never been the type of person whom people flock to (unless of course I’m walking down the street waving around a wad of Hamiltons in my fist — but that doesn’t count), and that’s fine; I don’t take it personally. I’m rather used to it at this point in my life. For better or worse, I’ve come to decide that most circumstances in which I have a problem with someone acting or not acting a certain way around me, it’s usually ME that has the problem — not the other person. I realized early on in my adult years that if you wanna have friends, most of the time you have to make friends. You can’t expect them to always come to you.

Friendship needs to be cultivated, and the first act of cultivation is preparing the soil. Next comes planting the seed. Where and how it grows from there is solely up to how well it’s maintained.

But that’s a discussion for another time. This is about taking chances.

My initial meeting with Michael was a shot in the dark. I had no idea whether he’d go for it or not. I really didn’t see any reason why he wouldn’t, but I was certainly prepared for it if he had declined.

Well, I decided to do it again this trip, four years later.

Tuning In
A year ago last February I stumbled quite innocently across a blog whose subject matter was about 180 degrees from my own. The author was a TV writer (the abbreviation hereto be forevermore rendered as ‘TeeVee’ in her honor). And the shows she’s been a part of weren’t just any shows, but ones I had actually watched and liked.

Her site is entitled Seriocity, and her name is Kay Reindl.

Of particular interest to me was Kay’s involvement in one of the shows of Chris Carter, a name you might recognize as the creator of The X-Files and Millennium, two widely-acclaimed Fox Network series that leaned decidedly toward the sci-fi/paranormal side of the aisle.

Kay was one of the primary writers during seasons two and three on Millennium, a haunting and dark paranormal drama that I got into a bit late but really enjoyed during its run in the late 90s. In addition to her work with Carter, Kay has more recently been involved in the series revival of The Twilight Zone, USA Network’s The Dead Zone, and the recent and critically-acclaimed-but short-lived CBS sci-fi offering, Moonlight, to name a few.

Her latest project is a series that will debut this fall in syndication, based upon Wizard’s First rule, a rather Lord of The Rings-esque fantasy series of books by Terry Goodkind. It should be an interesting challenge for Kay and her writing partner, Erin.

But her resume was only a fraction of her blog’s appeal for me. Kay’s a no-nonsense kinda gal, with a free-flowing, conversational style of writing that’s as hip and fun as it is engaging. She talks about lots of different things, namely her eclectic taste in music, her longstanding love of the Sport of Kings, and her unfortunate (…sorry Kay…) affinity for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Equally interesting was the inside scoop Kay dished out in her blog on the joys and frustrations of getting a TeeVee series to market; from concept to pilot, to having a show picked up by the networks. It may have been old hat to many of her readers, but I found it extremely fascinating.

However those who were involved or affected by the recent strike involving the Writers Guild of America television writers may know Kay’s blog for something else — her active and spirited involvement as a proponent of her union’s position during the WGA work stoppage of late last year. Kay’s blog quickly morphed from a personal home for her off-work idlings to one of the industry’s hottest destinations for strike opinion and dialogue. She was well-versed in the points of contention between the WGA and the Networks, represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP), and she didn’t spare the salvos in meting out her opinion on the matter.

I watched her comments grow exponentially during the late fall of 2007, as more and more writers (as well as a few AMPTP trolls) came by to offer their support or derision. It was a fascinatingly educational experience for me (to say the least), as it seemed I was one of the few consistent non-TeeVee industry frequenters of her site during that period.

Going in I had no idea how old she was, but I knew she was wise well beyond her years, confident, and seemed to be a pretty fun person. I really wanted to see what she was like in person.

But Kay wasn’t the only one I wanted to meet.

Fresh Squeezed
I’m sure guys in his line of work get a kick out of the various and sundry attempts by outlanders like me to guess exactly what the term, Juicer actually refers to as the industry moniker for Hollywood lighting technicians.

I intended to ask him about it, but it never came up.

Were I to proffer a guess, I’d imagine the nickname has mostly to do with the idea of the lighting techs providing ‘the juice,’ or electrical power, to a film set via the installation and positioning of those heavy, powerful, hot-as-H-E-DOUBLETOOTHPICKS lamps that illuminate a scene for the cameras; making what would otherwise be a shadowy, nondescript setting appear amazingly bright and naturally lit.

Juicers are as integral to the look and quality of a TeeVee show or feature film as the cameramen who employ them, because they’re the ones who give the camera something to see.

But then again, after reading Michael Taylor’s blog, Blood, Sweat and Tedium: Confessions of a Hollywood Juicer a little while, I began to think that perhaps ‘Juicer’ really has more to do with the analogy of what happens to an orange during the process of having its nectar extracted.

Perhaps they should call ‘em, ‘Juicees’ instead.

Lighting work is hard, physical labor, and the one thing I’ve learned over the course of the nearly a year of reading his blog, these guys don’t get paid nearly enough; they certainly don’t get the thanks they should receive, nor the respect, nor the job security. Along with their other ‘crew’ brethren, they’re among the first ones to arrive and the last ones to leave a film set. They typically work 12-to-14 hour days, sometimes on only straight pay. They’re also the first ones to feel the brunt of studio politics brought to bear by a change in director, producer, and certainly, the Director of Photography of a particular project.

And as if their incessant physical toil isn’t bad enough, they oftentimes also serve as the undeserving targets of temper tantrums by insecure, egotistical actors or directors; some of whom have had lighting crew members fired just for looking at them out of turn.

Again, as with Kay’s blog (through which I discovered Michael Taylor’s site) this glimpse into a life — from inside an entity that the average Joe has absolutely no true connection to — was absolutely fascinating to me.

AND…the guy’s an incredibly good writer as well, which even more than the subject matter, is what grabbed me by the throat. I was hooked after the first read. Michael’s eloquent, lilting narrative style is one pathway that I never tire of traversing.

Kinda makes me wonder if he’s not on the wrong side of ‘The Line.’

Needless to say, I was very interested in meeting Michael as well. And I figured if I was trying to put together a meet with Kay, why not attempt to get together with them both at once? Thankfully, he was up for it too.

Next: ‘Above the Line’ meets ‘Below the Line’ meets ‘What’s MY Line?’

A Different Point-of-Hue: L.A. Stories 2008 (Part I)

Getting right to the good part…
I told you this series was going to be different. Instead of proceeding in chronological order as per usual, I’m skipping right to the good part. And while that’s not to say that this was the only circumstance of vactioney goodness I encountered on this trip to my SoCal stompin’ grounds, it was, by acclamation, the bestest of the best.

