LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
I've made it into the news. I now have my 2.5 minutes of fame.
That's right, I'm in the pages of The World Socialist Web Site. And as a Bonus At No Additional Charge To You, there's a picture of me on the strike line. Red shirt, protest sign, grim look of determination...it's all there. Check it out:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/dec2007/writd05.shtml
They did a pretty good job of reporting, I gotta say - my quotes, mangled syntax and all, are 100% verbatim. Happy reading.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Legal disclaimer
The author (hereinafter "the author") of this electronic media (hereinafter referenced as "Blog") hereby wishes it to be known that, despite several literary passages in the aforementioned Blog that might after due and full consideration be construed to form a critique or rebuke of a certain corporate entity providing hot beverages imbued with caffeine and possessing a distinct coffee-like aroma - perhaps augmented by a certain quantity of the dairy product commonly known as "whipped cream" (hereinafter "whipped cream"), mmmm, oh yes - and on certain strategic occasions fortified by known quantities of sugar and/or cinnamon and/or a dash of vanilla powder, that the author is, in actual fact, it witness hereto this I affix my seal and a few other colorful stamps, not criticizing the operations, management, the baristas that sometimes mumble and the complete lack of free drinking water for the coffee anymore, for God's sake, of the publicly traded entity commonly known as "Starbucks" (ticker symbol SBUX, Nasdaq closing price 18 Nov. $23.17, down 0.9% d-o-d). In fact, the author maintains, as sworn hereto in a big house with a completely fabulous living room, that he, contrariwise, factually enjoys said beverages, albeit the author would be moderately happier if they'd put just a little more milk in their grande cappucinos.
As duly sworn forthwith, mea culpa, Vincebus Eruptum, etc. etc.
The Management
As duly sworn forthwith, mea culpa, Vincebus Eruptum, etc. etc.
The Management
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Waterworld
(these days pretty far away from) SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
I don't know why, but long before I began to travel significantly I was interested in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. My tastes from those days don't make a lot of sense to me now. What was it about Washington State and its most popular city? Big trees? Mountains? Large bodies of water? A cool name? I honestly cannot remember.
Whatever the reason(s), Seattle happened to be at the end of the train line I was taking from Minneapolis, so ride #3 was the last - Whitefish to here. It was also the most pleasant. 85 bucks these days buys you a "roommette", Amtrak-speak for a small sleeping compartment. Now this might seem kinda pricey to those of you 45-dollar-a-night-at-the-Super-8 types (full disclosure: I stayed at the Super 8s in Williston and Whitefish). But first of all those beds are mighty comfortable, it's quiet save for the whoosh and hum of the train, and sleeping through the night is a fine way to burn through 12+ hours of travel time.
I slept well, oh yes I did. I usually sleep well; I'm pretty good at it. When I woke up, we had flown through Idaho and were in Spokane. Hmmm, interesting. I then went back to bed for a good nap and woke up next to a big body of water. My Seattle-area geography isn't good - the only waterous area in the neighborhood I knew of, save for the Pacific Ocean, was Puget Sound. This couldn't be Puget Sound, I told myself with no basis in experience whatsoever. Puget Sound was on the other side of the city.
The slightly doddering and perhaps too old train conductor came around to ask if she could make my bed for the next passenger. Sure, I said. And by the way, what body of water is this?
Puget Sound, she answered as she went to rip my covers off.
There is a reason I rely on maps so heavily rather than my own sense of direction and geography. Because the latter sucks rocks.
The great advantage of train travel, as most Europeans can tell you, is that you usually get dumped nearly in the middle of the target city. Seattle's King Street station - for you architecture groupies designed by the same company that did New York's Grand Central - is a short walk from the Pioneer Square district, Seattle's "old town" (relatively speaking, of course). My first few hours or so were spent on a walking tour of the district's underground. Americans, you see, had a fetish for stubbornly building cities on terrain that pretty much guarantee disaster (hello, San Francisco!). Seattle was no different - its original center was constructed on several acres of mud well watered by the adjoining Elliott Bay. Since the bay had an inconvenient habit of flooding the low-lying marshland nearby, the city fathers wisely decided to raise the overall level of the city. Today, the sidewalks and building facades of Original Ground Floor Seattle are one level underneath the modern city. Though the tour through the old brick alleyways wasn't all that informative or deeply fascinating, it was a good and appopriately unusual introduction to an unusual city.
Modern tourist Seattle can be covered quickly and easily. A few hours will take in Pioneer Square and the city's first skyscraper, the white plaster Smith Building looming overhead. A few hours more provides enough time to explore Pike Place Market (home of the original Starbucks! Oh boy!) and the waterfront district, freshly revived and chain-stored in that American Historic Waterfront District sort of way. Central Seattle ramps up strenuously from the waterfront, so your average 37-year old blogger, for example, will probably hump and puff a bit getting up to the downtown monorail station. The resulting quick ride brings the traveler to the Seattle Center. This is a clump of sports arenas and museums home to the Space Needle, a fine 605-foot (184 meter) piece of tourism planted deep in the landscape.
The Space Needle is the best spot to absorb the odd Seattle geography. The city's surroundings are basically big chunks of land scattered around water flowing from and to the Pacific. To the west, Elliott Bay, basically a small coastal village in the city that is Puget Sound. A thin waterway leads from the Sound and cuts the downtown areas off from the northern suburbs. This canal is interrupted occasionally by fatter blobs of water like Salmon Bay and Hydroplane Central, otherwise known as Lake Union. To the east, Puget Sound little brother Lake Washington surrounds and borders some of the better city suburbs.
One of these was home for me. Mercer Island is a rich slice of land in the middle of Lake Washington. Have you ever heard of Redmond? Sure you have - Redmond is the global headquarters of Microsoft, the world's least-loved buggy software manufacturer. Anyway, Redmond is a short drive east across a bridge then north from Mercer Island. Which means it's home to a lot of Microsofties and those fortunate enough to provide services and supplies for Bill Gates and co. One of these service providers is my co-host, Eva, several years ago a co-worker at the Prague Post. At the time, she had the unenviable grunt job of translating for the Czech linguistically-challenged journalists like Your Correspondent. She's moved pretty far up the ladder - she's now making quite an effort as one of the legion of PR execs handling the Big M. Which must be quite a challenge; Microsoft has never worried or cared much for the kind of press they get. Maybe Eva will help change that.
