Bay Area Outsider

Berkeley: places and employees that suck.

2009-12-03T22:54:00.001-08:00

BUS DRIVERS:
The bus drivers around the Bay Area, especially in the East Bay are some of the crudest people ever. That 5 seconds just as you are entering the bus is the most uncomfortable part of the bus ride -- that includes the time you spend getting tossed around like a ragdoll if you are standing and the smell coming from your neighbor if you are sitting.

The bus drivers in Berkeley are almost always female, aged 27-34, and a weave that can only be described as ghetto. You walk on the bus and they stare straight ahead and pick at their long nails that appear to be press on while you insert your money into the machine. They may lazily glance up at you with a glance that says, "what the fuck do you want?" And you better know the bus rider protocol or you'll be hit with a snappy remark.

My first time riding the Berkeley bus system, called AC Transit, I deposited my money and waited. I was waiting for some kind of acknowledgement that my payment had been received or a transfer ticket like they give you on the San Francisco busses. Well, I certain did get an acknowledgement from the bus driver. After a second or two of me standing there, she says, "That’s it." Judging by the tone in her voice it was more like, "Sit the fuck down already." Then, hurt and pissed off, I start to walk away and I hear her say, "Wake up." What a total bitch.

I guess I can take redemption in the fact that she hates her life.

DMV:
If you've never been to an Oakland DMV, read Dante's Divine Comedy for a pretty accurate description. I'm still debating on what circle of hell it is: the fifth or the ninth. The fifth circle is about wrath and sloth -- both found in abundance at the DMV. But the ninth is the worst hell -- that fits the DMV as well. I would rather go on a scavenger hunt for dirty syringes in the People's Park at night with sandals on then have to deal with the DMV.

Here's an account of my recent Oakland DMV visit:

Stand in a line that extends out the door to get a number. Sit down next to a lady with three screaming kids. Watch the monitor for an hour waiting for your number. Talk to someone finally. Receive minimal eye contact. She expects me to know everything about the process and is irritated when she has to explain something. Looks for her stapler. Says, "I can't believe that white bitch took my stapler," as I'm standing there. Tells me to get in the next line. Wait in this line for another hour. Get my picture taken but the framing is awful because the lady running the camera doesn't give a shit. Have some documents stamped.

Total time: 3 hours.

I guess I can't be too mad about these workers, though. The DMV employees may have a legitimate claim to bitchiness. If I had to work 8 hours a day in that hellhole, I wouldn't be very pleasant either.

MUSIC SHOP PEOPLE:
Music shop people can be top-notch douches, although one of my friends was one once, so uh.. I hope he isn't reading this. I walked into this place called "The Starving Musician" to grab a cable so I can play my iPod through my stereo. There is so much crap in this store and I'm kind of in a hurry so I walk up to the front desk to ask for help. There are two workers sitting at the counter; both of them playing on the computer. I stand by their cash registers and wait for a response. Nothing.

I'm not a particularly pushy person so I start rustling around to catch their attention. Finally one of them looks up and picks his ass up out of the chair. He never really said anything mean, but his body language said it all. Total lethargy. Helping me must have be such a strain.

Music shop people aren't shitty customer service workers because they hate their jobs, however. They love sitting in a music shop all day. What they hate are the customers. I always get the feeling of being looked down upon by the "elite" when I walk into a music shop.

To the two guys who work the counter at The Starving Musician: no one cares that you can play Van Halen's Eruption and that you've been in more unsuccessful cover bands that you can count. Just help me out with my purchase and hold the attitude. It's my money that allows you to sit around, read mags, and play classic rock riffs all day. Don't make me go to Target.

A Street Encounter with a Canvasser

2009-11-30T21:00:00.000-08:00

I was walking home from my parking spot in downtown Berkeley. I had just finished a day of work and I was talking to my father about a few things. I had good luck passing by all the street beggars without having to acknowledge them, but then I saw another guy coming up ahead.

He didn’t look like the begging variety, rather a person that tries to get money from you to support some cause -- a canvassing job. These canvassers definitely suck if you're not from Berkeley or familiar with downtown, and you don't know their scheme. They basically say, "Can you spare a minute to talk about _______ (insert global warming, gay rights, Greenpeace, proposition 8, hate crime legislation)." Then you figure, being the good Samaritan that you are, sure I have some time. He or she stops you for a while and you realize that it was all just a ploy to get some money from you. They don't really care at all if you believe in their cause or not, and I question whether they believe in it either. They just got a job as a canvasser and are trying to make some money.