I spent nine days in Southern California, from Thursday August 21st through Saturday August 30th, however if I had only the time on this trip to spend one day there, it would have been Thursday, August 28th, hands down. It was, after all, the reason I decided that to come to California this summer in the first place. It would be the one event that I absolutely could not miss.

It was the conclusion of a fairy tale come to life, and I am elated that I had the distinct pleasure of being a party to it all, from the beginning. The subplot featured a Hollywood ending, but the beginning was 3000 miles away in Long Island, New York.

The Evil Empire vs. Showtime Ugly
There was a time early on in our Blogland encounters when I didn’t know what to make of this guy. To be honest, I didn’t like him all that much at first blush, and rather brushed him off as just another blowhard devotee of The Evil Empire.

Four and a half years later, I found myself traveling two thousand miles to attend a Jewish wedding in Topanga, with a New York Yankees yarmulke on my melon.

I’m speaking of course, of my dear friend, Michael, and his recent nuptials to the lovely Randi. It was a New Millennium union that could have only happened in Blogland.

Given our first exchange, no one is more surprised than moi that Mike and I became friends. After seeing his name in the blogroll and comments sections of numerous bloggers during the initial weeks of my introduction to the medium, our first encounter was in the comments section of a fellow blogger and mutual friend, Leese, sometime around July of 2004.

Leese lives in the Bay Area and is a huge fan of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings. One day she wrote a post about how much she hated the Los Angeles Lakers, the Kings’ chief Western Conference rival, and a team that I’ve been a rabid fan of since I was in the 8th grade. I guess I teased her a little bit in the comments of that story, but in…y’know…a good natured, friendshippy sorta way.

Long story short, Michael perhaps didn’t see it as so much a ‘good-natured’ ribbing, and in Leese’s defense, made a crack about how obnoxious L.A. Lakers fans were, adding the fact that he didn’t care so much about basketball, since he was a Yankees fan, but was bothered by Laker fans’ behavior nonetheless. I of course shot back something sarcastic involving the Bronx Bombers and black kettles, and we both left the encounter wondering what kind of jerk that other guy must be.

But aside from the raising of each other’s macho sports fan dander a bit, Michael’s and my little barb-fest caused us to both independently look into each other’s blogs, to get a better read on what the other was really all about. As for me, I discovered that we ran in the same blog circles and were linked on practically all of the same sites. It was only natural that I should seek to find out what made this MakeMineMike guy tick.

So I start reading his blog and came to find out that, hey, the guys’s a sportsfan, he’s into comics, and he’s a great writer, so how bad could he really be? At the same time, Michael began to read and comment on my blog in kind, and a comfort level between the two of us was forged.

However, there are comfort levels and then again there comfort levels cleverly disguised as tolerance levels. I wanted to find out which one was which in this circumstance.

And it just so happened that I had a way of doing that.

A Shot in the Dark
I won’t go into all the particulars of how it happened and what was said, but basically, I contacted Michael on a hunch that he might be willing to meet while I was in L.A. for my second trip of 2004, in August. I was coming out for my 30 Year High School Class Reunion, and seeing as he was one of only two SoCal bloggers I knew at the time, I thought it’d be cool to see if he’d accept an invitation for a face-to-face.

He did, we hit it off and the rest is personal history.

But this is where I feel it necessary to inject a bit of a disclaimer. I don’t claim to be Mike’s BFF, and would never want to place that kind of a tag on anyone I’ve only physically met less than a half-dozen times. I also would never dream of placing him in that kind of a position with regard to me. But we’ve talked on the phone a lot over the past four years; covered a lot of ground personal-history wise; worked through problems in both our lives; provided a needed ear for each other.

These are things that friends do for one another.

At the reception, Michael referred to me as his “spiritual advisor” to a couple of folks. I dunno about that. What I do know is that I have rarely been so proud to see the fruition of another man’s obvious happiness as I did last Thursday evening. It was an awesome sight to behold, because I know how long and sincere was the quest to obtain it.

If I had anything to do with Michael finding his soulmate it’s only that I always sought to encourage him to be true to his own heart; to never settle for less than what he knew was the ‘right’ woman, the one God had reserved just for him.

I knew that his character was bulletproof, as was his upbringing, and that he was destined to be forever bound to the one (nevermind the Matrix wisecracks, aiiight?). Nothing else would have been right for him; no one else would have fit into that Randi-sized hole in his soul.

Strange thing is, I didn’t know Randi apart from her blog. But when she and Michael met, the way he spoke of her made me feel as though we were already old friends. It had to be right; it was just too perfect: I mean, two people, growing up in the same area on Long Island, moving 3000 miles to the other side of the continent, only to find each other at an ‘L.A. Blogger Meet ‘N Greet?’ You’ve gotta be kidding me! This is Oscar-worthy stuff here, folks.

My wife Michelle and I will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary next March. As anyone whose read this blog knows, things haven’t always been perfect, yet we’re still together and are now even closer than we were twenty years ago.

I believe I can be so bold as to say that I have a little knowledge on the subject of finding ‘the one.’ I would like to think that I know the type of mindset it takes to accept nothing but the best in a marriage. And I believe I know how to identify the characteristics of a man’s heart that make those decisions possible.

I see those characteristics in Michael; I sense the same in Randi; and I have no doubt that they will be extremely happy together.

I also know that if he screws this up, I will personally come to L.A. and kick his ass.

But all seriousness aside, what a great evening it was! You’ve probably already read about it on other blogs, but the soopergenius of the Photo Booth; The dueling Yankees and Mets (Randi’s faves) yarmulkes; the four-page full color wedding comic book program that Mike so brilliantly illustrated, the cupcakes in lieu of a wedding cake; the wonderfully appointed garden wedding and reception facility at the Inn of the Seventh Ray in Topanga Canyon; all these things along with a wonderfully heartfelt and emotionally enthralling ceremony delivered by Rabbi Feinstein combined to create one of if not the best wedding experience I’ve ever witnessed — and I’ve been to a LOT of weddings.

The Lone Fly in the Ointment
Just like ants at a picnic, it seems there always has to be one little bummer to dampen most any otherwise positive experience.

I mentioned it earlier in the opening of this series; I somehow left behind the cheap, old digital camera I brought on this trip at my table at the reception. Not only did it have the pictures I took of the reception and ceremony at Mike & Randi’s wedding, but also those from nearly a week’s worth of other events and friend-meets that happened prior to Thursday night.

Needless to say, my head is still drooping about that one.

I’m hopeful still, but not optimistic that the camera will still turn up and be returned to me by either the Inn’s staff or someone who was sitting at my table that night, which fortunately for me (as it means I have a way of contacting them) was the specially designated ‘Bloggers’ group.

So… Will?...Nina?...Jenn?...Hilary?...Nannette?

Any love, guys?