Mercer Island was a pleasant, coastal and comfortable place to be based in. I did like the Eastside of the city, but an overnight west across the water was a lot of fun too. More about that in the next entry; stay tuned, sailors.
I don't know why, but long before I began to travel significantly I was interested in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. My tastes from those days don't make a lot of sense to me now. What was it about Washington State and its most popular city? Big trees? Mountains? Large bodies of water? A cool name? I honestly cannot remember.
Whatever the reason(s), Seattle happened to be at the end of the train line I was taking from Minneapolis, so ride #3 was the last - Whitefish to here. It was also the most pleasant. 85 bucks these days buys you a "roommette", Amtrak-speak for a small sleeping compartment. Now this might seem kinda pricey to those of you 45-dollar-a-night-at-the-Super-8 types (full disclosure: I stayed at the Super 8s in Williston and Whitefish). But first of all those beds are mighty comfortable, it's quiet save for the whoosh and hum of the train, and sleeping through the night is a fine way to burn through 12+ hours of travel time.
I slept well, oh yes I did. I usually sleep well; I'm pretty good at it. When I woke up, we had flown through Idaho and were in Spokane. Hmmm, interesting. I then went back to bed for a good nap and woke up next to a big body of water. My Seattle-area geography isn't good - the only waterous area in the neighborhood I knew of, save for the Pacific Ocean, was Puget Sound. This couldn't be Puget Sound, I told myself with no basis in experience whatsoever. Puget Sound was on the other side of the city.
The slightly doddering and perhaps too old train conductor came around to ask if she could make my bed for the next passenger. Sure, I said. And by the way, what body of water is this?
Puget Sound, she answered as she went to rip my covers off.
There is a reason I rely on maps so heavily rather than my own sense of direction and geography. Because the latter sucks rocks.
The great advantage of train travel, as most Europeans can tell you, is that you usually get dumped nearly in the middle of the target city. Seattle's King Street station - for you architecture groupies designed by the same company that did New York's Grand Central - is a short walk from the Pioneer Square district, Seattle's "old town" (relatively speaking, of course). My first few hours or so were spent on a walking tour of the district's underground. Americans, you see, had a fetish for stubbornly building cities on terrain that pretty much guarantee disaster (hello, San Francisco!). Seattle was no different - its original center was constructed on several acres of mud well watered by the adjoining Elliott Bay. Since the bay had an inconvenient habit of flooding the low-lying marshland nearby, the city fathers wisely decided to raise the overall level of the city. Today, the sidewalks and building facades of Original Ground Floor Seattle are one level underneath the modern city. Though the tour through the old brick alleyways wasn't all that informative or deeply fascinating, it was a good and appopriately unusual introduction to an unusual city.
Modern tourist Seattle can be covered quickly and easily. A few hours will take in Pioneer Square and the city's first skyscraper, the white plaster Smith Building looming overhead. A few hours more provides enough time to explore Pike Place Market (home of the original Starbucks! Oh boy!) and the waterfront district, freshly revived and chain-stored in that American Historic Waterfront District sort of way. Central Seattle ramps up strenuously from the waterfront, so your average 37-year old blogger, for example, will probably hump and puff a bit getting up to the downtown monorail station. The resulting quick ride brings the traveler to the Seattle Center. This is a clump of sports arenas and museums home to the Space Needle, a fine 605-foot (184 meter) piece of tourism planted deep in the landscape.
The Space Needle is the best spot to absorb the odd Seattle geography. The city's surroundings are basically big chunks of land scattered around water flowing from and to the Pacific. To the west, Elliott Bay, basically a small coastal village in the city that is Puget Sound. A thin waterway leads from the Sound and cuts the downtown areas off from the northern suburbs. This canal is interrupted occasionally by fatter blobs of water like Salmon Bay and Hydroplane Central, otherwise known as Lake Union. To the east, Puget Sound little brother Lake Washington surrounds and borders some of the better city suburbs.
One of these was home for me. Mercer Island is a rich slice of land in the middle of Lake Washington. Have you ever heard of Redmond? Sure you have - Redmond is the global headquarters of Microsoft, the world's least-loved buggy software manufacturer. Anyway, Redmond is a short drive east across a bridge then north from Mercer Island. Which means it's home to a lot of Microsofties and those fortunate enough to provide services and supplies for Bill Gates and co. One of these service providers is my co-host, Eva, several years ago a co-worker at the Prague Post. At the time, she had the unenviable grunt job of translating for the Czech linguistically-challenged journalists like Your Correspondent. She's moved pretty far up the ladder - she's now making quite an effort as one of the legion of PR execs handling the Big M. Which must be quite a challenge; Microsoft has never worried or cared much for the kind of press they get. Maybe Eva will help change that.
Mercer Island was a pleasant, coastal and comfortable place to be based in. I did like the Eastside of the city, but an overnight west across the water was a lot of fun too. More about that in the next entry; stay tuned, sailors.
Monday, November 12, 2007
A gambling nun, the Rice Krispy Treat man and...Montana?
(at the moment not anywhere near) WHITEFISH, MONTANA
Montana - this end of it, anwyay - is pretty damn cool. Surprised? I certainly was. In the popular American imagination, Montana is a vast, unpopulated, flat pancake of a state only occasionally enlivened by mountains and scattered groups of livestock. Poor Montana, if it's mentioned at all, is usually the tag end of a joke. Frank Zappa had a memorable song about moving there to become a dental floss tycoon. Like going to Montana was the worst fate imaginable.
It isn't. Whitefish, anchoring the northwestern border with Idaho and neighboring Canada to the north, is a mid-sized western town with that same frontier feel as Williston (see below)...but fresher, richer, happier, less morose and more fun. Those boxy two-story buildings that used to house general stores and saloons now hold skate shops, Starbucksy cafes, sushi restaurants and, er, saloons.
But maybe Whitefish always had an unfair advantage. It was one of the centers of the old Northern Railroad, whose officials probably lived pretty well and lavishly. No wonder the town prospered.