...Anyways, I saw this guy standing there and I knew that he was going to say something, but I was hoping that my conversation with my father would get his hopes down. I walked by and he said, "Are you registered to vote?"

I said, "Sorry," and put up my hand, as if to say leave me alone.

Then the canvasser said, "Are you talking to your boyfriend?"

I didn't know how to react. Was he trying to insult me or did he really think that I was gay? Given that I live in the liberal city of Berkeley, I don't think that it's supposed to be an insult. I looked back at him while I continued to walk and gave him a puzzled look. He just stood there offering no explanation. I scratched my head and walked away.

I found myself still thinking about it later and then I decided how I feel about it. "Fuck you! You piece of shit! Quit bothering everyone on the street and get a real job."

Tapping into the Entrepreneurial Spirit

2009-10-30T14:43:00.000-07:00

In September, the unemployment rate for the state of California reached 12.2%. In the Bay Area, it is at 10.4%. Even though there were slight up-turns on wall-street, the unemployment rate is continued to rise until the middle of next year. That being said, finding a job in the Bay Area for a recent graduate pretty much sucks ass.

I've been hearing a lot of talk on different forums about how people need to create their own jobs instead of waiting for one and other people sharing entrepreneurial examples. Seems like just talk, considering that it is harder to get a loan these days. Despite the contradiction, I have decided to switch my brain into the entrepreneurial spirit mode and came up with two different money making schemes.

Hear me out:

Scenario 1:
I'm just about to bottle my first homebrew - the darkest and smelliest hefeweizen I've ever seen/smelt. I was thinking that I should set up a home brew shop for the homeless that enjoy a good drink that surround my apartment. I haven't decided the pricing yet, as it has to be very low to compete with the crowd favorite, Hurricane High Gravity malt liquor in a can.

Here are some of the figures that are in the equation:
Equipment: ~$100
Ingredients: $30
The ingredients make about 5 gallons of brew. That is a little bit more than 53 bottles of beer. If I were to sell the bottles at $0.83 a beer, that would give me $43.99. That's a $14 profit on the ingredients.

I would also create a recycling incentive for my customers. Return or give me 5 bottles, I will give one free beer. There will be restrictions on this incentive, however, as I probably don't have enough room for all of the bottles that I would get flooded with. Also, I don't want it to eat too much into my profits, but this way I don't need to figure bottles into my costs.

Making only $14 profit on a batch isn't great, but when you consider the actual time spent making brew, about 3-4 hours spread out over days, it's not too bad. Plus, I love to brew beer. You know what they say, "The first million is the hardest to make."

So maybe this is illegal and immoral, but from what I've read in the newspapers lately, people have made billions operating their businesses upon these principles.

Scenario 2:
Step 1: Get a sex change operation -- male to female surgery

This is a huge start-up cost, but the payoff will dwarf it. Once I fully appear to be a woman, I will enter the nunnery (not the whorehouse variety). I will study the bible and all about the sisterhood while hiding the fact that I once was a man. After I am ordained, or whatever the process is called, I will spend a year or two living the celibate life - shouldn't be hard (double pun).

After this period in which I have established myself in the Catholic nun community, then I will come clean. I will come out of the confessional and tell everyone that I was once a man. No doubt this will cause my banishment from the sisterhood.

After I am banished, I will alert the media. A media tour will ensue where I will plug an autobiography that I conveniently wrote during my time in the nunnery. My target audience will be the Nancy Grace, Jane Velez-Mitchell, and E! Entertainment crowd.

The autobiography will bring in millions and by the time this endeavor is complete, the recession will be ending. I will finally get an entry-level job and continue my career, much richer.

So, what do you think? Feasible? Any other suggestions?

Anxiety, Elation, and Depression on the Job Trail

2009-10-23T17:58:00.000-07:00

Thursday Morning:

It's a beautiful morning in the Bay Area and a particularly exciting one for me because I have a job interview in South San Francisco. There is nothing that I like more in my short experience of the Bay Area than driving over the Bay Bridge. The best part happens right after you drive over the hump of the span between Treasure Island and San Francisco. The view of cars and the bridge ahead of you gives way to a breath-taking, panoramic view of San Francisco. A heavy concentration of skyscrapers lie to your right; in front of you and to the left, houses sit on rolling hills like birds resting on ocean waves.

