The Phrase of the Year Award

It's been quite a year of phrases new and well-worn.  So which of these fucking annoying and misplaced phrases wins the award for 2020?  Let's find out!

2nd Runner Up: "The New Normal"

By using this phrase, the person speaking is accepting the abnormal as what will be commonplace.  Where this was wildly misused was when, after asking someone politely to wear a mask to prevent the spread of a virus would then be extended to, say, charging you through the nose for a product.  Or giving you twice the amount of work because you're lucky to be working at all, you know?  You can apply a phrase such as this afterwards, as if to say "I used to do _____, but now I do _____.  I never do that old ______ anymore....______ is my new normal."  But that doesn't apply to being treated like dung on purpose just because...hey!  This is Your new normal.

1st Runner Up: "It is what it is."

Look, the morgue is full.  The park is closed.  Occurrences minor, annoying, major, life-threatening.  Could they have been prevented?  Most likely.  But they weren't.  They're dead, the house is burned, the store is closed forever and...it is what it is.  A favorite phrase of people who love to talk but say little to nothing of value, this one rocketed up near the top...but it isn't #1.  

The 2020 phrase of the Year: "Can't you just..."

Your life, in whatever way you manage it, or view it, or just plain live it, is completely different.  As such, some rather large difficulties have sprung up.  You're only human to wonder aloud how to deal with these difficulties, but deal with them you do and life marches on (if you're lucky).  And there, from the sidelines, comes confusion from people who are utterly baffled a majority of their life.  Their lack of general knowledge and seeming avoidance of all manners of formal education shine through.  They don't understand.  To explain why you "can't just" would not only require a lengthy explanation, it would also require the person who asked you that same question to understand simple, basic logic.  Could they fully step into your shoes and view the situation as you?  Or anyone else?  Of course not.  As such, the confusion continues.  And it used to just be those random moments in public where their lost, glazed face would cross your path and you'd just shake your head and exhale.  Now those same people, daffier than ever, are oh so confused almost 100% of the time.  Do you have time to explain life/society/how the can opener works?  

It's easy to ask "what is your resolution for '21?" but why is it (I fear) it will just be more so in the coming year?  When is the escape?  Individually, how will we define it?  What will it look like?  And can you blame anyone if they never return? 

It's the system we currently have and...

 Before I begin, I note that I am writing this because I am a big college football fan.  I'm probably a bigger college basketball fan, but I watch more college football these days (just the way it goes with life obligations) but know that combination as you read.

As I watched Saturday and then sat thinking Saturday night, I knew the inevitable.  The good, the fun schools, the ones who made the season interesting and as such would make an invitational er... playoff interesting, wouldn't get close to being included.  It was the same old, same old.

And I thought about what bowl games I could remember, and for each that were big time schools and games, the rest were the upsets and weirdo games.  Of course I'll never forget the Rose Bowl I attended with Oklahoma and Georgia going toe to toe in a game that seemingly never ended and we didn't want it to and I found myself hugging complete strangers in euphoria.  But, for some reason, I remember VERY old Independence Bowls, and I don't know why.  I won't even bore you with the details.

These kind of reaching thoughts first started in late March of 2020.  I felt selfish, but I thought back to many, many March's and their madness.  Some nuttier than others, some unique, a few depressing, but a large amount of memories.  Nearly all of those memories were not that North Carolina won their 2nd round game by 30.  It was because they lost to Weber State in the first round.  

Both of those events, a destruction and an upset loss, were because "the powers that be" long ago said even if you're great, or a "big school," you're going to have to play these games.  You're going to have to travel (not always, I'm looking at you Duke) and you'll play Missouri State or Detroit or Belmont or Santa Clara, and you'll just have to go right then and there.  Hell, DePaul, in its glory years, received byes (back when those were a thing) and then would lose their 1st game so often they said "we don't want to have a bye, we want to play in the first round, too) and so it was.

So bring it back to college football.  And all I hear from the windbags or those brainwashed by either ESPN or a spray-tanned pile of chicken fat say "DURRR THEY'D GET SMOKED BY (insert school here)."  I could list the many March Madness upsets (even when the NCAA is slowly trending to include fewer of those schools) and their automatic response is that it's "not the same."  Because the sport isn't the same, not what we're talking about (upsets, all schools getting a fair shake) because...well, we're already losing brain cells.  

North Carolina "would smoke that school" until they didn't.  They lost.  I'm not saying Alabama should play Kansas State this year.  I'm saying I'd like them to play an undefeated Cincy...or Coastal Carolina...shit, I've love to see em play Army, just to fuck them up when they go on a 15 play, 42 yard drive that takes 13 minutes.  Or an undefeated San Jose State, where Nick goes "Wait, why does our quarterback have to throw while running backwards?"  And maybe they'd win.  And they'd likely win.  And SJSU would say "we gave em everything we had."  Or maybe it'd go the other way around, and we'd be talking about it forever.

I always mean to watch reruns when I can't think of what to watch.  I should watch "Turkey's Away" from WKRP in Cincinnati around Thanksgiving.  Some years I do, some I don't.  And when I don't, I know I can go through the high points in my mind, smile and shake my head.  Well, college football, I've seen this shit over and over again.  You don't want to show me another episode...or anything new.  If the callous response, correctly or misplaced, is "It's all about money" then let's see a fandom, some of whom are upset, vote with their TVs/Computers/Phones and just not watch.  When a double digit decline in viewership is reported, "they" won't be ready for a response.  But if it's the same old, same old, well...that's what will continue to happen.  And, also selfishly, something I enjoy will be taken away from me, and all that's left are those same memories.