I spent two days in Whitefish, and was glad that I did. It was good to experience that oh-so-mystical thing in the American imagination - the hallowed Small Town. Unlike the cities that I'm used to (save for, on this trip, hometown Huntington and dad's nest of Agawam) I ran no risk of getting lost wandering around Whitefish. I even took a recommended walking tour around the top of the town to the nearby eponymous lake - which had a beach. (Beaches in Montana?). Then back again, hugging the - again eponymous - river curling down from the lake and forming the western edge of the town. I didn't really do much in Whitefish, but that was the good part of it. I was happy to walk around, do little of anything, and breathe in clean, high-altitude air (particularly at Big Mountain - see my captivating nature video below).
But Whitefish can really hop. That was probably the biggest surprise. I was there over Halloween, and apparently the town is the hottest destination in the area for celebrants of the great holiday (underrated, in my opinion, but that's an argument for another time). I was hanging out with a few new local friends at one of those downtown saloons - which also, by the way, housed a few game tables...so I guess you could slap a "casino" tag on the place too.
The costumes were excellent. Possibly one of the best collections I've ever seen at any Halloween gathering, and I've been to more than a few good ones. Let's see, there was a Frida Kahlo (with uni-brow and mustache, of course), a nun, a couple of priests, four young British guys dressed as several varieties of women, fewer cowboys than I would have expected, sexy girls costumed as...ah, who the hell knows, I was too busy checking them out. And a nun, who spent most of her (his?) time calmly winning at one of the poker tables. But the prize, in my eyes anyway, goes to the Rice Krispy Treat Man for audacity, imagination, dedication, and just plain frickin' weirdness.
"What's a Rice Krispy Treat?", might you ask, a lost and distressed look in your face, if you haven't had the benefit of our wonderful American junk culture. Rice Krispies are a cereal made of - yes - baked rice. Melt some marshmallow and dump a lot of Rice Krispies into the mess, let it cool, cut into squares and you have the Treats. What this guy did was strip down to his underpants, cover his body with some kind of sticky crap (probably - hopefully - not marshmallow) and in the grand finale, dump a box or several of the yummy cereal over himself. How impressive is that? The best I ever did was an ant costume. And that didn't involve any breakfast cereal.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
We have a winner
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
Ladies and gentlemen, ahem ahem (clear throat).
I am proud to announce the winner of this year's Cool Contest, the Re-Name This Blog competition. And the winner of our little game is Mr. Stewart Kenneth Moore of Prague, Czech Republic, Planet Earth, Milky Way Galaxy. His entry, "Route 666" will now become the official name of this blog. Congratulations to Stewart, who is now obligated to root for the LA Dodgers, as he will be a new owner of one of their baseball caps.
Please pass along your congratulations, best wishes, dirty looks of jealousy, etc if you see Stewart in Prague sometime. And compliment him on his new hat.
Also, do check out his website. It's pretty cool: www.opipop.com.
Ladies and gentlemen, ahem ahem (clear throat).
I am proud to announce the winner of this year's Cool Contest, the Re-Name This Blog competition. And the winner of our little game is Mr. Stewart Kenneth Moore of Prague, Czech Republic, Planet Earth, Milky Way Galaxy. His entry, "Route 666" will now become the official name of this blog. Congratulations to Stewart, who is now obligated to root for the LA Dodgers, as he will be a new owner of one of their baseball caps.
Please pass along your congratulations, best wishes, dirty looks of jealousy, etc if you see Stewart in Prague sometime. And compliment him on his new hat.
Also, do check out his website. It's pretty cool: www.opipop.com.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
We interrupt this regularly scheduled broadcast...
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
I went on strike today.
Really.
This is, of course, difficult to do, as I have no job. But those writers aren't like, say, the Teamsters, i.e. a big mega-union that can marshal thousands of sign-waving workers by giving a single order. No, the ranks of the Writer's Guild are thin, which is maybe why they were so grateful when I showed up to volunteer to join them in front of Universal Studios today. I held a dramatic sign with blood-colored ink...or maybe "held" is an exaggeration. For much of my (almost) two hours on the line I propped it on top of a WALK traffic pole. Universal's a good spot for this sort of thing, as not only is the company one of the chief Bad Guys, its entrance is at the junction of a freeway entrance/exit and one of the widest boulevards in the San Fernando Valley.
We strikers (unionize!) stood on opposite sides of the entrance boulevard to Universal "City", or complex, and pretty much just held the signs. Occasionally, a group would break off and march across to the other corner when the walk light turned green. The strike occasionally became noisy, but we weren't the ones getting loud; several signs asked the thousands of motorists to honk in support as they passed. An encouragingly high number did so, with some even giving us multiple blasts or whooping out the window in our general direction. A Teamster shirt-wearing guy in front of me, paraphrasing hyperactive agent Ari from the show "Entourage", had a sign reading, "Honk it out, bitch!"
There weren't many strikers when I got there (like I said, the ranks are thin). Things fattened up later; conveniently this occurred near 5 pm, which is when the second of the two-hour shifts scheduled by the union ended. Ha! Lightweights. Dedicated worker man, salt-of-God's-Earth Eric put in an entire hour and 45 minutes. Power to the People!
After which, of course, I drove to buy needed supplies like calf socks, laundry detergent and sunglasses. And, oh yeah, went to a Coffee Bean for a tea latte and some reading.
I have a feeling the union experience was vastly different in the 1930s.
Enough wordage. I'm on strike, and I'm a writer! Except, uh, I have no job and the only Evil Producer in my life at the moment is myself. But I'm gonna follow the example of my brother writers (heh, this union stuff is seeping into me) and starve Mr. Big Producer Man of fresh content for this blog. In a manner of speaking.
By the sheerest of coincidences, I've promised you, my faithful readership, details of my previous stops on the way to LA. So these re-runs will air in place of current episodes of The Life of Volkman, US Edition. Hope you find these entertaining. Of course, since they're on the Internet I won't be getting much in the way of residuals. Still, I hope you at least like the content.
Onward, workers. You have everything to lose, including your chains. Plus those large vanilla tea lattes at Coffee Bean.