I get to my interview 30 minutes early, but I already know what I'm going to say, so I listen to the radio. I walk in 15 minutes early, definitely clicked with the interviewers, and get back on the road. My interview was at 11. I reach my parking spot at 11:45. I head to the coffee shop and apply for more jobs. I go home feeling great for my interview with a different employer tomorrow. The light at the end of the tunnel is beginning to emerge.

Friday afternoon:

I had an interview with a non-profit in the Berkeley Hills. It blew up in my face. The questions they asked me were not congruent with my ideas of what the job would actually entail. On top of that, the executive director was a real bitch, who was late for the start of the interview, played on her laptop during the interview, and did not know any details of my resume. I shook her hand and walked away knowing there was no way that I had the position, despite the fact that I did quite well on the skills test.

I spent the rest of my day in self-doubt and feeling like shit. Will I ever find a job? The good interview from Thursday had not contacted me yet, despite the fact that they told me they wanted to fill the position immediately. If I don't get that job, I'm back to square one with no interviews lined up. I'm completely broke.

I lay on my couch, turn on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," and eventually fall asleep on the couch in the middle of the day.

The Perils of a Distant Parking Spot

2009-10-11T14:27:00.000-07:00

It's a Sunday afternoon and I have nothing to do. The conventional excuses that keep me out of the gym won't work on a day like today (e.g. no time, too tired, haven't had anything to eat). So Heather and I get ready to go work out.

I dig my basketball shorts out of the hamper, find a comfortable t-shirt, and dig out my shoes. Next, search for my iPod. It's not in the usual spots, which include counter tops, tables, the floor, under the couch, the coffee table, etc. Whenever this is the case, I know that Heather was picking up after me, and, her being a creature of organization, put it in her favorite spot, a desk drawer. Even though it is a very organized thing to do, ironically, it is the last place I usually check.

So I have my clothes and my iPod ready to go, now I just need to grab my backpack so I can safely stow my wallet, phone, and keys at the gym. That's when the deal breaker hit me.

"Shit," I say to Heather, "I don't have my gym lock. I remember seeing it my car the other day and thinking that I should bring it in, but it never happened."

"Well, what are you going to do?" Heather asks. I can feel my motivational rush start to wither down my spine - right into my ass.

"What can I do?" I say. I could walk to go get it. It's a long walk, but I mean, I going to work out anyways. What harm is there in a walk? Well, it is getting chilly out - that might suck. Plus, there are always bums on the street - I'd have to ignore them. Yup, I thought, I'm not going.

She gives me the look of disappointment. I tell myself to ignore this uncomfortable feeling - it will soon pass and then I can relax on the couch.

"I have an extra lock that you can use." Heather says, "It's right over here." She retrieves it from a well-thought out spot in her desk. She hands it to me and I look it over.

"I can't use this," I tell her.

"Why?"

"Because it is purple and pink. What will the guys in the locker room think?"

"Oh my God," she says.

"Think about it: if there is one place where the risk of homophobia runs high, it has to be in the men's locker room. I don't want to be put in that situation."

She is frustrated, but she won't say anything. She gathers her things and goes to the gym.

I sit on my trusty orange chair and kick my feet up onto the foot stool. Then I start to write a blog article. I comfort myself with the thought that atleast I'm doing something productive.

Berkeley Sidewalk Tales - California Life (continued)

2009-09-25T22:23:00.000-07:00

It is 11:30 A.M. and I am just heading out to grab a coffee at Tully's. I walk out the front door of my apartment complex and head toward Shattuck. At the bus stop I see a bicycle cop talking to someone who is sitting down on a bench. They seem to be having a polite conversation. Then I see the cop grab something from the bench. It is a can wrapped in a brown paper bag. He pulls out the can to look at it. It is a Hurricane High Gravity. The guy at the bus stop stands up to repossess his malt liquor. The cop gives him the Heisman and pours the beverage on the pavement. "WHAT'RE YOU DOING!?" the guy shouts. "I think you've had too much," the cop calmly says. "Na, I jus had one," the guy slurs, "but iv you wanna be an ASSHOLE about it." I take a wide sweep around the action. I don't look back. A guy in front of me rubbernecks the whole thing. He looks at me in the face. Is it okay to laugh I wonder? I stare straight ahead and smirk.