But even if the pics are indeed lost, the memories will live on. It was a great time for all; I had a fantastic time meeting and hanging with some extremely funny, bright and engaging folks. But most of all, I got a chance to witness something that always brings me joy:

The good guy got the girl.


Next: Another Shot in the Dark

A Different Point-of-Hue: L.A. Stories 2008 (Prologue)

F-Stopped
I really have little idea where this is going. The one thing I DO know is that things will be different this time — well, at least that’s my intention going in, anyway. Unlike previous yarns of my travels, this will be a relatively short series, although it could easily be one of ‘AJ’s Epics’ from the standpoint of my activities calendar in this, my latest incursion into the land of my past; my fourth homecoming to Southern California in the past five years, just completed during these last ten days of August 2008.

And though it may seem as though my visits to SoCal have practically been annual events, that’s really not the case. The first two trips of this period were only months apart; beginning with Michelle’s and my visit in May of 2004, then again three months later, when I made a second, solo trip in August.

The ‘L.A. Stories’ theme continued with my visit the following August of 2005, however without nearly the same steam as before. Seems my motivation (not to mention my enthusiasm for the subject matter — and that’s honestly no slight to my pal Gooch — I’m just sayin’…) went into hibernation about halfway through the writing of that ’05 series, which I’m finally — with much inner-coaxing — finishing just this week.

In between the two elapsed exactly three years’ time; three significant years in my opinion. Either my personal sensibilities, or L.A. as an inhabitable environment — or both — seem very different to me now. Either I’ve changed, or L.A. has — and in fairly significant measure in my opinion.

While I indeed had a great time here during my extended, nine-day vacay, I’ll have to admit, it wasn’t as great as I remembered from those landmark visits of 2004 and ’05; and as of the writing of these words, I haven’t figured out just why that is as of yet. And while it could easily be singled out as an excuse, I don’t think the untimely and in many ways personally tragic loss of my camera, and with it some wonderful photos I took last week is the sole culprit for my less-than-sunny disposition right now. I just honestly felt this creeping sense of disappointment throughout the week that I’m still unable to shake.

I dunno. Maybe I’ll figure it all out here as I write out my thoughts. Then again, maybe what I’m writing right now will never even see the light of day.

It just seems as though my focus is different now than in years past. Perhaps the rose colored shades I have for years worn while gazing upon my erstwhile homeland have finally lost their hue.

Perhaps the f-stop on my internal camera lens no longer limits the depth of field as I survey that which once surrounded me. Maybe I’m now just seeing everything clearly for the first time. Maybe things really have changed in Southern California, and unfortunately, none for the better.

However, to borrow a phrase from a soon-to-be-mentioned protagonist in this series, take heart, gentle readers; it’s not all gloom and doom. I actually had a terrific time for the vast majority of this visit. It’s just that I won’t be waxing quite so rhapsodic as in the past; I’ll be doing my best to keep it real, yo.


Next: Getting right to the good part…

More LA Stories: 2005 (Part X)

Days Three and Four — Monday/Tuesday (continued):
He Got Walkin’ Fingers…
Soon after arriving back at the Center, Dad, Helen and I went out for Mexican, and engaged in what would be the first of many conversations about what was going on in AJ’s world. They wanted to know the latest about grandkids’ Shawn and Amy’s college exploits and all about Michelle’s goings-on.

We did a lot of talking over my two days in Hemet, but I can honestly say that none of it grew stale. I love hearing my Dad’s stories, no matter how many times he forgets he’s already told them. He’s just such a great guy, with so much zest for life, even after 83 years on the planet and all the heartbreak and crap he’s had to deal with. Sometimes the gleam in his eye is downright blinding.

Dialing for Brothers
Also while I was there I had nice conversations with two of my remaining three brothers. No, they didn’t suddenly show up at the door. Instead, we let our fingers do the walking.

Dad calls Alex at least once a week, both to monitor his progress and to maximize the fleeting time he has to spend with his baby boy, who has been stricken with the family curse of Early-Onset Alzheimer’s disease. He’s still holding up very well after thirteen months on the Alzheimer’s-impeding drugs, Aracept and Namenda, but the die is indeed cast, and it will only be a matter of time before such communication with him will become impossible.

So I had another opportunity to have a long, yet difficult talk with my precious bro — which is why I call him so seldom. What a horrible paradox this has become for me. I want desperately to spend time with him, but I just can’t make myself sit down and call for the heartache and frustration involved in trying to communicate with him. Used to be that I knew it was no big deal if we went six month between phone calls — it went both ways, so I never worried about it. Now I worry about it. Old habits are hard to break, but this one is just devastating.

I hate myself for it.

Instant Karma
Also while I was there, my directly elder brother, Kenny called from his home in Taiwan. That’s right, I said Taiwan, as in The Republic of China Taiwan. And sheesh…speaking of walking fingers, mine felt like they’d just run a marathon after I got through writing out Kenny’s mailing address and phone number in Taipei during my phone conversation with him. Apparently they don’t do short addresses over there. My hand was starting to cramp up fer petesakes.

Kenny used to be somewhat of a jet-setter, spending about a third of his time in Los Angeles, where he needed to be to tend to his various entrepreneurial interests. He kept an apartment in Pasadena and visited Dad and Helen often. But now he lives in Taiwan full-time, choosing to be closer to home to spend time with his wife and growing family.

Hmm…perhaps I should have said, instant family.

Kenny is a trip, and always an interesting person to talk to. He’s Type-A-all-the-way; he’s a successful businessman and has done well for himself in the business world. He’s not one for doing things half-assed. And now it appears he’s jumped into fatherhood much the same way.

Following years of frustration from unsuccessful attempts at pregnancy, Kenny and his wife decided it was time to give nature a little help. They decided to give fertility drugs a go, and the results were more successful than they probably hoped.

The initial pregnancy in 2002 produced a single child, a little girl, but they weren’t stopping there (I think you probably see where this is going). Thirteen months later: triplets — all boys. And then again earlier this year: twin girls.

Between the ages of 49 and 52, my brother went from zero to six(ty).

They’ve now shut down the baby factory, but even as someone who came from a large family of five boys himself; even the talkative Kenny was a bit blown away by it all. The man is excited to be a Dad — but six kids in three years? Aye-yi-yi…

And in case you had any doubt, his kids do come from pretty good stock on both sides (if I may be allowed to boast just a little); so needless to say, they’re all gorgeous. They also carry more than just a modicum of local celebrity, not only because of the circumstances involving their conception, but also for being fathered by an Anglo-American. They’ve been on TeeVee on several occasions, on talkshows, as well as local commercials.

I really couldn’t be happier for my bro.