MEANWHILE
My "For God's sake please give this blog a better name contest" is OVER. Naturally, we have a winner. One of you out there is going to take home the prize, and be the pride of his or her neighborhood. No, city. No, dammit...he/she/it will be the envy of his/her/its ENTIRE NATION, not to mention the Galaxy. Their family will be so proud. This huge victory will probably even find its way onto a tombstone somewhere, it's that momentous.
Okay, maybe not. But this person WILL win a nice baseball cap, colored the pleasant shade of Dodger Blue. One size fits all, so as to avoid any head trauma from an improper fit.
I'll announce the winner tomorrow (November 9). Clear your schedules and sit by the PC monitor for this oh-so-important announcement.
P.S. - Song tip - "I Want You So Hard', The Eagles of Death Metal. Funny video for the tune as well - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe6p-5tUh3M
I went on strike today.
Really.
This is, of course, difficult to do, as I have no job. But those writers aren't like, say, the Teamsters, i.e. a big mega-union that can marshal thousands of sign-waving workers by giving a single order. No, the ranks of the Writer's Guild are thin, which is maybe why they were so grateful when I showed up to volunteer to join them in front of Universal Studios today. I held a dramatic sign with blood-colored ink...or maybe "held" is an exaggeration. For much of my (almost) two hours on the line I propped it on top of a WALK traffic pole. Universal's a good spot for this sort of thing, as not only is the company one of the chief Bad Guys, its entrance is at the junction of a freeway entrance/exit and one of the widest boulevards in the San Fernando Valley.
We strikers (unionize!) stood on opposite sides of the entrance boulevard to Universal "City", or complex, and pretty much just held the signs. Occasionally, a group would break off and march across to the other corner when the walk light turned green. The strike occasionally became noisy, but we weren't the ones getting loud; several signs asked the thousands of motorists to honk in support as they passed. An encouragingly high number did so, with some even giving us multiple blasts or whooping out the window in our general direction. A Teamster shirt-wearing guy in front of me, paraphrasing hyperactive agent Ari from the show "Entourage", had a sign reading, "Honk it out, bitch!"
There weren't many strikers when I got there (like I said, the ranks are thin). Things fattened up later; conveniently this occurred near 5 pm, which is when the second of the two-hour shifts scheduled by the union ended. Ha! Lightweights. Dedicated worker man, salt-of-God's-Earth Eric put in an entire hour and 45 minutes. Power to the People!
After which, of course, I drove to buy needed supplies like calf socks, laundry detergent and sunglasses. And, oh yeah, went to a Coffee Bean for a tea latte and some reading.
I have a feeling the union experience was vastly different in the 1930s.
Enough wordage. I'm on strike, and I'm a writer! Except, uh, I have no job and the only Evil Producer in my life at the moment is myself. But I'm gonna follow the example of my brother writers (heh, this union stuff is seeping into me) and starve Mr. Big Producer Man of fresh content for this blog. In a manner of speaking.
By the sheerest of coincidences, I've promised you, my faithful readership, details of my previous stops on the way to LA. So these re-runs will air in place of current episodes of The Life of Volkman, US Edition. Hope you find these entertaining. Of course, since they're on the Internet I won't be getting much in the way of residuals. Still, I hope you at least like the content.
Onward, workers. You have everything to lose, including your chains. Plus those large vanilla tea lattes at Coffee Bean.
MEANWHILE
My "For God's sake please give this blog a better name contest" is OVER. Naturally, we have a winner. One of you out there is going to take home the prize, and be the pride of his or her neighborhood. No, city. No, dammit...he/she/it will be the envy of his/her/its ENTIRE NATION, not to mention the Galaxy. Their family will be so proud. This huge victory will probably even find its way onto a tombstone somewhere, it's that momentous.
Okay, maybe not. But this person WILL win a nice baseball cap, colored the pleasant shade of Dodger Blue. One size fits all, so as to avoid any head trauma from an improper fit.
I'll announce the winner tomorrow (November 9). Clear your schedules and sit by the PC monitor for this oh-so-important announcement.
P.S. - Song tip - "I Want You So Hard', The Eagles of Death Metal. Funny video for the tune as well - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe6p-5tUh3M
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Land of the writerless
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
Skipping ahead a little bit...I arrived! Yesterday was my triumphant return through the victory arches of Los Angeles. Apologies for the lack of blogonality over the past few days. I'll fill in the gaps (yes, I know it's cheating). But I'd really like to compliment the video below with a word or two about my stop in Montana. Plus there was an extended weekend in Seattle and western Washington that involved Norwegian food and boxing an 11-year old black kid. Stay tuned for the graphic details. Oh, I might as well also write an entry or two about Brooklyn and Long Island, my first stops on this trail.
Los Angeles. I've moved in to the guest room of pal Ines's apartment, as per the plan. She lives a block away from a freeway and across the street from a 7-11. But then again, pretty much everyone in LA lives near a freeway and a 7-11. The weather is mild and calm, the streets are full of cars...
Oh yes. And the writers are striking! As everyone in the entertainment business knows by now, the Writer's Guild has called a work stoppage. This is because the writers, as ever, aren't being paid enough by their employers (yeh, try working in Central Europe for a few years, guys). In a supreme example of fine timing, I arrived in LA the very day the strike started. So, looks like no writer job for me for a while. Guess I'd better practice cooking eggs and making toast, as I'll likely have to take a job at the local Denny's to get some income incoming. Would you like a milkshake with that order, sir?
Skipping ahead a little bit...I arrived! Yesterday was my triumphant return through the victory arches of Los Angeles. Apologies for the lack of blogonality over the past few days. I'll fill in the gaps (yes, I know it's cheating). But I'd really like to compliment the video below with a word or two about my stop in Montana. Plus there was an extended weekend in Seattle and western Washington that involved Norwegian food and boxing an 11-year old black kid. Stay tuned for the graphic details. Oh, I might as well also write an entry or two about Brooklyn and Long Island, my first stops on this trail.
Los Angeles. I've moved in to the guest room of pal Ines's apartment, as per the plan. She lives a block away from a freeway and across the street from a 7-11. But then again, pretty much everyone in LA lives near a freeway and a 7-11. The weather is mild and calm, the streets are full of cars...