Escaping to and from

Late at night last Friday.  Some swanky tunes were playing, I believe Natalie Cole or Yvonne Elliman.  Rain was on the way and it seemed like Fall was finally showing up.  It was in this moment that we made a decision somewhere between striking and relenting: we shall vacation, if even briefly.  Won't just doing so make us feel better?  Well, in today's world, worries never really leave, do they?

The drive to Santa Barbara has all the same signposts: the 101, north of Oxnard, going along the ocean.  Passing Ojai and the mountains.  You pass Carpinteria and Summerland, and you know you're almost there.  Then it narrows (because you MUST have traffic) and just as it opens, there are all the familiar streets.  The familiar foliage and architecture.  What was not familiar was the thing that brought all the feel good crashing down.  All it took was one view of State St.  We knew that the street was closed in-between cross-streets, and restaurants had spilled out into the streets.  While that seems like a good idea in theory, the practice is another matter.

So for the first time since it all went down, I sat at a table, on a sidewalk, adjacent to a heat lamp (in midday, this being SB in the fall) and tried to relax as much as one could in-between seeing folks walk with the old "chin mask" (and some "The Dumb and The Maskless" - weekdays on CBS).  There are just so many things outside your control that it used to be Dumb Mouthbreath would only be in your way, or cause a minor annoyance.  Does it just seem like they multiplied?  

It was supposed to be a relaxing time, but it was all making me depressed: I knew it wouldn't be the Santa Barbara I remembered, but the endless store closures drove it home.  An area that was once vibrant was near-death.  I tried to think about how that was good - we have more space to ourselves, right?  But we all know why we do, and it didn't make anyone feel good.

Remember that restaurant?  Closed. Oh there was a good store that-- Closed.  Can we walk down that path to-- Closed.

The wharf is still there.  So is the beach.  So are the sunsets.  And riding up and down the coast on the bike was bringing the familiars back while creating new...and it was then that I began to realize that's about all you can ask (or hope) for when trying to break away in 2020 and beyond.  Once I began to keep that lens, the "survival" mode was still around, but the glow buoyed the good times.  Or maybe it was the hot tub, looking up at the post-sunset sky, palm trees quietly swaying.  

Yet the next day, back we went, and when we did there wasn't the melancholy of "damn, it's over."  There was a whole other "we made it" vibe on the return.  It had only been an overnight, but upon returning, we all said we felt like we'd been gone a week.  (Some of us packed that way, too...not calling out names)  Refreshment was delivered, even if the comforts and safety (such as it is) of home were as welcome as a gold-framed vista.

Making it Happen used to have one meaning.  Those still trying to make a go of it in Santa Barbara now have given it a whole new definition. 

Baseball salvation

It's only been a few days, but I keep reminding myself (and others out here do as well): World Champions.  #1.  "We" did it!  Because for so long it seemed like it would happen, I still can't believe it.  In public, anyone in Dodger gear finds another (I've had it done to me and done it myself): Hey!  World Champs!  

This might sound like an aside, but it fits in with the story: I've worked with metrics of one kind or another my entire adult life.  Said metrics that are used for business decisions.  And since Day 1, I/we have always said that nothing is absolute, that these are used to guide decisions.  Sometimes you go with your gut, and you're proven wrong.  This, now more than ever, applies to baseball.  And it's well known that stats help.  I am sure a team uses "cyber metrics" (a new term I'd never heard before this series, thanks Fox Sports) as guidance for key situations.  But if you're a Dodger fan and Dave Roberts is managing your team, and you'd see Dave looking at his cards in the dugout, you knew you were in trouble.

Why does a former ballplayer, one with such success, go past his instinct and rely on the cards?  Is he a pushover?  That he's told to and he does what he says?  Does this then absolve him of keeping too close a focus on the game?  Us Dodger fans knew the answer was somewhere in there.  And as a result, despite what success occurred in the regular season, we were just the 1990's Braves.  The hot glare of the post season shows up, and sooner or later "we" melt under stupid decisions.  

The 2010s were tough times for Dodger fans.  The 1st half of the decade the Giants fans could rightly taunt southern California with their rings and their ability to make it happen.  The 2nd half was a letdown, one way or another.

2015 hurt but we learned that Zack Greinke's only motivating factor is money.  Is the check fatter?  That's job #1.  It also removed Donny Yankees from the team, so all was not lost.  2016 hurt but hey, it was the Cubs, they went on, and god bless em.  2017 "we" make the World Series!  Yes, the Astros cheated, we all know this, but it's still a loss.  Altuve can eat shit.  We lost 2 extra inning games, don't forget.  And we did win one in Houston as trash cans banged around.  Altuve can fuck off.  2018, Boston was the better team.  Dave was a Red Sox hero, and didn't want to tarnish that in any way.  Game 4 was right in our hands.  Dick Mountain was doing his thing.  And then Dave looked at his magic cards.  And Dick walked to the dugout and threw his glove at the wall because he was dealing hot sauce and he knew what was coming.  The Dodgers lost everything after that.  Farhan and his smug self-satisfaction left, too...sadly leaving behind the "cyber metrics" thinking to Dave.  Since Farhan's gone to the Giants, they've had a losing record every year.  2019 was...again, right fucking there.  An NLDS embarrassment, but at least the team that beat us won it all.  Scioscia rumors began.  Last chance, Dave.

