Andy Chase

I don't think I'll start to think about where to put the tree this year until next weekend at the earliest, though.Ok, now that it's actually December I'll entertain thoughts of getting my favorite Christmas album down off the CD shelf. I don't think I'll start to think about where to put the tree this year until next weekend at the earliest, though.

Christmas without snow (or at least the possibility of it) is weird enough for me as it is, but it's especially surreal to walk into a Michael's arts & crafts store a week before Halloween and see that they're already selling Halloween decorations for 50% off so they can fill the seasonal aisles with Christmas crap.

A week before Halloween.

I can remember my father's annoyed comments at how early the Christmas frenzy started every year when I was a kid, but I don't think it was ever quite that early.

This year's advertisements are also unsettling in their unabashed celebration of pure material greed... I mean, even more so than in years past. The one ad that makes me want to kick the TV in every time is for Zales jewelry:

Wife sneaks downstairs (presumably on Christmas morning) while Husband is still asleep and opens a small, jewelry sized present she finds under the tree. Cut away to whichever piece of jewelry it is they're hawking. Cut back to Wife, who runs upstairs and hops into bed beside still sleeping Husband, kissing him on the cheek.

"Well, that's cute and nice and all," you think to yourself as this 30-second drama unfolds before you. But then Wife shows her true colors...

After kissing her still sleeping Husband, Wife leans back on the pillow, pumps her fist and hisses "YES!!!" in a manner that's at once vicious and victorious. As the picture fades to black she shoots a sidelong glace at Husband. From this we can infer that if the gift was anything less than a diamond-encrusted gold necklace, Husband would wake up without his penis.

Christmas spirit, indeed. Aside from being really annoying, these commercials are also really alienating; is this how people who can afford jewelry view Christmas and the concepts of gift giving and marriage in general? The marketing folks at Zales seem to think so. These are the people who think they impress all of us Ford/Chevy/Saturn/Honda/Toyota-driving proles with Luxury Sport Utility Vehicles like the Cadillac Escalade, According to another ad I recently heard, the Escalade is THE MOST POWERFUL SUV IN THE UNIVERSE. That'll show us suckers who get 28 MPG and make car payments less than $300 per month.

I'm reminded of the Irish saying:

"If you want to know what God thinks about money, look at the people he gives it to."

On the bright side, it's been quite chilly here in L.A., and I noted a personal milestone a few days back. I mentioned the cold weather in an e-mail to a friend from the midwest, and for the first time I didn't qualify it with "well, cold for L.A." Part of me is horrified to have adjusted to nights in the 40s and 50s as being cold, but the other part of me is glad to drop the obligatory "cold for L.A." disclaimer. Friends and relatives in cold places are always quick to make the distinction anyway.

Driven to the brink of madness by the muzak filtering through my closed office door at work, it occurred to me for the first time to see if the Muzak company has a web site.

They do, and (not surprisingly) it’s at Muzak.com. I don’t know why I find this amusing… probably because for all the talk they have on their site about “the power of music” and their providing music for millions of people everyday, they don’t mention the part about stripping it of its heart and soul and making it as plastic as the products on the shelves of the stores it’s playing in.

Seriously, I don’t know if they use Muzak™ brand muzak where I work, but one day I actually heard a flutey instrumental of the Foo Fighters’ song ‘Big Me’. Now, this isn’t one of the Foo Fighters’ heavier songs by a long shot, but it doesn’t deserve to be lobotomized like that. Nothing does, really.

Yesterday, the second to last day of October, saw the first truly fall like day we've had in Los Angeles this year; windy and cloudy, and with intermittent showers to boot.

Faces were glum everywhere, and people eyed the sky fearfully before going outside. As usual, drivers seemed to speed up on the slick streets, a behavior I will never understand as long as I live. My friend Chris, who lived here briefly, theorized that they drive faster in a futile attempt to get away from the rain.

It is as though the world is about to end when it rains in Los Angeles. I understand that most of the people who live here relish the usually sunny, usually warm (if not hot) weather, but my god, is a little break in the monotony of baking in the sun under a greenish-brown sky such a terrible thing?