Oh yes. And the writers are striking! As everyone in the entertainment business knows by now, the Writer's Guild has called a work stoppage. This is because the writers, as ever, aren't being paid enough by their employers (yeh, try working in Central Europe for a few years, guys). In a supreme example of fine timing, I arrived in LA the very day the strike started. So, looks like no writer job for me for a while. Guess I'd better practice cooking eggs and making toast, as I'll likely have to take a job at the local Denny's to get some income incoming. Would you like a milkshake with that order, sir?
Friday, November 2, 2007
Rocky mountain, hi
BIG MOUNTAIN (really, that's the name), MONTANA
Here's a little video of me, ah, NOT doing a long, restorative, satisfying hike through one of the Rocky Mountains. Starring myself, a bag of food, a brittle stick, and my double chin.
Here's a little video of me, ah, NOT doing a long, restorative, satisfying hike through one of the Rocky Mountains. Starring myself, a bag of food, a brittle stick, and my double chin.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Ghost towns of the Old West
WILLISTON, NORTH DAKOTA
We passed a sign, lonely on the dry, dirty yellow grass of the plain, reading something like “You can’t hide from God.”
It wasn’t a warning, a threat or an obvious hint to behave as you should. Out here, it’s simply reality.
In this part of the world, you can’t hide from much of anything. This is northern central US, acres and miles and counties and states of low, bumpy land…the prairie of Western movie fame. It looks great on film (lots of depth for those wide angle shots of Matt movin’ ‘em to Montana), but it can feel quite empty and lonely. This probably helps explain the taciturn and quiet way of locals from around these parts.
You don’t really get cityscapes or suburbs on the prairie. Municipalities, such as they are, tend to look a lot like Williston. This town was probably perfect western movie scenery a century or so ago; it’s easy to picture twin rows of clapboard buildings on either side of a dirt road Main Street. Modern Williston hasn’t grown too much wider than that; downtown has the feel of someplace not entirely permanent and not exactly making a good living. The one department store, obviously a fixture of the place for many decades, was still and nearly unoccupied when I stopped in for a coffee this morning. Under the old tin ceiling, in front of the racks of not up-to-date merchandise, the co-owner of the store’s café concession struck up a small conversation with me. What did she think of Williston? I asked during our little talk.
“Mmmm,” she said, in that way people do when working to think of something inoffensive to say. “God loves everyone. People here are nice.” She was originally from Oregon, and her tone and care indicated that for her, her home state easily wins the comparison.
Williston did grow, a bit. There’s a stretch of highway branching north and a little shift left from Main Street. This has the usual American shops and food troughs – Radio Shack, Arby’s, KFC, etc. etc. Giving this could-be-anywhere-in-the-USA scenery a small pinch of local flavor is the a few warehouses selling farm goods and oil extracting equipment. Like the prairie town it likely always was, farmin’ is apparently still a ripe business here. Same goes for oil – according to the taxi driver who gave me a ride through this landscape to my motel, people involved in the Black Stuff are doing pretty well and the local economy is that much the better for it.
But the oil money doesn’t seem to drip down to the town’s economy. The shops feel and look a few decades out of date, and only a few people wander around downtown. The neighborhood is Williston’s geographical center, but that’s where its significance seems to end.
I’m here for less than 24 hours. Tomorrow is another vault across the plains, 12 hours west to Whitefish, Montana. God bless us humble travelers…if he’s not too busy keeping watch over prairie ghost towns like Williston.
We passed a sign, lonely on the dry, dirty yellow grass of the plain, reading something like “You can’t hide from God.”
It wasn’t a warning, a threat or an obvious hint to behave as you should. Out here, it’s simply reality.
In this part of the world, you can’t hide from much of anything. This is northern central US, acres and miles and counties and states of low, bumpy land…the prairie of Western movie fame. It looks great on film (lots of depth for those wide angle shots of Matt movin’ ‘em to Montana), but it can feel quite empty and lonely. This probably helps explain the taciturn and quiet way of locals from around these parts.
You don’t really get cityscapes or suburbs on the prairie. Municipalities, such as they are, tend to look a lot like Williston. This town was probably perfect western movie scenery a century or so ago; it’s easy to picture twin rows of clapboard buildings on either side of a dirt road Main Street. Modern Williston hasn’t grown too much wider than that; downtown has the feel of someplace not entirely permanent and not exactly making a good living. The one department store, obviously a fixture of the place for many decades, was still and nearly unoccupied when I stopped in for a coffee this morning. Under the old tin ceiling, in front of the racks of not up-to-date merchandise, the co-owner of the store’s café concession struck up a small conversation with me. What did she think of Williston? I asked during our little talk.
“Mmmm,” she said, in that way people do when working to think of something inoffensive to say. “God loves everyone. People here are nice.” She was originally from Oregon, and her tone and care indicated that for her, her home state easily wins the comparison.
Williston did grow, a bit. There’s a stretch of highway branching north and a little shift left from Main Street. This has the usual American shops and food troughs – Radio Shack, Arby’s, KFC, etc. etc. Giving this could-be-anywhere-in-the-USA scenery a small pinch of local flavor is the a few warehouses selling farm goods and oil extracting equipment. Like the prairie town it likely always was, farmin’ is apparently still a ripe business here. Same goes for oil – according to the taxi driver who gave me a ride through this landscape to my motel, people involved in the Black Stuff are doing pretty well and the local economy is that much the better for it.
But the oil money doesn’t seem to drip down to the town’s economy. The shops feel and look a few decades out of date, and only a few people wander around downtown. The neighborhood is Williston’s geographical center, but that’s where its significance seems to end.
I’m here for less than 24 hours. Tomorrow is another vault across the plains, 12 hours west to Whitefish, Montana. God bless us humble travelers…if he’s not too busy keeping watch over prairie ghost towns like Williston.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
It's gettin' cold out, yah?
ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA
My trip isn't exactly a pure cross-country run. My first bit of cheating was to fly out from Boston to near the midpoint of the country, namely St. Paul/Minneapolis (hey, gotta save some time and money somehow). I'm staying with my friend Alex, once upon many years ago also a colleague at the Prague Post, where I was a scrub freelancer and he was (sucker!) a staff reporter. The years have been good to him save for an awkward bout with tendinitis in the hands (smacking a keyboard for a living will do that to you). I was relieved to see that he's ended up with a fantastic woman, an Iranian-born opthamologist originally from Nebraska. Sanaz is, I would imagine, pretty much the only Nebraskan eye specialist active in this country with Persian ancestry. But the US is pretty frickin' big, so it wouldn't surprise me if I'm wrong.
Despite the success of his relationship, Alex asked me to write that he's spent the past few nights engaging in noisy, wild sex with several local nubiles. He hasn't at all, but as a friend I have to do my best to shore up his fragile, confidence-hungry ego.
Global warming has hit Minnesota like it has everyplace else, but like a lot of northern places you can feel winter starting to bite here. Though it's not freezing yet, the wind stings a little and that little survival cortex of my brain keeps nagging me to stay inside. This was easily accommodated Friday and yesterday by the handy Skyway, a great name for a very smart concept here in the Twin Cities. Since winter is usually mean and long, the city elders in their wisdom created a network of above-street-level passageways linking much of the downtown areas of both St. Paul and Minneapolis. So you can cruise around entirely indoors, which comes in handy when you want to, say, bar hop in January without suffering frostbite. Although I would imagine it exists elsewehere, the Twin Cities were the first place I've encountered this type of transportation. I walked around in these tubes more than was strictly necessary because, well, they were the SKYWAY and I thought the concept was pretty cool. Plus, you can't beat that name, eh? It sounds so futuristic and hopeful.
Funny Indoor Experience #2 was the inevitable, the unavoidable, the unbelievable Mall of America. This, as all you shopping mall groupies will know, is the largest facility of its kind in our galaxy. It's the size of several airplane hangars and has every classic American chain store known to man...plus some you didn't know (there's a shop that only sells flavored peanut butter products, for example, and trendy place for kids where they can design their own teddy bears). In the middle, as if flavored peanut butter outlets and several dozen Starbucks weren't enough, is - get this - an AMUSEMENT PARK, complete with scary roller coaster and flume log ride. We couldn't quite find the entrance to the roller coaster, Alex, Sanaz and I, so we contented ourselves with simply walking around and browsing in some of the chains. Although surrounded by millions of dollars in commerce and several football fields of merchandise, all I bought in the end was a t-shirt and a gift for the wife. I guess the heavy sales atmosphere and adventure rides didn't have much effect on my buying habits in the end.
Still, I'm sorry we didn't make it to the roller coaster.
Oh, I also scratched another "gotta do this typically American thing" off my list yesterday. The Typically American Thing in question was...Denny's! This, the dark-minded and uninformed might not realize, is the classic US breakfast chain, almost up there in our mythology with baseball, hot dogs and automobiles the size of shanty towns. It's famous for the Grand Slam Breakfast, a tray - sorry, plate - stuffed with eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes and several other unhealthy foods that probably don't belong together. I shied away from the Grand Slam, instead getting an American Slam (the difference is immense, I tell you). One side option was grits, a traditional dish of tasteless mush from our Southern States. But for tasteless mush it was pretty good. Or maybe I was just so satisfied with the eggs, bacon and sourdough toast that it didn't matter. I helped Alex and Sanaz with their pancakes too. Ah, America, land of Monster Food. Bring on the sausages!
My trip isn't exactly a pure cross-country run. My first bit of cheating was to fly out from Boston to near the midpoint of the country, namely St. Paul/Minneapolis (hey, gotta save some time and money somehow). I'm staying with my friend Alex, once upon many years ago also a colleague at the Prague Post, where I was a scrub freelancer and he was (sucker!) a staff reporter. The years have been good to him save for an awkward bout with tendinitis in the hands (smacking a keyboard for a living will do that to you). I was relieved to see that he's ended up with a fantastic woman, an Iranian-born opthamologist originally from Nebraska. Sanaz is, I would imagine, pretty much the only Nebraskan eye specialist active in this country with Persian ancestry. But the US is pretty frickin' big, so it wouldn't surprise me if I'm wrong.
Despite the success of his relationship, Alex asked me to write that he's spent the past few nights engaging in noisy, wild sex with several local nubiles. He hasn't at all, but as a friend I have to do my best to shore up his fragile, confidence-hungry ego.
Global warming has hit Minnesota like it has everyplace else, but like a lot of northern places you can feel winter starting to bite here. Though it's not freezing yet, the wind stings a little and that little survival cortex of my brain keeps nagging me to stay inside. This was easily accommodated Friday and yesterday by the handy Skyway, a great name for a very smart concept here in the Twin Cities. Since winter is usually mean and long, the city elders in their wisdom created a network of above-street-level passageways linking much of the downtown areas of both St. Paul and Minneapolis. So you can cruise around entirely indoors, which comes in handy when you want to, say, bar hop in January without suffering frostbite. Although I would imagine it exists elsewehere, the Twin Cities were the first place I've encountered this type of transportation. I walked around in these tubes more than was strictly necessary because, well, they were the SKYWAY and I thought the concept was pretty cool. Plus, you can't beat that name, eh? It sounds so futuristic and hopeful.
Funny Indoor Experience #2 was the inevitable, the unavoidable, the unbelievable Mall of America. This, as all you shopping mall groupies will know, is the largest facility of its kind in our galaxy. It's the size of several airplane hangars and has every classic American chain store known to man...plus some you didn't know (there's a shop that only sells flavored peanut butter products, for example, and trendy place for kids where they can design their own teddy bears). In the middle, as if flavored peanut butter outlets and several dozen Starbucks weren't enough, is - get this - an AMUSEMENT PARK, complete with scary roller coaster and flume log ride. We couldn't quite find the entrance to the roller coaster, Alex, Sanaz and I, so we contented ourselves with simply walking around and browsing in some of the chains. Although surrounded by millions of dollars in commerce and several football fields of merchandise, all I bought in the end was a t-shirt and a gift for the wife. I guess the heavy sales atmosphere and adventure rides didn't have much effect on my buying habits in the end.
Still, I'm sorry we didn't make it to the roller coaster.