So in Game 4 of this World Series, when Joan Baez was removed, then put back in to pitch in a moment...in Game 5, when Big K was taken out because "we talked before the game about the number of batters he'd face" I knew we'd be fucked.  The magic cards were out again.  And here, instead of going with what you're seeing on the field, it was the magic cards stopping all momentum.  And we'd be fucked again, and would anyone care?  But then, just then, in Game 6 when we were getting steamrolled...Dave Roberts magical cards floated to Tampa Bay's dugout.  Their starter (an off-season auto mechanic if I had to guess) was lights out and then POOF!  He's gone!  Saints be praised!  

The self inflicted wounds healed because someone else decided to hurt themselves.  I don't like to win that way...but someone has to win, why not "us" - right?  It's real.  It exists, and it's ours.

Each October, after another Dodger downer, I'd place the LA cap on the shelf...to be worn again next Spring; maybe this year.  The wait continues.  And now?  In the words of Jacques Clouseau "Not anymore."  The champagne flows and flows.

Which way the scales?

Looking for an escape.  Making one, on occasion, but always looking.  On that occasion, those escapes can last years. But over the 15 years of the Gold, as I think about life and what's been shared, that concept kept coming into my mind.  It could be read as "why can't you be happy with what you have?"  Well, there is enough of that already, no?  Isn't that day to day life?  

"Let's Do a Jacuzzi!"

The very people who used this setting as one for business deals, not deals of another sort, were still very much in charge at the beginning of this blog.  Their stories were simply endless gold deliveries, and most...MOST told them sheepishly.  Well, would you be proud of the fact that you were an hour late to get your wife at LAX because you just got some daffy dust and you wanted that gone before you got her?  And then when you got there she could tell you were "full of ideas" and there, in front of a soon to be completed Tom Bradley Terminal she calls you out and your high vanishes and you say it has to end, right then and there.  

That's a sad ending, but it's an ending that means that person could talk to you, in that hallway, in 2005.  Tread carefully, because you don't want to oversell and leave them wondering why life isn't the same.  In many ways, they survived.  Hell, they're still there, and in the end, decades later, you want to be that person telling the youth of America about shit that went down in your youth that you regret, sure, but the story is so nutty that it's an easy go-to for entertainment of "the old days."

But...there are others that vanished and now, 15 years later, even more are gone.  What seemed as relatively recent history then is even more far gone now...if it seemed like another world 15 years ago, what is it now?  Can you blame anyone if, reading it now, it starts to read like fiction?  Whoever is left will readily assure you it was all very real.  Unfortunately, fewer and fewer are around to do so. 

No, it was a comeback

It's not all depression around here...well, I mean, there ARE the weekends where some sort of facsimile of college football is still presented.  And you KNOW it warmed my heart completely to see CBS, carrying coast to coast, the afternoon football game of Appalachian State against Marshall.  This is how it could be: these schools mixed in with their usual SEC games.  I wanted the nation to know this.  Accept this, then embrace it.  Well, the results are in and needless to say that was not the case.  Look, you can't help people who don't want help, and I'm sure there are some overfed yokels out there who took one look at that game, thought it was Canadian football, and put in a tape of an old fishing show.  

Earlier in the day, however, Navy made quite the comeback: against Tulane, down 24-0 at halftime, they stormed back and won on the last play of the game.  Announcer Mark Jones yelped that it was the largest comeback in school history.  The Midshipmen were euphoric.  And then Mark decided to quote a lyric from LL Cool J from 30 years ago (to show he's hip to the youth of today).  It was the first lyric to "Mama Said Knock You Out" and even if you'd never heard the song in your life, you'd realize he was 100% wrong because what just occurred was exactly that: a comeback.  The same one that, seconds before, he was shouting about.  It appears the lesson will be learned, again, that announcers have shelf lives, some longer than others, and his appears to be done.  It was a good run.

The fall of Fall

I mentioned in my first Two Decades post back in January that the evolution of the "New Fall Season" has gradually tumbled in importance.  Year after year it was so...a decline that I thought last year's breathless advertising was quaint.  Like a long ignored chain store that was once popular: customers walk by, seeing big banners for sales of new products, and turn to one another and talk about their last visit.  "Wow, how long has it been?  Man, we used to go in there all the time.  Remember that?"

Well, now there isn't one, and the very topic which was first brought up 20 years ago, that "there is no season anymore" - a topic that started with Survivor and pushed beyond with all other viewing sources, now here we are.  There are shows, you watch them now, or later, or a while after that.  There's more than ever...and that's just the first layer.

It's hard to say that it will ever return, or at least not to what it was, say 5-10 years ago, because weeks become months and months are years.  It seems that way now; fuck if I know why.  To that point, when I looked for my first post on Pacific Gold, the title was "A Hope For Tomorrow during Maddening Frustration."  I can pinpoint just what it was I was referring to, but while the problem seemed large at the time, what did I know?  If I look at this time of year over the last 15 years, roughly 1/3rd of the time I'd consider what I was going though the same thing - I was in maddening frustration, but there was hope for tomorrow in some way.  Was it really not that big a deal, or was it and I didn't let it get to me?  Maybe I was too much of a blithe spirit to realize my surroundings.  Maybe...

Nobody said that life would be easy, nor would it be easy finding a shorter rope.  Now, as then, we press on like Farmer John ham.   