Dadtime
But in the end it was all about Dadtime. It was great to spend time with my Pop and Helen. We didn’t really go anywhere, except out to dinner on Monday night and then on Tuesday, once again, thanks to the generosity of my friend Cindy, Dad and I took in the Angels vs. the Toronto Bluejays game in Anaheim.

All the rest of the time we just hung out and talked. As he always does now whenever I see him, Dad requested some reading material from my blog, so I had printed out (and was amazed at the number of pages it took) my series from the 2004 trip, and delivered it to him when I arrived.

We talked again about him possibly taking some time to writing out his own memories from what I view as a fascinating and full life for my hero; my Dad. At last report, he still hadn’t started, but he’s gonna get to it soon, he promises.

That’s right, boys and girls, I come by it honestly.


Next: Day Five — Wednesday:
“From the desert to the sea, to all of Southern California…”

More LA Stories: 2005 (Part IX)

A change of plans...
I’ve decided to do this a little differently than first intentioned. I had mentioned previously that I would post-date these conclusions to older series I’m trying to finish off, in order to keep them in chronological proximity (as well as physical order) and then provide backlinks to the newer entries in a current post.

Well, I’ve decided to do it both ways. For the time being, since it looks as though I’m going to fail miserably in achieving my volume goal of four series completions and at least that many additional single stories being posted before June was out, I really just want to get out what I have been able to do during this period of well-intentioned-if-not-stellar literary activity.

I’ll post the parts as I finish them, and then, after a time, re-date them to fall back in order with the rest of their respective series components.

I will at that time post the aforementioned ‘Unfinished Business’ update entries that will provide links back to the parts for those who wish to find them more easily later.

At any rate, although I’ve not gotten as much done as I wanted, I can say that I’ve had a helluva lot of fun writing what I have. And once again, thank gawd I took good notes.

So I hope now that you’ll enjoy the concluding parts of my account of what was a very enjoyable and unforgettable trip to the homeland — now almost three full years ago — in August of 2005.

---

Days Three and Four — Monday/Tuesday:
Where’s The Champ when you need ‘im?
In another of the seemingly never-ending series of efforts to date myself, this next chapter in my story brings a particular TV commercial from the 1970s to mind. Back in the days before Don King and Mike Tyson transformed it from The Sweet Science into The Gong Show, the man who was the face of professional boxing was also its greatest ambassador. Muhammad Ali was everything a great sports figure could and should be. But one of the things I loved about him the most was the fact that in addition to being the Greatest of Them All, he was also the easiest to like.

Ali was a crackup. He was the Clown who wore the Crown. From the Ring to the small screen, The Champ was all about entertainment. And in a particular enterprise that some felt was well beneath his dignity, it was his self-deprecation that I found to be the most refreshing.

I remember him doing a TV commercial for Black FlagRoach Motel roach traps years ago (apparently he had a real passion for roach-extermination products — more on that later). “Roaches check in, but they don’t check out! he would say, with that same trademark, faux-menacing, raspy whisper he used for years to antagonize his opponents during many a pre-fight press conference.

With Ali’s Black Flag commercial, the term Roach Motel was added to the pop-culture lexicon; a reference that became much more attuned to describe the genre of typically low-cost motor hotels in which one might likely find the multi-legged creatures scurrying about when the lights come on, than to the actual product itself.

I don’t know if he was busy at the time, but I think I could have used The Champ to “knock out” some nasty-lookin’ cucarachas that were waiting for me in my motel room Monday afternoon when I arrived in Hemet to visit my Dad. I had run out of time and asked him if he could find me a cheap place to stay.

Poor Pop, God love ‘im. He was just trying to save me a few bucks, and he’d obviously never stayed there himself, so how would he have known? I really have no one to blame but myself anyway. In my haste to get ready to make this trip, the one travel arrangement I failed to complete was to book a motel for the two nights I would be in Hemet.

Strangers in the Night II
One might be wondering why I needed to get a room in the first place. After all, I was going to see my Dad, and I had stayed at their place the last time I visited, in August of 2004. The difference was that they had moved since my last visit — and recently I might add.

Dad and his wife Helen had just moved back to the assisted living center each had called home at a time when they were merely acquaintances, while my stepmom Maxine was still alive. They had just moved in to their new one-bedroom apartment just a few days before I arrived. Aside from the fact that they were still unpacking, and maintenance men were still installing light fixtures and such, there was simply no room to put me up there comfortably.

As I’ve mentioned before, Helen had been a mutual friend of both Maxine and my Dad, one of the first to reach out to them when they initially moved in, back in early 2000. Helen was already a widow, having lost her husband several years earlier. In the months following Maxine’s passing in late May of that year, Helen and Dad, became closer friends through her emotional support to him at an obviously difficult time following Maxine’s unexpected death — the result of complications from a viral infection — and the relationship just seemed to blossom from there.

After Maxine’s passing, Dad found the two of them spending more and more time together. And now suddenly becoming one of the more eligible bachelors at the Center, Pop had to literally fight off the ladies who began coming on to him. All the while Helen was simply there for him, never imposing the obvious affection that was growing in her own heart.

And the feeling was becoming mutual.


This is one of my favorite pictures. My Dad and me in the back yard during his visit to Tennessee in June 2001. And no, I wasn’t dyeing my goatee back then…

By the time Pop came to Tennessee for a visit in June of 2001, he was already smitten, yet not quite forthcoming in announcing the news to his family. He was concerned about what we might think, given that it had been just over a year since Mom had passed away. It took a couple of days before he mustered the courage to broach the subject with Michelle and me, fearing we might not approve. However nothing could have been further from the truth. Dad seemed a little taken aback when we assured him with no reservation that we were delighted he had found a lady friend to spend his time with. He insisted at the time that it wasn’t serious, but we knew better.

Six months later, my elder brother, Kenny, took his own endorsement of the relationship to another level, greasing the wheels of an all-out effort to get Dad and Helen to Las Vegas to get hitched. And so they did, in December.

As it turned out, it may have very well likely been a decision that saved my Dad’s life.

Far away from the maddening crowd
It was probably a more uncomfortable scene for Helen than for her new husband, but after losing out to her in the race for Pop’s affections, some of those old hens at the Center turned on Helen. She felt a little spurned by women she had long considered to be her friends. Combining that with the fact that he’d never felt really comfortable there anyway — and the real kicker — a recent sharp increase in rent and service fees added by the management company, Dad and Helen decided to get the heck outta Dodge.

They moved back to the old neighborhood where Dad and Maxine had lived for years prior to moving to the assisted living residence. They were both in good health (or so we all thought) and figured they didn’t necessarily need the round-the-clock nursing care (nor the price tag thereof) that the Center provided. They wanted to fend for themselves. Dad wanted to get back to the vegetable garden he had been forced to abandon when they’d moved the first time. They weren’t old like the rest ‘a those fogies. They could take care of themselves, thankyouverymuch.