Oh, I also scratched another "gotta do this typically American thing" off my list yesterday. The Typically American Thing in question was...Denny's! This, the dark-minded and uninformed might not realize, is the classic US breakfast chain, almost up there in our mythology with baseball, hot dogs and automobiles the size of shanty towns. It's famous for the Grand Slam Breakfast, a tray - sorry, plate - stuffed with eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes and several other unhealthy foods that probably don't belong together. I shied away from the Grand Slam, instead getting an American Slam (the difference is immense, I tell you). One side option was grits, a traditional dish of tasteless mush from our Southern States. But for tasteless mush it was pretty good. Or maybe I was just so satisfied with the eggs, bacon and sourdough toast that it didn't matter. I helped Alex and Sanaz with their pancakes too. Ah, America, land of Monster Food. Bring on the sausages!
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Ducks and balls
WATERTOWN/BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Could I be the good luck charm? My ego would like to think so. Two of the three times I've been in Boston, their baseball team the Red Sox has made it to the World Series (i.e., the set of games that determines the year's champion). The Red Sox in the Series is a Big Deal here, becuase for much of the team's existence when it got to the playoff stage it dropped dead nearly at the finish line, coming home with nothing save painful memories of a collapsed season. This changed, seemingly forever, in 2004 when they beat my favorite team, the New York Yankees, in a playoff series they had no right to win (hey, I'm biased) and advanced to victory in the Series.
The city is Red Sox-mad now. The team is a constant and enduring topic of conversation, and everything will come to a head tonight - the Series starts this evening, and the first two games are at the Sox's home of Fenway Park.
Fenway's a great stadium; unlike most other professional sports facilities in this country it's actually in the heart of its city. It's a grand old box of a structure with a famously towering wall in left field (appropriately named The Green Monster) and a lot of Ye Olde Baseball atmosphere. I saw it yesterday because I took the Duck Tour.
The what?
A "Duck" is the nickname for a DUKW, an innovative land/sea assault truck used extensively in World War II to land troops on beaches unreachable by conventional landing craft. Several of these sturdy vehicles made it through the horrors of war into easy semi-retirement as tourist buses in Boston. The idea behind utilizing these crafts for tourists - besides the certain cost advantages - is that the tour route can incorporate water. So the Ducks drive around the areas of interest in the city, then dip into the Charles River for a while, then finish their route on dry land and road.
Boston's a windy place and rain was threatening yesterday, so the Coast Guard slammed a big no down on the aquatic parts of the Duck Tours. Which didn't really matter; even without the water, the Ducks paddle along for a good two hours past all the famous Boston sites. Prudential Center, Beacon Hill, the Common, the State House (whose front gate only opens when the governor leaves office, when troops are decomissioned, or when the President visits), Fenway, etc. etc. etc. Of particular interest to history geeks like me were the many Revolutionary War Paul-Revere-Rode-Here places. Paul Revere did, in fact, take his famous ride down the main street in Charlestown (across the river from Boston proper), although your history books lie - he actually warned that "the REGULARS were coming", i.e. the Army. As everyone in town considered themselves British at the time, the famous words "the British are coming" wouldn't have meant anything.
Today is gray and the clouds look pregnant; the important thing this means for Boston on this special day is, uh-oh, the Game might be rained out. And the city really, really wants their Red Sox.
During the Duck tour yesterday, as we cruised through the alleys surrounding Fenway, we saw a line of tents occupied by hopeful fans aiming to get some of the tickets the team holds for release just before game time. My favorite was the guy with a sign behind his tent reading "no photographs please - my boss thinks I'm sick".
For his sake alone, I hope the weather dries up for the game.
Could I be the good luck charm? My ego would like to think so. Two of the three times I've been in Boston, their baseball team the Red Sox has made it to the World Series (i.e., the set of games that determines the year's champion). The Red Sox in the Series is a Big Deal here, becuase for much of the team's existence when it got to the playoff stage it dropped dead nearly at the finish line, coming home with nothing save painful memories of a collapsed season. This changed, seemingly forever, in 2004 when they beat my favorite team, the New York Yankees, in a playoff series they had no right to win (hey, I'm biased) and advanced to victory in the Series.
The city is Red Sox-mad now. The team is a constant and enduring topic of conversation, and everything will come to a head tonight - the Series starts this evening, and the first two games are at the Sox's home of Fenway Park.
Fenway's a great stadium; unlike most other professional sports facilities in this country it's actually in the heart of its city. It's a grand old box of a structure with a famously towering wall in left field (appropriately named The Green Monster) and a lot of Ye Olde Baseball atmosphere. I saw it yesterday because I took the Duck Tour.
The what?
A "Duck" is the nickname for a DUKW, an innovative land/sea assault truck used extensively in World War II to land troops on beaches unreachable by conventional landing craft. Several of these sturdy vehicles made it through the horrors of war into easy semi-retirement as tourist buses in Boston. The idea behind utilizing these crafts for tourists - besides the certain cost advantages - is that the tour route can incorporate water. So the Ducks drive around the areas of interest in the city, then dip into the Charles River for a while, then finish their route on dry land and road.
Boston's a windy place and rain was threatening yesterday, so the Coast Guard slammed a big no down on the aquatic parts of the Duck Tours. Which didn't really matter; even without the water, the Ducks paddle along for a good two hours past all the famous Boston sites. Prudential Center, Beacon Hill, the Common, the State House (whose front gate only opens when the governor leaves office, when troops are decomissioned, or when the President visits), Fenway, etc. etc. etc. Of particular interest to history geeks like me were the many Revolutionary War Paul-Revere-Rode-Here places. Paul Revere did, in fact, take his famous ride down the main street in Charlestown (across the river from Boston proper), although your history books lie - he actually warned that "the REGULARS were coming", i.e. the Army. As everyone in town considered themselves British at the time, the famous words "the British are coming" wouldn't have meant anything.
Today is gray and the clouds look pregnant; the important thing this means for Boston on this special day is, uh-oh, the Game might be rained out. And the city really, really wants their Red Sox.
During the Duck tour yesterday, as we cruised through the alleys surrounding Fenway, we saw a line of tents occupied by hopeful fans aiming to get some of the tickets the team holds for release just before game time. My favorite was the guy with a sign behind his tent reading "no photographs please - my boss thinks I'm sick".