Heather and I walk out of the apartment to get to my car. As soon as I close the door to our apartment entry, we notice a guy coming toward us shouting at apparently no one. "Imma kill that nigga. Imma fuckin' kill that nigga." Heather and I are careful not to make eye contact, but steal glances, none-the-less. He passes us and we turn the corner. "Geez, someone was mad," Heather says.

I'm walking back from my car - a recurring theme. A guy is walking down the street yelling. I'm not sure if it is directed at anyone but he is pissed off. He gets closer to me so I pull out my phone and put it to my ear, pretending to be busy. "It's fucked up," he says, "Man, fuck you all." I don't look at him. I pass and put my phone back in my pocket. I'm not sure, but I think he was the guy from the other day.

Heather and I are at a coffee shop on Shattuck. It is the nicer part of Shattuck, not the zoo Shattuck down by our apartment. We get up from our patio table and Heather goes inside to drop off our latte glasses. I look down the street and I see a person talking to himself and making gestures with his hands. I walk inside the coffee shop to try stall Heather, so the guy having the one-way conversation outside can pass. Unfortunately, Heather is near the door and ready to walk out. We enter the sidewalk and begin our trek home. I can hear the guy talking to himself behind us. I can hear him mumbling but I can't make out what he is saying. I wish he was in front of us so I can keep an eye on him. Heather is talking about her practicum in group therapy and how the diversity in the bay area is giving her such great experience. We get to a stop light and the self-talker is standing next to us. The light turns green and I start slow, letting the man continue on ahead. "There's someone right there that you could do a case study on," I tell Heather.

I am walking back from my car and I hear a crowd ahead. I wonder what it is. I get closer and I see protesters crowding up against a barricade. They are chanting, "Education must be free, no cuts, no fees," in response to a recent 45% increase on tuition as well as job layoffs at UC Berkeley. People are holding signs, beating drums, and waving their fists in the air, while some people chat calmly with one another. They are blocking the traffic on Shattuck, one of the largest streets in Berkeley. I continue on the sidewalk taking it all in. I still see the same old characters that talk to themselves, panhandle, and beg that I always see, but they are somewhat subdued. Finally something is happening that makes these characters seem a little less out of the ordinary.

The Thai food incident

2009-09-20T22:03:00.000-07:00

Setup - Move to Berkeley, CA from Grand Forks, ND

Sunday:
In a gruelling day of driving, Heather, my parents, and I drove from Billings, MT to Winnemucca, NV. We started driving at 9 A.M. and ended at 3 A.M. Monday.

Monday:
We woke up at 6 A.M. in order to reach Berkeley before the apartment rental office closed. So on three hours of sleep in two days, we finally park the Budget rental truck.

The incident

We finished filling out all of the paper work and decided to grab a bite to eat before the heavy lifting began. The East Bay is known for its incredible diversity, so finding a place to eat that is friendly to my white-never lived out of North Dakota-50 year-old parents was quite a task. We walked down several blocks looking for something that was appealing to everyone. I suggested a pizza place, but Heather thought it was too boring. We almost ate at a Persian restaurant, but I didn't know what they served - all they displayed were the ingredients and names of dishes we couldn't pronounce. We began to walk down streets that we had already checked. Finally out of desperation, and arm bending on my parents part, we decide to eat at a Thai restaurant on Shattuck.

We were the only people in the restaurant, which made me nervous. I thought something had to be up if this place was empty in downtown Berkeley, but it was about 4 o'clock so I gave it the benefit of the doubt. The prices were cheap. The beer was cheap - that was a relief. So I got a beer and ordered a rice curry dish. The food wasn't bad.

But here's where the story begins.

We leave the restaurant and prepare to move in. Our apartment is on University Ave, which is a very busy street. There is typically no parking to be found even for a compact car, let alone a 16 foot rental truck. The plan is to double park and unload as quickly as possible. So Heather and I walk to grab the rental truck that is parked a couple of blocks away while my parents wait outside our building. I begin to notice stomach discomfort..