 

The Hottest

 (static is heard, a monotone voice drones through the ether)

"The lever is long, and time is short"

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I knew we were Bound For Greatness when I got a text that jarred me out of bed at 2:45am about how it was safe to bet the KHL in Kazhakstan again.  Traktor was giving 1.5 goals, and you'd be a damn fool to let that pass.  I knew then, like I know now, like I always knew, that things were Turning Around.  Summer was around the corner, and spring had sprung.

Of course, it always gets hot before it boils.

Now we sit in the wash and pretend that "distractions" are any different from the waking somnambulance which constitutes our "lives".  Reanimated corpses come to life, indeed.  A 40 game season where they have to play a tripleheader just to make up for time lost to myocardial infarctions, and at the end you hoist a trophy in front of?  Your dad?  Who got the flu-mist?

I may have arrived too late to comment on these things, and lord knows I've heard much more music through the needle in the last 6 months than I have through the wireless.  I haven't had a drink in a year and this last 3 months felt like skiing uphill.  I worked, I quit, then I got hired, you know how it goes.  Strikes and gutters, and the gauze that covers my vision is comforting at long last.

But that's not what you are here for.  That's not what any of us are here for.

I suppose if you pull anything out of What It Means this year, it's got to be that the truth fucking CUTS, man.  I once mused that they might well just play these games on a sound stage in Burbank, and NOW THEY DO EXACTLY THAT.  Baseball became wrestling, football a game of sandlot two-hand touch, basketball reduced to a play in the round.  So what do we do?  You watch it, you sort of cheer, and you, what?  Eat?

If you're laying out hot sauce, like we all should, it's got to be offense forever.  If Stern were alive, he'd have these games ending in the 300s.  Why would a defender throw himself in front of a chugging running back and risk any type of injury or even discomfort?  What the hell does any of it matter anyway?  Keep the score up, keep the eyeballs, keep the money.  It's happening without witnesses, so, fine.  It's easier to control the dull roar of the fake fans inside the Viking Stadium than the real ones.  Shit, were there real ones?

They didn't blow the horn because 4 cops killed a guy.

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The meaning is gone, and there was never any meaning.  We told ourselves stories of rectitude and order.  In reality, it was always the spinning stars and the rising sun.  It was always the golden waves, and the green and blue drifts.  It was always only a stack of moments, nothing more.  So we still charge into that surf - and we still See What Happens when we step off the curb.

The Gold stays.  Happy 15.

It began with the 1991 Backyard Brawl

Vacations way up in the north country during my youth were enforced that it was to relax, to be in nature, and that TV was not needed.  Even at that age I knew that to be false for a myriad of reasons.  I was impressionable enough to realize Duluth TV stations cleared all network programming, which meant game shows the Donahues consumed in the Twin Farms.   But what else was out there?  Anybody get any Canadian stations?

My requests were met with the usual parental dismissing that all starts to feel the same.  Whatever quaint feeling there might have been was always nudged a bit when we'd go through a brief walk in the woods and come to the next cabin to the southwest.  There, at the edge of the rocks on Superior, stood an earth station.  Oh, to know what wonder existed.  Even on my usual visits, the TV wasn't on, I was told to not ask about it; just be a good kid and not talk at all.

Over Labor Day weekend '91, however, a drive up there was supported by the radio call of the old "Kickoff Classic" game, figuring this was the last we'd know of sports until return.  Our arrival was met with more than the usual multi-hour cocktail party vibe: said neighboring cabin had visitors from western PA.  This could mean good or bad news, not sure.

On that Saturday, with boredom setting in, I wandered over.  There it was: the remote in hand, the box all lit up.  "Hey, we're trying to find the Backyard Brawl!"  I don't know what you're talking about, but I'll tell you what I'm seeing: a football game on something called the Sunshine Network.  Channels changed, and the dish moved.  Wait, that...is that a station in Oklahoma?  Don't change the channel.  Slow down here, that TBS ad said "Superstation 17."  

Eventually, ESPN was found, and there was the game.  To me, the outcome was of no consequence.  The important thing was what I had suspected: there are games out there.  Games I can't reach, but if I only had a conduit to the sky.

At halftime I raced back to our cabin (read: house).  I unleashed a stream of knowledge to my father of these wonders in the atmosphere, signals from across the land that brought football goodness and that we were just scratching the surface.  He looked at me with his usual combination of "What the fuck are you talking about" and "I don't care."  I simply moved on, hurrying to return for the 2nd half.

Fast forward a little over a decade later and with dish / earth station technology improved, here I am again, finding a few things.  Hmmm...that gives me an idea.  This idea was met.  It was then perfected.  By the mid-late 00s, I could brave getting up earlier on a Saturday morning in the fall.  I'd start the 9AM window with 13 games simultaneously.  The volume would ebb and flow, and depending on if Hawaii was at home, it could go all night.  Sure, it was the viewing, and gambling, and just the ability.  But I wanted weirdo finds.  Someone in LA shouldn't be able to watch Houston Baptist home games, let alone do so from the comfort of a TV set.  Open that Madria Sangria and don't stop and wonder why the Colorado School of Mines game is on Live TV.  So there are maybe, players included, 1000 people there.  In November, look at it snowing for Hofstra's breakfast game as you plan your day.  Marvel at the SD perfection of Las Cruses' "AggieVision."