For his sake alone, I hope the weather dries up for the game.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Please find a better name for this blog...and win a hat!
AGAWAM, MASSACHUSETTS
I was never very good at titles. Hard evidence of this is above, just over the cars that make up the U.S. flag. "Road America" was, honestly, the best I could come up with. Even for someone with no title talent, that's pretty lousy.
That's why I'm calling upon you, my trusted bloggy friends, to come up with a better name for this contribution to Internet literature. So I am formally announcing, as of right this moment, a CONTEST. Yes, the lucky winner will receive 1 (one) Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap once I land in LA and get my act together. The contest starts NOW and ends November 2 at 12 noon (U.S. Pacific time, of course, or 21h for the central European types out there, or 3:00 pm for the East Coasters). Our expert panel of judges* will critically evaluate every entry through a rigorous 15-step process (17 steps if hung over), and will select the best entry from all received. Runners-up will receive nothing save for random scraps of gratitude, and the satisfaction of knowing that they contributed to improving the title of this blog.
Either post your entry directly in the COMMENTS section of this blog, or send it to my email (as you are likely reading this blog only because you know me, you should have my email in your address book somewhere). Again, contest starts this very instant, and ends November 2.
Good luck. And here's to hoping you win the hat and raise your hands in triumph.
* In other words, me
I was never very good at titles. Hard evidence of this is above, just over the cars that make up the U.S. flag. "Road America" was, honestly, the best I could come up with. Even for someone with no title talent, that's pretty lousy.
That's why I'm calling upon you, my trusted bloggy friends, to come up with a better name for this contribution to Internet literature. So I am formally announcing, as of right this moment, a CONTEST. Yes, the lucky winner will receive 1 (one) Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap once I land in LA and get my act together. The contest starts NOW and ends November 2 at 12 noon (U.S. Pacific time, of course, or 21h for the central European types out there, or 3:00 pm for the East Coasters). Our expert panel of judges* will critically evaluate every entry through a rigorous 15-step process (17 steps if hung over), and will select the best entry from all received. Runners-up will receive nothing save for random scraps of gratitude, and the satisfaction of knowing that they contributed to improving the title of this blog.
Either post your entry directly in the COMMENTS section of this blog, or send it to my email (as you are likely reading this blog only because you know me, you should have my email in your address book somewhere). Again, contest starts this very instant, and ends November 2.
Good luck. And here's to hoping you win the hat and raise your hands in triumph.
* In other words, me
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Hittin' the highway...soon
AGAWAM, MASSACHUSETTS
I'm the kind of person who usually doesn't do things quickly. What's the rush? I returned to the US ten days ago; the plan was to attend my sister's wedding then eventualllllllly make my way westward to New Home in Los Angeles. New Home tenancy begins November 5, so I have that much time to get there.
Meaning that I can take the slow boat to my destination. And I am, yes I certainly am. My vessel will be a mutant combination of Amtrak trains and cheap flights, putting me in a mix of not particularly well traveled or popular places (North Dakota, Montana) and big cities that have attracted some degree of fame and tourism (Minneapolis and Seattle).
But that boat doesn't leave for a while. Thursday is the flight to Minneapolis; in the meantime, I'm at my dad's place in Agawam, Massachusetts, generally relaxing and learning how to properly spell "Massachusetts". Because America is not a particularly deep or thoughtful society, it's easy to get re-adjusted to life here. And those old Americanisms are already starting to creep back into my life. The other day I mowed my dad's lawn, my first lawn mowing gig since about 1994. The smell of freshly cut grass and the purr of the two-cycle motor...all I needed was some apple pie and a football game on the TV to go along with it. But yesterday's grinder sandwich and today's Giants game should come pretty close to satisfying that need.
My next stop, before Lewis & Clarking to the opposite side of the country, is Boston. I'll stay for a few days (and collect a pizza won in a bet with my ex-girlfriend), hang out with a few people I knew from Prague, then hit the airport for the Minneapolis hop. In Massachusetts, all anyone can talk about is Boston's baseball team, the Red Sox. They have a history of going far but not quite all the way, which changed when they won the World Series (i.e. the championship) in 2004. Will they repeat this accomplishment this year, or die at the last minute as per tradition? Sox fans are secretly worried about the latter possibility; me, I'm just happy to watch suspenseful baseball. The final game in the pennant series is tonight; the World Series starts on Wednesday.
I'm the kind of person who usually doesn't do things quickly. What's the rush? I returned to the US ten days ago; the plan was to attend my sister's wedding then eventualllllllly make my way westward to New Home in Los Angeles. New Home tenancy begins November 5, so I have that much time to get there.
Meaning that I can take the slow boat to my destination. And I am, yes I certainly am. My vessel will be a mutant combination of Amtrak trains and cheap flights, putting me in a mix of not particularly well traveled or popular places (North Dakota, Montana) and big cities that have attracted some degree of fame and tourism (Minneapolis and Seattle).
But that boat doesn't leave for a while. Thursday is the flight to Minneapolis; in the meantime, I'm at my dad's place in Agawam, Massachusetts, generally relaxing and learning how to properly spell "Massachusetts". Because America is not a particularly deep or thoughtful society, it's easy to get re-adjusted to life here. And those old Americanisms are already starting to creep back into my life. The other day I mowed my dad's lawn, my first lawn mowing gig since about 1994. The smell of freshly cut grass and the purr of the two-cycle motor...all I needed was some apple pie and a football game on the TV to go along with it. But yesterday's grinder sandwich and today's Giants game should come pretty close to satisfying that need.
My next stop, before Lewis & Clarking to the opposite side of the country, is Boston. I'll stay for a few days (and collect a pizza won in a bet with my ex-girlfriend), hang out with a few people I knew from Prague, then hit the airport for the Minneapolis hop. In Massachusetts, all anyone can talk about is Boston's baseball team, the Red Sox. They have a history of going far but not quite all the way, which changed when they won the World Series (i.e. the championship) in 2004. Will they repeat this accomplishment this year, or die at the last minute as per tradition? Sox fans are secretly worried about the latter possibility; me, I'm just happy to watch suspenseful baseball. The final game in the pennant series is tonight; the World Series starts on Wednesday.
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