We reach the truck and I slowly, through a series of back and forth movements, pull the truck out of the parking spot. My stomach is definitely bubbling at this point. My anxiety is on the rise as well. "I think I'm gonna have to take a crap," I say, "like, soon."

I pull onto University and keep one eye on the road with the other scanning the store fronts, looking for my apartment entrance. I see my parents waving me down ahead. I look in my side view mirror - there is a long line of cars behind me. My father walks into the street near the parked cars, "Park here," he says.

I am aware that I never stopped to find the hazard lights before - this causes me added anxiety on top of the shit storm brewing inside of me. I slow the truck down to a stop. All hell is breaking loose in my stomach. I fear that one fart is all it will take. I look for the hazard lights button. I can't find it. Cars are stacking up behind me and speeding by my side. I look. I look some more. I don't know where it is. I'm going to shit my pants. I had to make a decision.

I stepped on the gas, leaving my mother and father behind with no explanation. "What are you doing?" Heather asks.

"I'm going to shit my pants! I need to find a bathroom, now!"

She is pissed and doesn't understand why I didn't just stop the truck and run upstairs. I turn the corner and drive down some side streets, looking for a gas station. I'm thinking about how disgusting it will be walking up the steps of my apartment with a wet brown stain on the back of my pants and the horrible smell. It will make a great first impression upon any neighbors I will meet.

I find a gas station and park the truck rental. As I'm running inside, I see a sign that says no public restrooms. That's just to keep the bums from using and leaving without buying anything, I think. I walk up to the counter, continually moving my feet as if it will keep the storm inside my body. "If I buy some gas, can I use the bathroom?" I ask.

"No public restroom," she says.

I groan and run back outside, turn the ignition, and get back on the road. Strangely, I'm beginning to feel okay about the situation, but then my parents call and bring back my frustration. I hand the phone to Heather. "I don't know what he's doing," she says, "he has to go to the bathroom... No, I told him to do that. Here, Perry, talk to your mom. She's yelling at me."

"Mom, I'll be there soon. Bye."

I pull up to another gas station and I see my salvation - a public bathroom. I squeeze the rental truck into a tight spot at the pump, which takes considerable maneuvering and excellent bowel control. I run inside and ask for a key. My stomach is at a roiling boil.

"Good luck in there," a random customer says in front of the clerk. "Be thankful that you are wearing pants."

I turn the key. Relief at last.

I'll spare the details regarding consistency and amount, but just know that it wasn't pretty. I finished up, found the hazard lights, and double parked the rental truck.

Lesson learned:
Don't eat food with exotic spices that are unfamiliar to your digestive tract before operating a large vehicle.

P.S. Does a bathroom exist in California without graffiti scrawled all over it?

Berkeley Sidewalk Tales

2009-09-15T18:24:00.000-07:00

I'm standing at the intersection of University and Shattuck. I have my headphones in. I press pause to hear someone to my right. He is talking to himself. It is unintelligible, but he continues and I continue to listen. The light turns green. I push play.

I'm sitting in a chair outside Berkeley Espresso with my laptop in my lap. A man walks by with unkempt, long gray hair. I look up and make eye contact. "I know you and you don't even know it," he says. He walks past me and tries to bum a cigarette from two people down the street. He is unsuccessful.

I'm walking near Shattuck Square and I see a man jog up to a large pillar from a nearby building. He appears to be jogging in place facing the pillar and staring into it as if it is a mirror. He bends in for a closer look and throws his hands into the air. He dips into a crouch position and pops back up. He leaves the pillar and continues down the street with a wobbly walk.

It is night time and I am walking to Blockbuster. I am slightly anxious and very attentive to the sound of footsteps behind me. I hear the footsteps pick up into a run. Internally I flinch with fear. A young boy, maybe a freshman in high school, runs past me. I feel silly.

I'm at a head shop on Telegraph checking out some posters. A guy walks in and starts asking questions. He is in constant motion. He talks very fast and finishes his dialogues with "thank you". He asks me to move so he can grab a product near my leg. He is polite but also pushy. He buys what he needs within one minute of being in the store and hurries out. After he is gone on the clerks says, "Drugs are for losers."

I am walking down the sidewalk and a blind lady is walking toward me. Her walking stick is way out in front of her. In a preemptive maneuver, I move out of her way near the wall. She makes a b-line for me. I'm trapped against the wall as her stick swings side to side. I time the stick and step over it. I straighten up and squeeze past her on the wall side.