Almost immediately, the repercussions of that move would come to roost.

A few months after they moved out of the Center, in May 2002, my Dad suffered a mild, but potentially fatal heart attack at home, and now without the on-call medical facilities that had been available to him previously, had Helen not been there to call 911, my Pop would most certainly have died. He ended up having quadruple-bypass surgery in the wake of his ordeal, having never shown any signs of heart disease prior to the event.

The good news is, he has worked hard to change his lifestyle and is completely recovered and in great shape for a man of nearly eighty-three years of age. But the better news is that he had Helen there, or chances are great that he wouldn’t be around to celebrate that ‘good’ news in the first place.

And though Dad’s health has been great for the past four years, Helen hasn’t been so fortunate. She began experiencing difficulties with her legs; sores that took forever to heal; and more recently, had to undergo surgery to remove a blockage in her colon.

So when out of the blue, a neighbor made an offer to buy their house which, in Dad’s words, was “just too good to pass up,” they reconsidered their previous decision and decided to give their old assisted living community another try (and have been very happy there ever since).


Dad and Helen in their new apartment, and still goin’ strong.

‘Cuz I’m a cheap ‘ol bugger...that’s why.
So now you know why I needed to get a room, but here’s how I ended up at The Roach Motel.

Going in, I figured on someplace inexpensive; just a place for me to lay my head at the end of each of the two days I would be spending entirely with the folks. However, as per my usual penchant for leaving things to the last minute, I ran out of time and never made a hotel reservation.

Having no easy access to a computer, I turned to my Pop for a little travel agency assistance, which he was quite happy to do. I had phoned him on Saturday to let him know I’d arrived and to ask if he would go ahead and make the arrangements at the local Motel 6, reserving a room for me on Monday and Tuesday nights. When he said he’d take care of it, I figured, ‘No Problem,’ and considered it a done deal.

When I arrived at Dad’s place on Monday, he proudly announced, “AJ, I think I got you a pretty good deal on that room.”

“Oh yeah?” I said.

“Why yesss,” he gushed. “I went to the Motel 6 just like you said, and they wanted $49.99 a night, plus tax! But I found a little motel over here on the main drag that only charges $45 a night out the door!

“Well okay then, thanks for doing that for me, Dad!” I said appreciatively.

Now I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t at least a little concerned at that point. Motel 6, say what you want about the stereotypical connotations associated with it, is at least a known commodity. You know, going in that you’re not staying at some kind of resort. But at least there is a reasonable expectation that the room, the sheets, and the linens will all be clean and fresh. One can expect there to be decent cable TV, and you can certainly expect that the only multi-legged creature in your bed is gonna be YOU.

There is a level of trust with Motel 6 that I’ve always felt good about. And while the notion of moving away from that was disconcerting at first, I can honestly say I really didn’t give it that much thought when it came up.

My Dad, don’t forget, was a Depression Kid, and anytime we were on vacation, it was Motel 6 all the way. So if he said he’d found an even better bargain, who was I to argue?

After a short visit with Dad and Helen, I left to go check in and drop my stuff before returning to Dad’s to go out to dinner.

I pulled in and went into the office. On the outside, it looked like a typical cheap motel: smartly landscaped; recently painted exterior; clean and innocuous office/lobby area. The lady handed me my key and I drove my car down a few hundred feet to where my room was, at the end of the row.

The manager had been sure to mention that the entire motel was a non-smoking environment, which was nice, but really didn’t mean all that much to me. While I do appreciate non-smoking to smoking, I’ve never been one to make a big deal over not getting the former.

When I opened the door I immediately realized that the motel’s smoke-free policy was not something they necessarily put into place voluntarily. I’m pretty sure they had to do it because the rooms were already so heavily saturated with the smell of smoke that one more wisp would have probably sent the whole place down into the damned center of the earth!

Oh. My. Freaking. GAWD! My eyes hadn’t watered like that since that time Michelle and I got caught downwind of the south end of a momma hippo, cuttin’ it loose at the San Diego Zoo several years ago.

I immediately began to re-think my stance of not being bothered by smoking-allowed environments. This was easily the worse one I’d ever encountered. Just when did they implement that “smoke-free” policy — AN HOUR AGO? Perhaps by “smoke-free” they meant that they no longer CHARGE people for the privilege!

And that was just the tip ‘o the iceberg. True to its Ali-inspired nickname, as I flipped on the lights I saw no less than three cockroaches scurrying off to points unknown. I just rolled my eyes. I had a notion, but I didn’t wish to insult or embarrass my Pop, who actually had tried to do me a favor. Looking at the place from the outside, there really was no way to know how the ghastly secrets that lurked just beyond the doorknob.

Oh wait. I forgot about the three-pound Yuban coffee can ashtrays that were mounted onto the building just outside the door of every room.

Yeah…that might have been a clue.

The best thing I can say is, apart from its aforementioned extremophylic permanent residents…and the broken toilet paper roll dispenser…and the cracked tile in the shower…and the TV on which it appeared they were showing the ice palace scene from Dr. Zhivago on every channel, the place was pretty clean. The bed was comfortable, and when I awoke the next morning I hadn’t yet turned into any kind of Slither-like monster, so hey, I was okay with it.


Next: Days Three and Four — Monday/Tuesday (continued):
He Got Walkin’ Fingers…

Rock Star — A Miniseries (honest!)(Part 2 of 2)

A play on words
Despite the adverse effect that this driest summer in memory may have had on the depth of Tennessee’s fall seasonal color, the southern inner rim of the Appalachians were still ablaze in all hues of deep red, orange and gold as we traveled southeast on I-24 last Saturday afternoon.

A crappy picture of some beautiful scenery.

It was as pretty as anytime I can remember making the trip, which we’ve done plenty of times over the course of the past four-and-a-half years. Three-to-five times annually, we’ve pilgrimaged to Chattanooga to see our daughter’s plays; first as a member of the theater department at the University of Tennessee, and now in her new involvement with Chattanooga’s Community Theater group.

I’ve heard it said that those who can’t act...teach, and those who can’t teach...do community theater. Well, I’m here to tell you that just ain’t true. Two of the best-acted plays I’ve seen in awhile were both community theater plays. They also both happened to feature my daughter, Amy.

