Crenellated Flotsam

It’s said (by marketers?) that Griffith Park is a “popular” spot for hiking, but I’d never done any there in all my life. Last weekend I labored a few hours up and down a thousand feet rise, but I’m not convinced I’d call it hiking.

I’d visited Griffith Park many times in my life, most often to the Observatory. I’d also seen the tiny trains, but never the zoo, and had the occasional picnic in what amounted to large front yards covered in grass and boasting picnic tables and trash cans, but that was about it. I worked with a guy from Philly who claimed to have hiked there once or twice, but I’m not sure where he went.

I used to do a fair amount of hiking, most often on weekends, but I’m such a nature snob that I never considered anything like this

to be a “hiking trail.” I know, cheap shot, and not even the throngs of avid Griffith Park hikers consider it to be a “hiking trail,” but it’s fitting, in an “LA” sort of way. Nothing beats walking up and down a paved street.

But that’s not the point.

Not surprisingly, I shared the route with some twenty or thirty other people, including one bicyclist. What was surprising was that nobody I “met” on my journey was particularly friendly. Maybe I appear threatening, but in more than one instance I was actually glowered at, but more commonly ignored. I consider this sad. I’m not sure if the men who gave me dirty looks were afraid I’d strike them down with a single blow and carry their women-folk into the brush or just generally annoyed by my presence. It wasn’t as if I was littering, setting fires, or dancing naked in the afternoon sun.

When hiking up north or in Angeles Forest the people I’d run across were all routinely friendly, or at least civil enough to exchange greetings and smiles. There was none of that on the Mt Lee road, and I worry about the future of humanity. Maybe everyone else is eager to avoid their fellow man, but I just don’t know.

One thing I do know is that walking up and down a paved road apparently puts most eveyone in a “leave me the fuck alone/ you don’t exist” mindset, which, I think, isn’t much in keeping with my memories of hiking.
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I’ve been negligent lately, but that’s nothing new.

This weekend was a bit frustrating and painful. I had plans to visit the Festival of Books and attend some panels, but there were no tickets available by the time I remembered to go to Ticketmaster. This surprised me, since I hadn’t expected *any* literary event to sell out, but I should have known better. The show is always packed.

I went and browsed, but felt I’d missed a lot.

Although not at the book event, I ran across this Saturday:

I remember a similar picture on an album cover from the sixties or seventies, and have no idea how many of these there are, nor what function they perform. They’re neat looking, though, and make me very curious.

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I’ve been bothered by this whenever I see a car commercial on TV. That little legal tag, while sometimes relevant, just bugs the shit out of me: Professional Driver on Closed Course. Do Not Attempt.

It’s one thing to remind people not to drive like assholes, but they stick it on every car commercial. My guess is ninety percent of the manuevers shown should be able to be done by anyone, and actually demonstrate why you’d want a car in the first place. Yes, sometimes it’s someone doing some fancy stunt driving, but it looks to me mostly like speeded up camera work (20fps?).

If I were interested in an off road 4X4 pickup I think I’d want it to splash through a stream. I would not want it to fail at that simple task, nor would I be happy spending all the extra money just to drive it on the road. Also, I think it would be beneficial for any car I owned to, say, turn both left and right, especially considering these cars look so good on mountain roads.

What are they telling me? That I shouldn’t drive the damn thing? I could understand it if the commercials showed people dodging through traffic or pulling those speedy backups I see in action movies, but most of the driving done in commercials looks like something I’d expect of a car.

Speaking of white smoke, I call “enhancement.” Although it isn’t stated here, in what looks pretty official to me, this guy claims water is added to the paper ballots to achieve the black smoke. I saw both some black and white smoke, and it sure looked to me as if more smoke was coming out of that chimney than would be expected from 115 paper ballots.

Maybe they’re really big ballots, like for the Iraqui election, and not the tiny slips of paper I expected.

I’ve done a couple hours of yard work, which I understand makes things worse.

I didn’t hack off any further limbs this weekend, just pulled some weeds that were about a foot high and trimmed last week’s branches to fit more in the bin. While yanking and cutting the weeds I realized I was reducing the total of plant life on this planet, furthering global warming.

If I remember my high school biology, these living green plants take in carbon dioxide and convert it to oxygen. What happens to the carbon is a mystery to me, but I guess it stays with the plant for a spell, eventually being consumed in a fire by man and released back into the atmosphere. Or, consumed by ants, which may fart a lot, but I think that affects the ozone, not global warming. In any case, carbon dioxide is pretty good for fire extinguishers, but not so good for the animal life.