My father and I are walking back to my apartment from my parking spot. We are near Half-Priced Books when I see a middle-aged man in a wheel chair. He is cruising. He uses his heals to push the sidewalk under his wheels. "Did you see that?" my father asks. I tell him that I did see him. "Something seem odd about that?" my father asks. I look at him, not sure of what to think. "Why did he need a wheel chair?" my father asks. "Good point," I say.

home is where the fart is

2009-09-08T21:12:00.000-07:00

Heather (my fiancee) and I went out to an "Irish Pub" in down the street from our apartment the other night. This was an Irish Pub in the downtown district, which really meant that there was a wall made of bricks, the roof had the appearance of being wooden, portraits of famous Irish guys hung on the wall, and they make sure to serve Guiness on tap; that is where the actual Irish ends.

I grabbed a Chimay Trappist Ale. Heather got a Harp Lager. We found a small table upstairs and grabbed two stray chairs from nearby tables. Conversation was strained over the band who cranked it to eleven downstairs. "That guy definitely looks like a politician," I said as I pointed at a portrait of an 18th century man in a wig, "or maybe like a large land owner."

We took turns trying to figure out the occupation all of the men in the portraits on the wall. We mostly agreed on everyone. There was a soldier, more than one politician, possibly a biologist, a drag queen, but there was one guy we could not agree on. The guy that is pictured here.

To me, this was a no brainer. Look at that scowl, that serious, contemplative look. Look at his scraggly beard, like he just didn't give a shit. This man was definitely a writer.

But Heather thought he looked Freudian - some kind of scientist. Another biologist perhaps? Or a psychologist. It figures that she would believe that, her being a budding psychologist, but I was sure I was right and I don't like to lose debates. Ever.

So after 4 days of obsessing over it in the shower, I Googled it. George Bernard Shaw - a famous Irish writer. I probably should be ashamed because I studied literature, but whatever, I won. I was right. I made sure to rub it in Heather's face. That's not pathetic, is it?

When we left the pub that night, we saw a shopping cart full of bags on the sidewalk. As we walked around the shopping cart I snuck a quick glance out of the corner of my eye. It was a man rolled up in a sleeping bag. He looked fairly at ease as he stretched his legs out. Then he ripped ass, like 5 times. It was loud enough to hear over the general hum of the streets. I looked over at Heather and I could tell she had definitely heard it. A couple of paces later, it was cool to talk about it.

"Oh my God," said Heather, "that was so funny."

"It's like he doesn't even care," I said. As the initial shock ran through, I realized that for him it wasn't like anyone else walking down the street. That was his home, damnit, and if he had to fart, well then, he was going to.

"Well," I said to Heather, "Home is where the fart is."

Jesus Camp. RA RA RA!!

2009-08-31T22:51:00.000-07:00

Browsing through the local Blockbuster store, the movie "Jesus Camp" popped out at me. Now, a little background about myself: I love to watch and listen to things that I hate. I watch things like Nancy Grace or listen to right wing A.M. radio on long drives. These programs make me laugh. So naturally a documentary about kids going to brainwashing camp in North Dakota (my hometurf, by the way) sounded pretty awesome to me.

And it was awesome, in a way that made me want to take a cold shower. "Jesus Camp" is a documentary on the entanglement of the Evangelical church and the political right. It shows these kids being endoctrinated at an early age. Obviously there is film editing going on which heightens the drama, but even with this knowledge it is hard to ignore how crazy these people are. I found myself loathing the woman in charge of the church group. It seemed like there was a contradictory answer to everything that she said. I wanted to shake the shit out of her through the television screen. I wanted to call her up and argue the points that disprove her logic.

But then I realized I'm just sitting on my couch, stewing. Why do we love to consume things that we hate? I once heard a saying that the average person who likes Howard Stern listens for ten minutes, while the average person who hates Howard Stern listens for an hour. I'm a pretty argumentative person, perhaps this is it. Or perhaps we watch because it is powerfully engaging to "strongly dislike" someone else's point of view. It's like a drug. Disproving someone else's point takes quick thinking and engagement of our brains. Maybe these programs give us a sense that we are definitely right and that makes us feel good. Programs like Bill O'Reilly, Nancy Grace, Judge Judy, Maury, Rock of Love, Shot of Love, or any program on VH1 or MTV for that matter, are the new drug dealers of the cable television age. They make us feel good about ourselves, but make us sit on our asses while they administer themselves to us. We could have been learning a new skill, but instead we hit the cable crack pipe instead.