The first "winter" we lived here there was an amusing thing on the news. It was probably Fox. They had a remote reporter someplace relatively close, but much higher up... like Big Bear. It had snapped unexpectedly cold and actually snowed a little bit there, and a sprinkler that had been left on in the freezing temperatures caused icicles to form on the chainlink fence the reporter was standing in front of. The carefully coiffed reporter actually stood live in front of the camera and explained how the icicles got there. I got the feeling I was supposed to discuss this around the watercooler the next day.

"Hey, did you hear that some icicles formed up in Big Bear last night? Yeah, the reporter looked like he was really cold! Boy, you sure wouldn't catch me up there!"

Such behavior would almost be amusing if it weren't usually accompanied by a smug attitude of superiority about living in a place where the weather almost never, ever changes. It's not just a matter of preferring this climate, it's as though people here think less of those who live in places where it snows.

So when it rains here, I like to think that maybe my suddenly improved mood serves to further darken the moods of others distraught by the mere fact that water is falling from the sky.

Addendum: 11/26/2001 - If you don't believe me, read this!

Last fall I wrote some fairly acerbic things about the general lack of quality of coffee in the workplace and posted them on Intercrap… I’d link to it but Intercrap has been experiencing technical difficulties for some months now.

Anyway, the gist of the thing was that I’m tired, so very tired of bad coffee maker maintenance at the office… just the basic stuff, like actually washing the carafe and filter basket before making a new pot. Quality coffee helps too, but it is gracious of companies to provide free coffee at all, and they can’t be faulted for going with the cheap stuff like Yuban.

But ye gods, our department’s designated coffee maker is in a room without a sink! I think somebody rinses and wipes out the carafe somewhere at the end of the day, but that’s about it.

Soon after I started here I went the bring-your-own-Thermos route for a while, but that got old quickly. A month or so ago I brought in a jar of instant coffee, reasoning that at least instant coffee is consistent, even if it’s not really coffee.

Every once in a while I will still go for the gusto and pour myself a mug of black coffee from the office carafe, and every time I am unprepared for how awful it is; bitter, overextracted, and burnt.

This week I have taken to adding non-dairy creamer and sugar to the stuff, which makes it tolerable… and it finally occurs to me (duh) that this is probably why a lot of people add copious milk/cream/creamer and sugar to their coffee.

I’ve been accused of being a coffee snob, but what I really am is spoiled by a small place in Sherman Oaks, CA called The Coffee Roaster - they roast their own beans in the store, and brew it to perfect strength.

I know a lot of people drink coffee for the caffeine as opposed to the taste, but to me that’s buying some Oscar Meyer sliced turkey for Thanksgiving because all you’re after is the Tryptophan. Or drinking Budweiser/Coors.

It’s like anything else… if your mom/aunt/grandmother makes the best apple pie in the world, all other apple pies will prove disappointing

Then there are those who will actively avoid good coffee. The experience that truly blew my mind happened a couple of years ago, when I worked across the street from Mani’s Bakery on Fairfax. They’re an organic ingredients only type of place, right down to their coffee. One day somebody from another office of my then employer came by our office to pick up some paperwork or some such. Somebody was going to make a run across the street for coffee, and asked her if she wanted a cup and she said, “Sure!” Then, clearly as an afterthought (After all, it’s not an exaggeration to say there’s a Starbucks on every corner in Los Angeles) she asked “Is it Starbucks?”

When we told her it wasn’t Starbucks but maybe even a little bit better, without that omnipresent burnt taste, she rolled her eyes and proudly proclaimed, “Well, I only drink Starbucks coffee.”

It was as though we had suggested that she drink some bottled toilet water instead of Evian. Were we supposed to be impressed? Or feel inferior? I don’t know. I just want a decent cup of coffee.

As the days turned to weeks after the destruction of the World Trade Center, social commentary began to shift its focus. At first it was comforting to read a lot of things being written; accounts of America's generous outpooring of support in the form of blood and monetary donations, patriotic unity as everyone rushed to the nearest street corner to buy an overpriced American flag, even the networks' scamble to organize a celebrity benefit telethon was, in its own strange way, reaffirming.