While engaged in this limited destruction of earth’s ability to sustain animals, I realized that my efforts to be environmentally good are often subsistent to some lesser good, such as my home’s appearance. That’s when I started thinking about how many “truths” or “rules” I had exceptions for, and I think we all do.

I tried to think of any non-tautological, meaningful truth that all humans subscribed to and ended up empty. I don’t think we all believe in *anything.* We certainly don’t all believe killing is wrong, and I wonder how much longer it will take for us to reach a consensus on anything. We’ve had several thousand years already, with little to show for it.

I was thinking maybe the developed countries were on a path ahead of the undeveloped ones, but then I got confused trying to distinguish between the two. The developed countries, I guess, are the ones where people can mostly read, can surf the Internet and look for boobies or oiled, hairless men chests, and where we work for others in exchange for commonly agreed upon means of trade and barter. The undeveloped ones are those where people directly struggle for food, shelter, and water, where they farm using natural methods, and die by the millions through starvation and disease.

This is what I think about when I do yardwork. Also, before I quit, I began wondering about which I find more distasteful: descriptive laws or proscriptive ones. Is it more restricting to be told I must wear a bathing cap or to be told I can’t bring a bottle of beer to the pool? Society is a very weird concept. We group because being a hermit is horrifying, but we spend a lot of energy telling each other how to live and think. What we each, individually, hold dear is what we want others to agree is the proper way to live. We argue, not to learn, but to foist our beliefs on others, and end up with millions of laws telling each other how to live.

I just wonder if this was a necessary result of civilizing.
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Because of the Internet I’ve met some remarkable people, people who know things.

I’m warning you now that I may very well end up being a brand new person in a few days. Once I finish doing my taxes, I’m working on becoming Russell V 2.0. The new version won’t look much different, and doubtfully much better, but people who are very good at the things I’m not so good at have been giving me some much-needed advice. Instead of my usual dismissal, I intend to follow what they tell me.

I’m not sure how I feel about taking on a change this momentous, but I’ve done parts of it before. I think it’s fair to say that running my life the way indicated could scarcely end up worse than with me at the helm, so I’ve, really, little to lose.

Mostly it’s just a matter of admitting I’m wrong.

I’m halfway done with this year’s New Year’s Resolutions.

A few days ago when the water heater sprung a cute geyser on its top I was unable to wash dishes. So, I pedalled over to Subway to see if the sandwich they sold resembled the good looking one I saw on TV. It didn’t, and it cost me fully half of my yearly allotment of eating at nationally advertised “fast food” places.

I debated whether or not Subway did, in fact, qualify as a food fast place. I’m not sure how they feel about it and they don’t have piles of ready-made sandwiches the helper grabs and gives you, and a point might be made that they actually construct it for you, but so does Burger King.

Also, in the spirit of the thing, Quizno’s would also qualify as fast food, even though I’m rather taken by the Baby Bob commercials.

Anyway, I tried Subway’s vaunted Chicken Parmesan and it failed to bring back fond memories of Italy. Now, I have only one to go. I may need to save that for when I’m with some other people. I should have refused to do it this week, too, since there’s a perfectly fine fast food place right near the Subway, but I find their food tasteless.

So maybe I’ll bust my resolution, but that leaves next year. Maybe I’ll reduce it to once a quarter, though that sounds excessive. I’d like to go a whole year and never visit any nationally advertised anything, but I’m not always in a position to do the choosing.

Yesterday my sister treated me to Tito’s, which remains one of my favorite places, ever. Even after thirty years, it still tastes the same. I’d recognize one of their chili con carne burritos anywhere.

I’m glad someone doesn’t fuck with a good thing.
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Last night it was very windy, enough for me to get industrious today and begin hacking limbs aways from the cable and electrical lines that run into the house. The limbs belonged to … vegetation, they weren’t mine.

I, of course, have no idea what the names are of the plants I practiced my burgeoning tree surgery skills on, nor did I even put on either pair of my work boots, so I guess by that measure it wasn’t really work. I did, however, use a ladder (one of the two), some long-handled thing that looked like the plant verison of a bolt cutter, and my little electric chain saw.