But time marched on.  More and more conferences started their own networks, making the reach easier and a little less fun.  Then, one year, out of fiscal responsibility, I didn't order extra channels.  And I was OK with it.  And then I'd read of more and more games online, so I'd have those going on in the background.  It made sense by going online...it made for an even cheaper look, but it also took less people to do, which in turn meant more games (even if they looked like a high school game from, well, back in 1991).

And here we are now, without a real season, more of a controlled experiment.  I lamented this when I was buying my traditional sangria for said viewing, and though the mask I did my best to enunciate that I usually bought this for college football.  Now...oh well.  "Don't worry, dude.  No, there will be college football."  The cashier seemed near adamant.  He knew why.  It was the same reason they were getting paid more during the Spring - though it was hazard pay.  It's the almighty dollar, one that will separate the haves from the have-nots in the future of college football.  

My love came from the volume of games at the blend of said 2.  It was the blend that will return one day.  Big schools, small schools, the dollars flowing.  I'll be there, watching somehow, feeling like an old buddy has returned to town and it's like he never left.  Until then, we drink and reflect on how much has changed.  Better?  Worse?  Maybe...both?

Searching for a place, weary-eyed

Long ago, when considering a career (believe it or not), in my search for jobs that seemed like fun I thought I wanted to be a teacher.  Specifically a gym teacher.  Every time I went into gym, you passed their "office" where 3 teacher desks were crammed in with storage closets with all kinds of equipment and rock n roll blasting all hours of the day.  A rotating crew of people would be in there, all constantly laughing about inside jokes (so they seemed, I always seemed to walk by as punchlines like "he should have that bronzed!" lead to gales of laughter).  Shit, that looks like a good time.  So, one day in a moment of frivolity I asked my 8th grade gym teacher (a world-worn man who let everything slide and also wore one of those gardening hats with flowers on it whenever we went outside, regardless of weather) if it was fun being a gym teacher.  His look went quizzical.  "Why?"  'Just wondering.'  He then seemed to adjust to a pleading stance and said "Get back out there."  Was he attempting to give advice?

When I'd meet with my friend who is a high school math teacher, before talk went to either the Dawgs or NBC's 1979 daytime lineup, I'd ask how work was going.  The kids all seemed to be able to be handled.  Same with the parents, and of course the subject.  It was all the OTHER bullshit.  

And now, in addition to my current job, I get to simultaneously be an elementary school teacher!  I know, its an audience of 1, and I'm in tandem with a real teacher, but the onus is on me and me alone.  The first day of school had none of the fanfare but twice the pressure, as the jolly drop off was replaced by a stream of "Wait...ok, can you see me?" 

With structure as strong as Jell-o, I'm left to take someone's word for it that the work was done, that it was right, that there are no questions.  And maybe that is true.  Of course, this person has no discernible taste when it comes to many, MANY topics, so can they be trusted?  Do I have the time not to?

'Wait, you have a couple on this page you have to fix.'

"UGHHHHHHHH"

'Do you need me to go over any of this?  Does-'

"I KNOW.  JUST...can I play on my tablet?"

"Aw, Trip, you didn't do the dishes!"

---

Imagine if you told a teacher that, due to some sort of mix up, they were going to see the same student at school in the next hotel room while on vacation.  They'd immediately change their plans, or even just stay home.  Instead I get this continued joy, no separation.  

The day it returns to "normal" which is likely years away, optimistic as I may be, there will be the drop off.  (Hell, if I'm allowed: I may be told off blocks away)  But in that moment I will look inward and feel the shit monkey off my back...a giant exhale.  No, while I may have some sort of knowledge to share in my life, I'm no teacher.  And honestly...they were right.

Replace All Speakers Before Leaving

Having just written about arriving in Dealville and looking for Hollywood swank, at the time I continued to be remained wowed by societal happenings from decades gone by, and could you blame me?  It hadn't even been 20 years since Daffy Dust was at its peak everywhere...the punk growth of skateboarding, and what relics remained...and-wait, there were how many drive-ins out here?

Hard to believe in a land of such real estate grabs that huge swaths could be devoted just to screening movies, mainstream and otherwise.  But it's true.  Then, and especially now, there are few remnants of their existence.  I could look up old movie listings and find addresses, only to drive up and see a supermarket or apartments and just stop and look around: there was a drive-in here?

Of course, enough research can lead to finding episodes of TV shows with a shot or scene here and there.  The Pickwick drive-in (now a Pavilions and a gym) in Burbank was in a chase during an episode of The Rockford Files: when the cars turn into the drive in, the whole area of Alameda Ave. looks positively quaint.  And maybe it was...

But in 2001, while on the road visiting relatives a couple hours north, I turned on a road and damn near brought the Saturn to a halt.

In much the same way an archeologist nearly falls down when he sweeps away a crocodile tooth in the Wyoming hills, I was stunned at what was facing me.  If the Valley Drive-In had closed and then been just left there for who knows how long...well, wouldn't it look like this?

"Wait a minute.  I...wow.  WOW!"  I took the disposable camera out and stood in awe, staring at this relic.  Oh, if it could talk.

What's on the marque tonight?  Is there a weekend day swap meet?  Mainstream fare, your "Other Side of Midnight," your "Rollercoaster," even your "Back to the Future?"  Or are we talking "Gas Pump Girls?"  We're not that far from an Air Force base, are they ready to cut loose?

Subsequent visits north would require, annoying all, a check-in to see if it's still there.  It was.  And as I type this, it is.  It's a "Drive-In Recycling Sorting Center" and while (reportedly) there was an effort about 5 years ago to turn it into a Drive-In again, it never happened.  Yet it sits, impervious to time, stoic in its nature.