In the end the people we hate for their "stupid" opinions are the ones who win. Afterall, we are subscribing. It looks good to the advertisers. We turn the people that we hate into millionaires.

telegraphic experience

2009-08-17T15:30:00.000-07:00

The sun was beginning to fall beneath the buildings and Heather and I were approaching the end of Telegraph Ave. Not that Telegraph actually ended at that point, but the point that mattered to us at the point of time, the shopping area, did. I felt a little bit of apprehension about this, as I saw the area ahead to be a little on the shady side, but Heather, being the free-spirit that she is, did not perceive any immediate danger. A large group congregated near a bus stop. We would have to walk through it. No doubt I'll be solicited, I thought. Sure enough a man emerged out of the crowd with an aggressive sales pitch.

"Hey man, you want a C.D.? Ten dollars." He looked like a rastaman. I gave him a look to communicate my disinterest, which I thought was adequate. I might have even made a small hand gesture. "Yo....from Canada.. Winnepeg... I see them there," he said. I walked past as he talked. I did not move my head. What did he say? It was pretty much unintelligible, but was he saying the artist was from Winnepeg? Or did he just call me out on my relative Canadianess? Do I look Canadian? I'm trying to fit in here... Jesus.

I pulled up to an intersection without a stoplight. "We should cross here," I told Heather. I sure as hell did not want to walk through degenerate's row again. The cars crossing the intersection flowed like a crackhead's veins. I took two steps into the street, still shielded by parked cars. The drivers did not appear to be attentive to my needs, or at least they couldn't read the intent of my wobbley steps and swivelling head. I might have even been biting my nails.

"Press that button," I told Heather. She pressed it; nothing happened. I looked for the flashing lights overhead to warn the cars. They must be hiding. Well, they are probably on, I thought. I took a weary step. Traffic didn't slow. "Should we walk back?" I asked Heather. I took a step toward the congregation at the bus stop. They looked tired, pissed. I spun around. Finally, a break in the cars. We hopped into the street. Not wanting to go on trial for manslaughter, or humanslaughter as Heather might say, the cars yielded.

We crossed, but only to find ourselves on the side of the street with abandoned buildings with iron-barred windows and graffiti on the walls. We walked past a clothing exchange store. "Do you want to go in there?" Heather asked. I'd just like to get the hell out of here, I thought. "Nah, I'm kind of hungry," I said. "We should roll back to our place." She was bummed but damnit it was getting late. So we walked past. Sucessful aversion to potentially prolonging my anxiety: check.

"We have to check out this Himalayan store before we leave," Heather said. Shit.

We entered the store. Strange bells chimed in a seemingly out of time rhythm. The walls and display cases were cluttered. One more object and the store would have exploded. I began to feel the kind of claustrophia that I would feel when my older brother would sit on my head with a pillow on top. Blue skinned gods with fangs and warped smiles hung on the walls. Intricately carved, metal dragons with fierce nostrils and hostile eyes stood erect from the display case; statues of gods fucking people; scenes of which I would never understand the meaning of. Good God, I thought, I'm going to lose it. There was too much detail - minute detail. Each detail splintering my attention into a myriad of directions. It made me dizzy.

But then bells came into the foreground. Is this music? I had never heard anything like it. There was certainly no discernable beat. The choice of bell timbre and the time in the musical space of which the bell rang seemed arbitrary. It sounded as if there was no planning at all, just a bunch of monks hitting bells whenever they felt that it was time. There was no musical communication going on. Just slow, strange bells. Sometimes they were in harmony, sometimes they were in dissonance.

I came out of my bell trance in a calm state. The bells were no longer arbitrary but served their purpose well. I was able to take in the intricate pictures and the five-headed, twenty-four armed statue in an awed state. A rug hanging in the corner had skulls woven into it. The image did not shock me, rather I pondered on the Nepalese culture: a group of people who are chilled out by bells and do not shy away from the fact of death. I felt at peace.

We walked back out into the street, and although it was still the chaotic urban environment, it felt slower. In the Himalyan store, I stole a little piece of zen.