After graduating from UT Chattanooga last spring...er...summer, Amy received a promotion to a lower-level management position from her previous part-time counter clerk sort of gig with the City of Chattanooga Visitor’s Center. She now makes a decent salary, with health insurance, paid vacations, and the whole nine yards. It’s not a career ladder-type position, but it is the first ‘real job’ she’s had. Naturally she felt pretty good about the opportunity, so instead of leaving Chattanooga following graduation as she had originally planned, she decided to remain in town another year to save money and take the time to fully decide what her next career step would be.

Chicago is one option, and was the leader in the clubhouse (not to mention having the full endorsement of dear ol’ Dad) until this fulltime position came up and pulled sway against it. The fact of the matter is, Amy needed some time to transition from the la-la-land of college idealism into the rubber-meets-the-road reality of the working world.

Going to Chicago would have been great; she already has friends up there; former UTC classmates who preceded her in school and decided to try and form their own acting company. My sister in-law’s brother has been a working actor in the Windy City for years, and recently encouraged Amy to come up and give it a try.

So the bottom line is, she’ll definitely have moral support, if and when she makes it up there. What she wouldn’t have had right now however, was money. She obviously had no way of saving much of anything while she was in school, working only enough to scrape up a few bucks for gas and spending money. The dough Michelle and I sent her during school months was just enough to cover her living expenses. The beer and cigarettes would have to be on her dime.

So as much as I would have liked to see her get her acting career started in earnest, I could certainly understand her situation. She needed a bit of a grubstake to make sure she at least didn’t start off as a starving artist.

Besides, who wouldn’t feel a little flattered, being offered their first real job promotion? But let’s face facts. Amy loves ‘Chatty’ and leaving her first home away from home will be a hard thing for her. At least this coming year will give her a chance to say goodbye.

So now that it was decided she was staying, what about acting? She certainly needed something to keep her irons in the theatrical fire, so why not try out for the local company?

It was something I’d never given much thought to her doing, but it really made sense. And as she’s always done, she placed her whole heart into the work. Her first part was a minor, yet very memorable role as the secretary of Hollywood Producer David O. Selznick in Moonlight and Magnolias, a play I thoroughly enjoyed, and not only for Amy’s performance. The cast was filled with accomplished, yet somewhat road-worn semi-professionals who still had a bit of the magic left, but obviously weren’t ready for prime time any more. Amy’s wonderfully quirky performance as Miss Poppengull literally stole the show, despite the fact that she was onstage for only brief moments scattered throughout the play.

She received rave reviews and was instantly invited to audition for future roles. This past weekend, we witnessed her in the first leading role of her post-college career.

The play is called, See Rock City, and no, it’s not about Cleveland. The story is actually placed in Kentucky, and the title subject is a tourist attraction just outside Chattanooga, the former home of the playwright, Arlene Hutton.

Rock City is a sort of roadside curiosity, a tourist trap, if you will (but Michelle has been there and tells me it’s well worth visiting). It’s an area atop the high foothills off Interstate 24, six miles north of Chattanooga, but for which the signs urging you to visit begin more than 100 miles out in all directions. It’s an attraction of interestingly unique geological formations and dramatic vistas that apparently was a popular honeymoon spot for the region back in the 30s and 40s (a la Niagara Falls), which is its particular relevance to the play.

If you’ve ever driven anywhere near Chattanooga on the interstates, you’ve undoubtedly seen the dozens of advertisements for Rock City, along with its sister attraction, Lookout Mountain. By way of comparison, if you’ve ever driven out west and seen the ubiquitous road signs for ‘Stucky’s,’ I think you’ll understand the phenomenon. Those three words, ‘See Rock City’ are plastered everywhere.

Following her performance, a relative of her co-star in the play and I were asking Amy about how well the two-week engagement had drawn. She said the crowds started out small, but grew as the weeks went by (the Saturday night crowd was quite good I thought). Amy credited the play’s popularity to word of mouth. I wisecracked that it must have been all that free advertising I saw along the side of the road as we drove down.

Dinner and a Show
As is our tradition when we come down for Amy’s plays, we arrive early to have a bite to eat with our daughter before she has to be at the theater to get ready for the evening’s performance.

Having stopped off at the new house lot on the way, we unfortunately were running a little behind. But Amy wasn’t worried. We’d grab something at the nearby Mexican restaurant. There’d be more than enough time to visit.

Amy’s bachelorette bungalow.

We arrived at Amy’s new digs a little after 5:30 Saturday afternoon. Michelle was already familiar with the location of the house Amy is renting with another young woman, having helped her decorate the place soon after she moved in last month.

Amy lovin’ the lens on her front porch.

She showed us around the place briefly. I was impressed. It’s perfectly situated in an area that’s close to Downtown and anyplace she’d need to go. It was fairly decent in size. It seemed to be a perfect bachelorette pad.

The women in my life: Amy and her Mom.

After the tour of Amy’s new house, we headed on to the restaurant on foot, just a block and a half down the street.

We were seated immediately, and after a brief musical chairs photo session back and forth across the table, we settled in to enjoy some tasty Mexican fare. The margaritas weren’t as good as those served up at Michelle’s and my favorite south-o-the border haunt in Franklin, but they weren’t too bad.

"I just love taking candid photos." — Amy

Michelle and AJ

We talked about a number of things, not the least of which was a subject that comes up often in our individual time with our daughter: her brother Shawn. Only this time the occasion was not to vent or talk about their differences, but rather to report what a great time she’d had with him 24 hours earlier.

Shawn surprised us by deciding to make the trip to Chatty to see his sister’s play without us. We had previously invited him to tag along, which we always do when he’s available. And to his credit he’s made it to see a good number of her performances over the years, however no one is surprised nor hurt when he can’t make it.

But with this being Amy’s first post-college lead role, we really hoped Shawn would come out. He responded saying that he had plans that evening and asked if we could change our plans instead and make it Friday night rather than Saturday. Unfortunately that just wasn’t possible for Michelle and me, short of us both taking off work a couple hours early. I was resigned to the idea that Shawn just wasn’t going to be there this time around.

Then to our surprise, earlier in the week we learned that he had called Amy to made plans for coming down on Friday night anyway, with one of his 'cute' buddies in tow.

The trio had a great time together, and as Shawn would tell Michelle a few days later, he just couldn’t believe how much his lil’ sis is continuing to grow up before his eyes.

“I’m telling you, Mom,” Shawn exclaimed, “Every time I see her now, she shows me something different; some example of how much more mature she’s becoming.” To amplify his point, let’s just say that Shawn hasn’t always brought out the ‘mature’ side of his sister. Usually it’s the direct opposite, with the two of them eventually acting like six year-olds if they occupy the same space for too long.

However there would be no brother-sister blowups on this occasion. Shawn and his friend enjoyed the play and the time afterward, as Amy took them out to some of her favorite local drinking spots, then afterwards alowed them to crash overnight at her place.