As I write this, Drive-Ins are receiving their due again as those who want to get out and see movies are finding it's the safest way to do so.  It's another moment in the sun before dusk settles in and our program begins.  Maybe, land out here is worth just too damn much to devote it to such a glorious ideal.  But maybe, just maybe, this is the second coming of gold.

No baseball? Look to the skies

(Editor's Note: The last time there was no baseball in mid-June was 1981, when the player's strike interrupted the season.  Writing for the L.A. Reader, Trip Darvez wrote an article on that topic.  He found a copy of the article while cleaning out his garage.  "Here, see if this moves the (expletive) needle."  When asked about what that time was like, he told an anecdote of how his radio station was giving away sneak preview passes to The Great Muppet Caper, and how he left the theater under the cover of darkness to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark instead.)

(The Subhead of the article was "The Dodgers and Angels might be on strike, but in the [literal] world of satellites, everyone has a pitch")

Ronald Howrey thought he had a problem.  As a Dodger fan, he mulled over ordering ONTV to get the dozen or so home games carried.  The games on KTTV weren't enough.  Despite being the only fan in his family, he had convinced them that this was the strongest, wisest move.  Some agreed.  Some wanted Z Channel, but relented.  The decision was made at the start of Spring.  But then Ronald, an insurance agent, saw a satellite programming magazine while flying home from a business trip.  Purchasing a copy, he'd convinced himself by the time the plane landed.  The family, surprised, needed little suggesting.  It was settled.  Giddiness won over budget.  They haven't looked back.  The Earth Station was a "go."

"To be honest, I should have done it sooner.  It would've been great for the holidays, you know?  We all watch a movie or something."  That is the past, a time when the Howrey family was sans-satellite.  You could almost label it B.S. - before satellite.  To be honest, I wasn't ready for his infectious enthusiasm, and was beginning to tire of it was we looked at the dish from his neighbor's yard for comparison.  "I worried about how it'd look, but if I put it near the palm tree, maybe he wouldn't notice it as much."  Myself, I was in "yeah, I got it" mode when Ronald brought me back inside, giving me the controls and map.

"Here, pick a satellite, let's see what's going on."  And so I did: my first scans got much the same that neighborhoods wired for cable can receive.  With adjustments I found Home Box Office, The Movie Channel, Home Theater Network.  We watched a bit of a newly created channel called Spotlight.  He rattle off the pluses "Movie Channel is 24 Hours a Day" (which made me wonder how much the family took in at 4AM) and minuses (seeing a lot of repeats on one).

But we kept digging...and saw programs in Spanish from...somewhere?  Jessica Savitch talking to her director and reading the news...and then getting up and leaving?  Local TV from Chicago.  Now this...I don't know what this is, but it's all in the air and the moment I suspect we're getting somewhere, I find out I'm alone.  "Well, that's what's on there.  Do you have enough for your story?"

From the driveway, I began to remind him of the whole reason again: no Dodgers, now what?  "I don't know.  But I'm set!"

Only set, temporarily, are the schedules for the local stations.  Check your TV Guide and see this cryptic 1-liner: "At press time, there was a possibility that a  baseball strike would cancel scheduled games."  Stations that carry games at first considered shifting around programming but then thought better of that and left schedule regular programming and specials in their advertised time slot.  If people wanted to watch "The Cannonball Crazies" on Channel 5, it better be on then, yeah?

All of the station programmers I spoke with, usually desiring on-the-record quotes, insisted this time to be off the record.  You'd think as a result they'd give me direct answers to questions such as "Why does Wina Sturgeon on Channel 9 always look surprised?"  Perhaps it was the situation, more tenuous by the week, it would seem, that made for tight lips.

One station's scheduler, in-person, folded out what at first looked like a teacher's grade book but was in actuality the station's schedule for the summer.  Leafing through he said "The best laid plans...but you don't know when it'll end.  Sales department would rather that happen pronto.  Until then, we wait."  And, when baseball returns, the viewers return?  "Yes, I figure as much.  Course, the longer it goes..."  He trailed off and didn't say anything for a few minutes.

Just how many Ronalds, though, are out there: in their own way finding something to pass the time?  Will the fandom wane?  If the Dodgers remain in first place, will it matter?     

Two Decades: Hollywood Hangover

(Decades are handy benchmarks, but much has changed in my two decades in Dealville.  For this installment, theater real estate changes and evolution)

All the build up to the move out here was a very real thing.  Old video procured, swanky apartments found, gold-era clothing purchased.  Don't believe me?  The summer before I was working at WGBH in Boston.  A fellow co-worker twice my age had previously lived in southern California, and sometimes we would get out the Rand McNally road atlas and turn to the map of LA and Orange County and just look.  We'd look at it and marvel, like some sort of treasure map.  There's gold in them hills.  GOLD!  "What's this town like?  How is it living over here?"

I'd been in town post-graduation a few months or so and shared some 70s and 80s photos with longtime residents, and they commented "You know what you should do?  You should take pictures now."  Why?  Who cares?  "Because someday, THAT'S going to be your 'old neighborhood.'"

They were right.  In this era I am in a real mood to get rid of shit: scan, digitize, etc.  With that spirit in mind I got out a photo album I received as a gift from a girl who was polite but also very keyed into playing cat and mouse...and looked at all the photos.  Well, things certainly do not look like THAT anymore.  Those folks who said that 20 years ago were right.

