The SoCal Byte

It was the front page headline in the Los Angeles Times and dominated the local news channels for days. On August 14th, an decked-out off-road Ford Ranger with “Misery Motorsports” painted on its doors went airborne at the California 200 desert race and smacked into a crowd of spectators killing eight and injuring 12.

In the summer of 1970, Washington, D.C., turned ugly. Ugly not because of the war in Vietnam, or political scandal, or urban riots. Ugly because it was hot—101 degrees perspiration-gathering-on-the-tip-of-your-nose and in-the-small-of-your-back hot. The heat wilted trees on Eye Street and visually bent the brownstones.

There's a thump at the back of my head — on the wall.  Then, I'm in the soup between awake and asleep.  Was the screen door slamming?. Frank and Bettilou  — my parents —— run into the back yard. With a new moon sky Mom trips, sails and hits the ground.  Above, in the silence, a Cessna's engine starts

As my grandmother Elizabeth aged, nearly all her statements became mottoes or slogans or platitudes. “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken,” she said right after we sang her birthday song.

I am not myself today. It isn’t because I am awash in all variety of ruination — that my 17 year-old dog, Luna, died in my arms last Wednesday or that my 100 year-old senile grandmother — of whom I am the only grandchild — called me Herman (her long deceased brother’s name), and told me to milk the cows (I consented, hundreds of miles from the nearest bovine utter) .…

The sun does unsettling things to people. I’m always amazed by the number of us basking on Southern California’s summer beaches still trying to roast our skins and minds.

While there's nothing cooler than the slope of a 1957 Chevrolet's tail fin, that same car is a smog-spewing, gas-guzzling metal coffin with functional flaws aplenty. In the same vein, don't let the clean, distinctive lines and mass-market appeal of an Eichler designed home fool you — it's the '57 Chevy of real estate.

The nameless is the beginning of art and baseball. While the named is the mother of statistics, the nameless is the gateway to the mystery of everlasting hardball truth.

I grew up a coffee drinker in Southern California. By 1992, I was a member of The Dancing Goat Society. Let me explain. On a morning in Ethiopia, some 1200 years ago. Khaldi, a goat herder well known for his laid back manner, awoke to the sight of his flock behaving extraordinarily. The natty beasts were dancing a dervish, standing on hind legs and bleating a Dionysian rhapsody as if primed by the goat-god Pan. When Khaldi noticed some of them munching on branches of bright red berries he took it upon himself to do the same. Enlightenment was at hand. The berries tasted bitter, but soon Khaldi found himself exhilarated, clear-thinking and wonderously joyful.

I draw a salary to work with Big Picture People. In spite of the self-ascribed grandeur of their visions and the sincerity of their altruistic posturing, I really can’t handle their crap without compensation. Sometimes serious compensation.