As much as anything I saw that evening, that thought left me with a great feeling. My kids are actually becoming friends, and developing a relationship apart from their parents. Who Knew? Well, I’d like to say that I did, but I can’t tell you how often I have doubted that it would ever happen — despite the fact that I repeatedly insisted to them both that it someday would.

I remember Amy asking me one time when she was little, “Dad, are you sure Shawn and I will be friends someday, ‘cuz I really don’t like him very much right now.”

“Count on it, Sweetheart. It’ll happen,” I assured her.

Gawd...I just love it when I’m right.

Acting like a bunch a’ stooges
I guess it depends on both the situation and the actor involved, but the conventional wisdom is that Community Theater is not the place one starts, but rather finishes an acting career. At least that’s the assertion cast by one of Amy’s former boyfriends and fellow UTC theater students, a boy we’ll call ‘Shemp,’ because he’s been acting like a real stooge lately.

Shemp is still an underclassman at UTC; Amy and he were an item for a brief period last year, but remained close friends after they stopped dating. That status may have changed as of now, however.

When word got out that Amy, who had been the uncontested star of the UTC program her senior year, was now plying her trade at the Chattanooga Theater Centre, a few of the Moes and Larrys back at the theater department rolled their eyes. From within the idealistic cocoon of their university experience, they questioned her decision to ‘lower herself’ to such involvement in the minor leagues of Community Theater; prostituting herself as it were to the after-dinner blue-haired crowd on Friday and Saturday nights.

Hell, she might as well take up juggling for quarters on the street corner while she’s at it, right?

I have to admit that I was a bit disconcerted myself when Amy first announced she was pursuing such a course. However that fear was based only on the concern that it might lead to Amy growing even more comfortable in a city that has been a wonderful place for her to develop, but from which she really needs to break away to achieve her career goals.

However I’d never dream of throwing the hissy-fit that some of her so-called friends have done. Shemp staunchly refused to come see her performance out of protest. He may call that ‘tough love,’ but I call it ‘tough-shit-that-you’re-so freaking-shallow.’

Yeah, I know I’m biased, so sue me. The fact is that Amy did a great job, playing a great part in a well-written play.

A compelling portrayal
I thought Amy was compelling as May, a young wife whose husband’s ‘hidden’ physical disability forces him to deal with the ignorance, social upheaval, and the obvious economic difficulties of wartime, state-side in the Mid-South during the 1940s.

The role of May’s husband, Raleigh, was played by a young man who himself is a Community Theater veteran, but hadn’t done much acting since the 90s. Nonetheless he played a convincing role in an interesting story that particularly dwells upon the social mores of the day and the role changes brought about by WWII.

Those of us who have grew up watching the Viet Nam, and now, the Gulf and Iraq wars on television, may not realize just how differently war and the sense of duty fit into the collective thought process of society some sixty-five years ago.

World War II was enthusiastically considered to be the ultimate duty of manhood to all those who were able-bodied in those days. But what about those who appeared to be able bodied yet did not serve; those who were rejected as participants in the war based upon things like flat feet, or epilepsy as in the case of Amy’s co-star? Most of us can’t imagine the scorn these men felt in a time when America was fighting a truly just war, and being a part of it was almost universally accepted as the right thing to do.

Therein lays Raleigh’s struggle: to deal with the pressures exerted by society around him, based on a disease the public was so ignorant about that even his own Mother considered it more a character flaw (“Raleigh’s ‘little fits,’” as she called them) than an illness. Not only does he have to deal with the shame of being unfit to be a soldier, but his status as an epileptic also precludes him from driving or operating machinery. Hence, Raleigh has no visible means of employment, save for his now fruitless efforts as a freelance storywriter; a once-promising career that suddenly dried up when the war hit.

Since he’s unable to support his family, that responsibility is forced upon his wife, May, a grade school principle becoming increasingly frustrated by the pressures that weigh upon her young shoulders.

Trying to fit in when the world thinks you’re worthless isn’t such a foreign concept to a lot of us, and playwright Arlene Hutton does a wonderful job of drawing us near enough to touch it in this highly introspective play.

Photoplay

Amy and her 'See Rock City' co-star, Mike.

Mom & Dad with their 'Rock Star.'

All told, it was a great day. A wonderful time was had by all. And as I said, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but not just because the star onstage was also the one in my heart.

My heart beats for both of my children, but I think it’s okay to be just a little partial every now and then, don’t you?


finis

Rock Star — A Miniseries (honest!)(Part 1 of 2)

An unbiased opinion?
Funny how your own words will seem to betray you sometimes. Just the other day I was pontificating to a friend of mine on the subject of loving your children equally. On the occasion of her second child’s birth, she wondered whether her new baby would somehow be affected adversely by the lessened amount of attention she would be able to devote to her, compared to the unlimited attention she was able to give to her eldest child. She was concerned that such a the limit in access to Mommy might instill rivalries that she did not wish to be a part of her two girls’ relationship.

I opined that such circumstances were unavoidable, but that it was my wife Michelle’s and my policy to be as completely impartial as we could be in the amount of love and attention given to our two kids, whose needs seemed to be as different as their personalities. I also noted how well adjusted our children have apparently turned out as young adults. Hopefully we did something right.

To that end I truly believe that we were mostly successful in achieving that goal in the raising of our children, but the concern my friend had was still a factor throughout their upbringing. One always claimed the other was receiving some sort of preferential treatment. However the examples they could dream up to support their claims were often as amusing as they were maddening, because of how hard we worked at being as consciously fair about everything as we possibly could be. We weren’t perfect, but I believe that such perceived improprieties can be bred as much by personality as by parental preference one way or another. In the case of our two kids as they were growing up, I can definitely see how that has in a large way contributed to the types of people they are today.

That being said, as I sat down Sunday afternoon to write a brief photo mashup about Michelle’s and my time in Chattanooga Saturday, when we traveled to see our daughter, Amy’s latest thespian effort, I began to feel self-conscious. It occurred to me that it might appear as though I wasn’t quite practicing what I had preached.

If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you know that while Amy has been the subject of numerous blog series’ of mine, I have talked relatively little about my son, Shawn. However I’m here to say that this fact has nothing to do with any preference for my daughter over her brother. It actually has much more to do with her involvement in theater and the opportunities that has afforded us to spend time with her when we come to see her plays.

Having been involved with it all through high school and making it her major in college, the fact is that we have always made coming to see our daughter’s on-stage exploits a regular part of our investment in her life. That tradition has continued following her graduation from the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga this past year.

However, while I make the conscious effort to not play favorites between my kids, I do admit to feeling closer to my daughter because of these times that her Mother and I spend with her, despite the fact that we actually see Shawn more often.