But at about the same time as the Daily Show came back on the air with Jon Stewart's tearful monologue, the new big topic (aside from The War On Terrorism) was "When will it be OK to laugh again?" Or, "If it's OK to laugh, what is it OK to laugh at?" Or, "Do cynicism and irony have a place in humor after September 11?"

Well, if White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer telling American citizens that "they have to watch what they say and watch what they do" isn't cause for cynicism, I don't know what is. I am still just as shocked, saddened, and dismayed about the destruction that happened in New York and Washington as I was on the day it happened, but after 5 straight days of watching CNN and scouring new web sites for news and information, I had to turn it down a little bit and get back to something that felt somewhat normal. For me (and a lot of people, judging by the shows' longevity) normal is watching shows chock full of irony, sarcasm, and cynicism... shows like the Daily Show, The Simpsons, and Seinfeld. These shows made me laugh before September 11. After the initial shock of that day wore off, why shouldn't they make me laugh now? I can appreciate that there are those for whom cynical humor isn't a comfort right now... but I'll be damned if I'll acknowledge "What's OK to laugh at" as a legitimate social issue.

If you don't think a particular type of humor appropriate, don't read, watch, or listen to it... and don't tell me I have to watch what I say, either. I was under the impression that our President's War on Terrorism was for the express purpose of protecting America's freedoms, which include not having to watch what I say. That one is protected by that pesky Bill of Rights that always seems to be getting in John Ashcroft's way. That's not to say that Bill Maher didn't make an even bigger jackass out of himself than usual by calling the U.S. Military 'cowardly', but his show is called Politically Incorrect and he does have a right to make a jackass out of himself if he wants.

In the end, The Onion came to my rescue with this week's feature story, A Shattered Nation Longs To Care About Stupid Bullshit Again. The Onion really nailed that sucker - when the pundits at sites like Salon.com wring their hands over learning how to laugh again, maybe what they're really wondering is why people suddenly feel empty when they watch shows like Big Brother and Love Cruise.

Ahem. Who pissed in my Cheerios yesterday? When I read that last bit this morning I was taken aback - I haven't written with such vitriol since Intercrap was at its zenith. But you get the idea... it's October, and the temperature is in the 90-100 degree range. October is when the leaves turn orange, red, and yellow, and it gets cold enough to have a fire in the fireplace, if you're lucky enough to have one. October is when you go to a pumpkin patch and pick out a blank canvas for the Jack 'o Lantern you'll be bringing to the festival. October is not when you have to leave the AC on 24 hours a day just so the temperature inside your apartment will stay in the 80s.

For the most part, I've made an uneasy peace with Los Angeles... there really are things here that I actively like and will miss when we finally move away. Unfortunately the things I don't like outnumber the things I do, and the unbearable heat of the last week has skewed the like/dislike ratio far to the dislike side, resulting in gems like "smog-ridden cesspit". Maybe I should sleep in the pool tonight.

The ungodly heat wave of the last five days here in the San Fernando Valley is not a “late summer” as I’ve heard people around calling it. It is hell on Earth.

In my five years here, I’ve noticed that there are three kinds of people:

• Those who were born in L.A. with nothing more than the vague notion that there are other states in the country further east than Nevada, and that in some of those states it rains for more than 3 days a year and sometimes it even *snows*.
• People who have moved to L.A. from one of the aforementioned states and have such a pathological aversion to said weather conditions that they’re willing to put up with this smog-ridden cesspit for the rest of their lives just to avoid a little bit of frozen precipiation.
• People who came to L.A. not knowing what to expect, or expecting something other than what they found, only to realize within the first few months that they hate this place with a burning passion.

Unfortunately, a lot of these last people (read: me) get stuck here a lot longer than they’d like. We are the people who find ourselves subjected to the reflexive response of “But the weather’s so nice here!” from the natives and willful transplants whenever we raise an objection of any kind to Los Angeles.

Well, I propose we take all those folks who like to tell people how nice the weather is and put them in a station wagon with the windows rolled up (You know, like some inept mother from Simi Valley) for a couple of hours and see how nice they think the weather is. Come to think of it, maybe they could just spend a couple of hours in my second floor apartment. Of course, upon exiting their first words would be “…but it’s a dry heat!”