Now (and I know I’ve mentioned this before) I again wish I had a chipper. It will take me most of tomorrow to hack even a fraction of this to tiny pieces to put into the green “lawn trimmings” bin for pick up. I’m debating whether or not wear gloves. This may be an opportunity for me to get some blisters with the hopes of earning the callouses of the proletariat.

Speaking of: a sad cinema moment. In the remake of Cape Fear at one point Robt Dinero has the young girl suck his thumb. It would have been a great moment except I was completely pulled from the suspension of belief by his thumb, which looked to me to be manicured and as soft as mine. Out of character. This, like impossibly white teeth in just about any movie is something that irks me. The popular actors are so pampered and primmed < ?> that they have a hard time convinicing me they’re the characters they portray.

But that’s not the point. I meant to write about ritual, about plumbing, about my New Year’s Resolution, but those will have to wait.
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It’s been brought to my attention that I’m spending a great deal more time lately talking about money, much like a goldfish gulping for water.

It hasn’t always been this way. In fact, I can’t recall ever talking about money before, never in my life. I’ve never felt I had enough, but always managed to make it through, so I decided early on in life that it was never as big a deal as I thought.

Also, lacking certain popular genes, dining room sets and bedspreads with dust ruffles have never been a priority in my life. I needed a refrigerator when I first moved out, so I eventually got one after months with an ice chest. In fact, had Cesar not offered his mother’s old one, I would have waited for years.

That refrigerator, by the way, was wonderful. The interior was pastel green and yellow, and it had been hand painted pink on the outside. Quite colorful. Also, within a month, the freezer would accumulate so much frost it could scarcely hold one pizza. Oh, how I enjoyed chipping away at the frost! Great huge chunks, thundering off.

That one lasted years, until I got one with an automatic ice maker in a rigged bidding contest. What I liked about that later model was the ice cubes it produced. They were small, the size of my thumbnail. What I disliked was its eventual failure, when it would dump trays full of water into the ice cube bin. Oh, how I dreaded hearing it recycle ten minutes after it had last emptied a load.

My first coffee table was a closet door I’d removed from my parent’s home. It sat on wooden crates I’d taken from the liquor store I worked at. It never occurred to me (really!) that anyone would look askance at it. It served my purposes, and I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by people who never held my lifestyle against me.

Now, of course, I worry about money, still. Nothing I do generates any, and I have yet to swallow my pride sufficient to admit I’m wrong and do what everyone else does. It’s all my fault, and I know what to do.

There’s nothing special about me.

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Oh, sure, everyone has those bouncy castle things in their front yard. Yawn.

A few doors down, at a recently “renovated” home that features such drastic architecture that I’m certain every square inch of space permitted by zoning laws has been taken, they have a bouncy castle thing. This monstrous, ugly structure (which doesn’t fit in at all with the rest of the neighborhood) could only be enhanced by having no fewer than two dozen kids.

Actually, the kids are all right with me: their squeals are delightful. What’s out of the norm, though, is the six foot tall Easter Bunny supervising them, especially this week, one week after Easter. Also, it’s been a justifiably somber weekend, as well. Not much call for celebrating.

What made the scene so remarkable was the mother. I imagine she’d been banished from the house to enjoy a smoke, and was talking with the Bunny. Or he, if it was a he inside there, with her. It would have been quite a picture, but I didn’t have my camera with me.

And, less we think it stops there, on the front yard of the next house is a cheap-ass petting zoo. A small, knee-high enclosure containing several chickens, a black lamb, and a cute baby goat. Strolling nearby, a pony.

WIDIWAP

“Widdy-Wap” was one of my favorite answers at work when people would ask for something ridiculous. That may have counted toward my dismissal, especially when higher-ups requested something. It’s an acronym, of course, and comes from here.
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Many people I’ve met proclaim themselves as “lapsed Catholics,” but since I was never in that faith, I cannot. Still, I follow its activities with … interest.

I can remember two “white smoke” rituals, each of which brought forth a John Paul. Now, a shiny new Pope will emerge, and I have no idea who it will be.

Here’s a list of contenders.

Here, you can see the odds, but not everyone is listed. This site lists more, but you have to do some digging (current events, papacy, on the left).

I’m leaning toward a Latino, but I think it would be quite interesting if they chose an Arab. Not sure how many Arabs are Catholic or qualified, but that would be a balsy political move. I’d be given mad props for that one.
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