Sunset & Vine

Upon arrival the northwest corner had a rather nondescript mini mall.  One of the shops was a photo  shop, a place where I later learned had some great anecdotes to share...in another blog.  Anyhow, to the north of that sat the TAV Celebrity Theater.  Back in the day, that's where things like Merv Griffin and all of his owned shows taped in front of a live studio audience.

Once Merv ended the talk show and sold the game shows, it sat largely unused, save for the occasional taping of something else.  It's vacancy lead to squatters...which lead to a fire.  In the mid-90s.  This was NOT the mid-90s.  So, for half a decade, it sat looking like this:

The back area, which would house parking and then the mini mall, was not in good looking times.  But it was at this moment something important was happening north west of here: Hollywood and Highland.  In the gleeful need to create a tourist trap to end all tourist traps, developers and dipshit city councilman Tom LaBonge said why does that intersection get all the fun?  So, the mini mall was VERY quickly shut down and razzed...and so was the TAV theater.  What was going to spring up?  Oh, shops and condos, not unlike any other section of the neighborhood.

When finished it wasn't anything special..and, well, now, it's even less than...

This is looking at the same vantage point as the TAV.  What this DOESN'T show you is a 75% vacancy rate, homeless hotel directly in that pathway, and an overall grime.  It's the same hellhole I wrote about in September.  Swankness of a whole different sort.  In the end, is it really any different from a bombed out theater?

Vine Theatre

In QT's love letter to this town, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, you saw a well done effect of Hollywood Boulevard at night.  The Vine Theatre was one of them shown...

Twenty years ago and today - pretty much the same.

The marquee is blank, but that's only because it's about to be set up for the shot in that film...it's back to the usual now, showing random current and relatively current films.  It still fights on.  Maybe it's meant to live forever.

Pacific Theater

At the start of this blog nearly 15 years ago (!) I wrote about sneaking in to the Pacific...and just like the Vine...

Again, minimal differences in the marquee from QT's movie, and that's about all.  It still stands, empty.  It's there, people officially go in and look at it, they try to "figure something out" - do you get the building attached to the theater, so on.  Thankfully, it's here and we can only hope one day for good use.

Ritz Theater

Oh, what it once was...

I just want to confirm: in the basement of the Pussycat Theater (well, the one on Hollywood, not the one on Western) was LA's original punk club.  So, if you're looking for, well, a book to be written, have at it.

Once the Pussycat chain went down, like many things of that ilk, it attempted to go legit.

It got a new name (or back to its old name?) and was likely cleaned many, many times.  But even that ended...by the time I moved in, it was a church!  May the circle be unbroken.

That area under the Ritz sign on the marque later became the legendary, late and lamented Skooby's hot dogs.  Oh the tales of that place.  But the church left, so did Skoob's...and now it's...

I honestly have no idea what the fuck this is...but it's a giant sign that says smoking lounge.  So, not all bad I guess.

Vogue Theater

Because it's, well...ok, you know me well enough to not be surprised that just this morning I heard a radio commercial for the film Hardbodies and at the end the announcer said it's playing at the Vogue Theater.  Nice.  And 20 years ago, the mainstream films had left but there was always some kind of action there...over the past 20 years people have tried keeping it a theater, a "supper club" or something, halving it, and, fuck if I know.

Again, I have no idea what the hell this is or was or supposed to or will be, but it sure doesn't look open.  Someone should do something with it - a tourist friendly restaurant right next door...you'd think that would be enough.

You'd also think, after many false starts, someone would get a "big idea" and razz the place.  But as we've seen in the last 2 decades, unless you are the victim of arson, your shell will sit...and as so many of these did 20 years ago, I could walk deserted streets, listening to FEAR on the discman and look at the dark marquees left to wonder and hope.  Now, the reality is as clear as day, and it's harder to go back.

The Lava's

Just in case you weren't sure about how my brain works, I want to give you an example:

After working in the backyard for a while and doing the kind of tasks that only beer can compliment, I knew it was time to wash up before snack time.  "If I had Lava soap, this would be gone in no time.  You know, this reminds me of a commercial from my youth.  I wonder if it's on YouTube."

It is, thanks to a fellow angel.  It was nearly as a I remembered it...but what I didn't realize then was that this could have easily made for a theme song for a sitcom.  The Lava's, new on ABC, Fridays at 9, 8 Central.  From Miller/Boyett productions.

We have a goofy dad, a hard-working wife, approximately 3...no, 4 kids.  (2 of each gender)  We even have the stuffy Grandma to come over and act as a foil for one of this family's wacky adventures.  Each episode is set on Saturday; that seems to be the day when the Lava family is up to it's usual very long list of tasks...and none of them go right!

It seems like it's going to be a nice day, so the Lava family decide to take out some of those things surrounding the Oldsmobile.  Gotta clean the grill if we're going to grill tonight and...who would have thought?  Old charcoal!  The "extreme" son, with the nickname "Spike" is going to spray paint his bike neon green (as you did in 1990) but here's what he gets for laughing at Dad's misfortune: spray paint right on the skin!  Feels like fun!

Grandma Lava comes by, uninvited, to give her opinions (also uninvited) on just what is going on here...looks like Scamps the dog wants to say hi!  And no, Grandma, those muddy paws won't just wipe off!

Have you ever cleaned the log holder in the fireplace?  Have you ever wanted to?  Have you ever needed to?  Mrs. Lava is finding out the hard way this was not a wise idea in the first place!