Amy’s personality is much more similar to mine than is her brother’s, a fact that sometimes seems to feed our clashes as much as it nourishes our common ground. However the affirmation Amy and I give one other is indeed special, and is more direct than that afforded by the relationship I’ve always had with her older bro.

Our first born is a guy’s guy. He’s handsome, athletic, and intelligent. Even more so, he’s popular; he has, as they say, never met a stranger. He knows no fear — in social situations or otherwise. He’s a competitive rock climber and has been involved with the sport since he was in high school, having first become active in climbing in Boy Scouts several years earlier. But don’t let that Scouts moniker fool ya; he’s no goody two-shoes. He may not eat nails for breakfast, but he’s plenty tough.

Professionally, he’s been an arborist since his senior year of high school, a job that provided a substantial stream of spending money throughout his college years, requiring him to only come home and work part-time during the summer and perhaps a few long weekends during the school year. Not only does it pay well, it also it scratches his adrenaline-junky itch. He’s the guy way up in the treetops, battling what would be certain acrophobia for most people, as well as power lines, poison ivy, and the blowing wind, all conspiring to make one slip or bad decision a costly one.

This is the kid who, to celebrate his graduation from high school, went out with a couple buddies that night to take a bungee jump off the 145-foot Natchez Trace Bridge here in Williamson County (right) with a homemade bungee cord! Of course we didn’t know anything about the stunt until several months later.

But is that tough, or just plain fuckin’ nuts? Yeah, Shawn’s our wild child. He’s convinced that the world is his oyster. Things have always come pretty easy for him.

The bottom line is Shawn doesn’t ‘need’ his Dad’s outward approval; he already knows he has it; not that he won’t still subtly seek it from time to time.

He was the one of our two kids who seriously rebelled and acted out in high school; he of the magenta Mohawk doo fame, and the tongue piercing he obtained illegally as a minor without our permission, all while in the process of becoming an Eagle Scout — yeah, go figure.

Shawn was always one of the cool kids in school, a status I always marveled at from afar, seeing as how it was so foreign to my own experience at a similar age. Despite the fact that we had no real financial status in the community, Shawn always seemed to be one of the most popular guys around. He never seemed to try — he didn’t need to — he just was.

He always got the girl — or girls, plural. My son never had to pine for attention from the opposite sex like his old man. He’s a babe magnet.

As a result of Shawn’s extreme popularity, Amy, being two years his junior, had a tendency to dwell in her brother’s shadow when she arrived on the high school scene. Given the difference in their personalities, I can understand why. Amy is a much more introspective, sensitive type; she has an artist’s soul, hence her love for theater, which would ultimately be her salvation: an identity for herself apart from simply being known as ‘Shawn’s little sister.’

Amy’s never been a wallflower, but rightly or wrongly never seemed to feel that she could stand up to Shawn’s reputation. Like me, Amy has a somewhat chameleon-like personality. Gregarious, funny, and always personable, but ultimately comfortable with not being the center of attention.

Shawn on the other hand, while tender hearted (but don’t tell anybody, aiiight?), exudes a quiet confidence and a masculinity that is almost disarming. He doesn’t necessarily seek the spotlight; it just always seems to find him. I don’t know how anyone could possibly feel uncomfortable in his presence. He’s one of those ‘all-things-to-all-people’ kind of guys who can walk into a room and immediately make it his own.

In short, he’s hot, ladies.

But then again, so’s his sister.

Flying Lessons
I think that if they were perfectly truthful, our kids would both admit they’ve got it made. They know that we would go to the ends of the earth to help them if and when they really needed it. Nonetheless, they also know that the apron strings have been officially cut. They’ve both graduated from college and no longer receive any financial support from us. However that doesn’t mean they don’t still enjoy a few parental perks.

I paid for and still own their respective automobiles, and consequently, since they drive them, they’re automatically covered under my auto insurance policy, saving them both over a thousand dollars a year. However, as I mentioned recently, the insurance subsidy will be short-lived, as Michelle and I continue our efforts to help rather than stifle our little birdies efforts to soar on their own.

And that’s the thing that makes me feel so good about the decidedly affirmative direction our kids seem to be headed; they both seem to be as excited about being adults as we are for them. It’s extremely gratifying for us as their parents, and in no small measure adds to my current feeling that life has never been better or more rewarding for me than it is right here, right now.

However, Michelle and I are well aware that you never really stop being parents. You never reach the point, hopefully, that your children cease to look to you for affirmation and on occasion, direction in their lives. However, of course, the balancing act begins now that they’re finally on their own. I've found that I have to be a little more judicious in the way I distribute the opinions and assertions that were formerly a matter of daily discourse between me and my kids — something that is fairly difficult given my personality. But you certainly never lose the desire, and hopefully, the forum, to administer the appropriately timed emotional support your children need from someone who they know accepts them unconditionally.

Our forum with Amy, for the most part, has been through her plays. It’s always been a time in which she’s gotten to have us to herself, basking in the glory of us doting on her singularly. And while she’s now graduated from college, and saving money for a potential move next summer, she continues to hone her craft participating in Community Theater in Chattanooga, and this past weekend finished her second play for the local company.

Shawn on the other hand, has only sporadically continued in his high school endeavor of competitive climbing, and has no other avenues of involvement for us to be a part of, comparatively speaking. On the other hand, he did spend a lot more time at home throughout his college years, while Amy lived in Chattanooga almost the entire time she was in school.

As I’ve mentioned before, Shawn has traditionally been more of a homebody. He’s been around a lot over the past several years, and has enjoyed the one-on-one face-time with Mom and Dad. He really matured in college, and we were always quick to tell him how proud we were to see the person he was growing into. I’d like to think that’s one of the reasons he liked to stick closer to home. Michelle and I of course enjoyed having him around as well.

Recently he has been getting his parental fix by offering his services and expertise on how we should address the stand of trees that lay directly in back of our new house lot. It’s officially deemed neighborhood common area, but we’ve already been given nudge, nudge, wink, wink approval to develop the approximately 200 feet or so, directly beyond our property line as we see fit. Shawn has offered to come in and do all the necessary trimming and pruning of ‘our neck of the woods’ to make it a beautifully functional space. You can just see how pleased he is with the fact that he can do this for us. It’s really neat to see.

So the bottom line is that we have always loved our kids equally, but in their own way, in accordance to their personal makeup and emotional needs. And despite the apparent advantages that her brother had over her early in the game, if you asked Amy now, I’m sure that she’d agree. Despite her brother’s rock star status in high school, the playing field is now dead even.

However on the occasion of this past weekend, it was Amy’s turn to be a Rock Star.


Next: A play on words