Debbie Lava, their oldest child, is not immune from tasks this Saturday.  Yes, the exposed wood door frame can stay that way no more!  She seems to think she can talk to her friend Staci AND paint at the same time...watch out for that paint dipping from the brush!  (laugh track)

The little Lava, Junior, gets a lot of "AWWWWWs" from the laugh track, but Debbie is in no mood for his B.S., especially when she's on the phone.  Look out, Junior!

Dad has already proven his difficulty with the grill...hell, he's been in the driveway all day.  He's lined the inside with aluminum foil (to prevent his wife from wanting to clean it, I guess) but has a little trouble with the charcoal!  Dad, you open it that way, you get...well, you get that!

This young Lava girl is just making a mess for mess' sake, and...well, the scuttlebutt is that they might write this character out for season 2.  They're having trouble finding storylines for her.

Well, another episode, the Lava's have learned some lessons and forgotten others, and let the credits roll.  Stay tuned for Just the Ten of Us!

Whadda ya want? Wicker?!

I'll tell you this - if I have to fucking stay up late to goof off, then it really isn't goofing off, is it?  If I have to fight just to have time during the day to actually do my shit and play 48, how can I balance it all out?  I can't.

Talk.  It's constant talk.  Worse than any office I've been in, and I've been in some awful situations...but in some I could close the door.  In others, when it was bad, I could simply stop working and start fucking around because if they valued my job, they wouldn't put me in a bus terminal, would they?

"Trip?"
What?
(pause)  "Um...-"
Good pacing.  Come back and try to think of something to say in 5 minutes.

I relayed, in pure dismay, that I had just been forced to spend the last hour as a science teacher (a role that does not suit me in any way unless we're talking "consumer chemistry") and then back on the old saw horse.  My colleague simply said "I have no idea what you're talking about!  Lol"  Never more have I wanted to smack a genuine friend in the back of the head than that moment.

What's this?  It's semi-retired relatives who find current societal norms not that bad..."we're taking more naps, reading, catching up on stuff around the house."  As opposed to...what, your normal schedule?

"You have to make the time" is a mantra often used...but how does it fit now?  Toss in guilt and annoyance in addition with your current and newfound responsibility...and there truly isn't any more time.  The day is booked solid and I'm rarely leaving the house.  This is how it is, and if you want to keep a check coming in, the shit keeps a shoveling.

But who do you tell besides fellow citizens in this exact predicament?  They and they alone are the only ones who are sharing this experience.  You lock eyes (from a distance, of course) and don't even get to shake your head.  You're both mentally exhausted.  Not a word is exchanged.  We both know this to be true.  It will be remembered forever.  For the rest of our days.

Super Boomers, without prompting or being asked, offer up suggestions because they have too much time on their hands.  They can only watch so much news, try to understand their phone, or bemoan shopping hours without offering unsolicited advice.  "I have an idea.  You know what you could do?"

"I know what you CAN do"

What's on the shelf

I have been writing on here for coming up 15 years and while the purpose of this site was never any kind of historical document, something this old becomes such a thing…so while this isn’t necessarily funny or a unique topic, this exists to look back on 6 months from now, if not longer (I hope).

It’s hard not to be selfish when you’re inconvenienced.  As in: “why is this tougher for me to have what I want?”  (Especially when you think about how, 1 month ago, you were in a crowded restaurant with friends) Looking back, that is simply an anecdote, something that doesn’t mean shit anymore. 

The first weekend wasn't so abnormal as much as it was the slow realization of those not understanding in your neighborhood that this was no hoax and you'd better get ready to hunker down, and sadly this time we're not talking about the beloved Dawgs.  (Social distancing: the national championship and Georgia football!  Oof)

I was at home with the pup anyway so I didn't look out much...it just worked out that way.  When I braved the neighborhood market (which could be described as the lyrics to Ted Nugent's "Free For All") I saw a person leave the store holding nothing more than 5 9-packs of toilet paper saying to no one in particular "THEY GOT IT!  THEY GOT IT!"  My feeling was more than the shopping experience; it was that these people who barely fit in with society, the adults who have to be told 4 times to write their name on the form and have a seat, these people now have to follow rules to stay in place and try not to get everyone else sick?  "Oh shit."  I believe I didn't think that, I likely said it aloud in a store.  No one corrected me.

Smiley, who can’t stop reading about this (and works in a hospital, no less) asked me “Do you think this will be a short-time thing or will it last forever?”  I told her it was both: until the curve goes down, it’ll be like this.  Everything.  And afterward, whenever that is, it will be real tough to “forget” about this and politely ignore the overfed honk next to you who mouth-breaths for his/her existence.  As I’ve already seen walking the dog and in stores, remember: there will ALWAYS be idiots.  The pandemic will not eliminate them…in fact, afterwards it might feel like there are more, because somehow these lunkheads survived.  That’s just a reminder from me to you.

Side note: In my professional life, which as documented has been 20 years, I would have never believed you that a sitting president would have given a flying shit about TV ratings, let alone when the public might be looking to the federal government for assistance.  It's my first pandemic, so I'm still sorting things out. 

It will end, and when it does, when it's looked back on or the Big Scoop herself has to write a paper on it in high school, what will first come to mind won't be an illness, it will be everything else:  All the noise, all the distractions, all the lunkheads in the way.  They carry on conversations in public and online to no one in particular, and now they're roaming free.  In charge of themselves, already a hefty task, and in your space.  Yet another reason to stay home.