Ian Bull's Blog, page 5

My Most Memorable Trip to Disneyland

I’ve been to Disneyland many times in my life. Living in California you end up going a lot as a kid, then a few times as a young adult, and then there’s a long stretch of years until you start going again with your own kids.            But only one trip can be the most memorable, and now whenever I return I always remember that one visit that qualifies as mine. I’m not saying it was the best trip, but it was the most memorable.            Sometimes I produce TV shows, and if money is left over after a many episode season, instead of having a “wrap” party, I like to host a paid “hooky day.”  I rent a bus or vans and I bring the staff and crew to a baseball game or theme park. It’s cheaper and more fun than renting a nightclub with a DJ and pounding music, silly dancing, cheap drinks and bad hors d’oeuvres, and it’s an all day adventure.            One year on one show we chose Disneyland, and the excitement in the office built to a fever pitch. It was a beautiful spring morning, and as we gathered in the office before loading up, I noticed that it was an even mix of men and women; married and single and people in their 20s and 30s. The field crew was mixing with the office crew, the night crew was mixing with the day crew and we were all bonding. It was nice.            I then noticed other mixing going on: the contents of hip flasks poured into soda cans, and rolling papers and cigarette packages being passed back and forth.             I have a very good grasp of the obvious, while some people don’t, so I decided to speak up.            “There’s no alcohol allowed anywhere in Disneyland, in the park or in the parking lots,” I said. “We represent a TV show, and by extension, a TV network. Most of all do nothing illegal. I am watching you. Understood?”            Everyone nodded, and we all headed downstairs and loaded into vans -- but no one wanted to get into the van I was in. Two full vans loaded and drove away before mine was even filled, and I heard sighing as the final stragglers came on in and sat around me. Someone has to sit with mean old dad.            “I know a place in the park we can go,” someone said to his friend.            Subtext: “Once we get to the park, we can ditch dad and get high in the bathroom by Space Mountain.”              Although we left last, our van passed the other two vans on the 5 Freeway. They seemed to be having fun, but it was hard to see through the smoky windows.            We all got there safely and found the front entrance without injury. With enough cold water and breath mints, everyone was presentable and spoke clearly when I addressed them.             A TV crew and staff is like a pirate crew -- if they feel you’re taking advantage of them, or you’re denying them their grog, they may mutiny on you the next time your back is turned, so I didn’t press the issue. Besides, I knew that bags and pack backs would be examined, so there was little risk from this point on.             So I thought.            We posed for some group photos for the Disneyland photographers, including one where we all looked in amazement at Ben Flood, the assistant editor, as he held his hand out. Tinker Bell would be superimposed into the photo, floating on Ben’s palm. I was excited, and some of our staff was so thrilled they couldn’t stop laughing…ever.I said “Tinker Bell” sporadically to them throughout the day, and they’d laugh until they lost control and had to run away.            The lines weren’t long, people were well behaved and no one got a sunburn. We split up into several roaming packs that intersected over the course of the day at different rides and at lunch. The day was great. Then, it was time to go home ... but why not have one drink first? In the Disney shopping mall, which sits between Disneyland and California Adventure, there is one outdoor restaurant that has a bar.            I then realized I hadn’t gotten the group photo yet, and I wanted a memento of the day. Everyone wanted to get their drink on, so I told them to go ahead and start without me. I’d pop over to Main Street, hand in my ticket, buy the photos, and then dash over and meet them.            They disappeared, giggling and laughing, arms around each other. Hook-ups were happening, thanks to Mickey Mouse, Uncle Walt and me.             When I got to the photo store, I realize I should have gone earlier. The sun was setting, and a line of 50 people in shorts, T-shirts and flip flops from the twenty Western United States snaked and looped through the brass posts and chains. We rocked on the balls of our feet, nodding at each other.            “Where you from?” one would ask.            “Cincinnati,” he’d answer.            “Long way,” I’d say.            “Got to do it once,” he’d say.            And while we were all staring at each other, my office staff and crew were in some open air restaurant, drinking. A lot.            I got the two photos and they were worth the wait. Like the nerdy Boy Scout I am down deep inside, I was proud of myself for doing my duty and I rushed to the mall to find the bar so I could show everyone.             I could hear them before I saw them. I rounded a corner and found the open-air restaurant and bar in the middle of the shopping mall. It was actually an outdoor pizza restaurant, with a gated metal fence around it, and there just happened to be a small well-lit bar in the middle. Marcus Aguilar, my main field producer, was standing on the bar screaming. I think he was trying to do the French can can dance. Monica Bigler was trying to climb up on a bar stool to join him and she kicked a glass into the restaurant and it smashed on the floor.            The bartender was smiling, but as I got closer I could see he was grimacing. There were a least ten empty shot glasses and beer bottles on the bar. My pirates had made good use of their time. Six of them were singing Thriller, while another six did the Michael Jackson zombie dance. It was twenty-two people crowded in a space suitable for ten.  It was like a biker bar had been dropped into Fairyland.            I edged past an outside circle of moms and dads with strollers, hanging back on the edge of darkness and pointing at the crazy young people. I heard disdain in six different languages: See that? That’s how the Americans behave.              As I got to a metal fence that defined the restaurant, I saw couples sitting at tables with plates of pizza and deep fried mozzarella balls, guarding their food against flying glass and staggering human bodies.              I came in through the gate and the waitress said, “I’m sorry, we can’t serve you right now, we are full.”            “I’m with the people at the bar,” I said.            Her eyes lit up.            “Really? Can you get them under control? They may cause an accident.”            I was relieved that we hadn’t had any promotional swag made up yet, so no one was wearing hats or T-shirts emblazoned with the logo of the show or the network. We were assholes in Disneyland, but anonymous assholes, thank god. All I had to do was get them to the parking structure and into the vans, and find three sober drivers.            I was able to pull Monica and Marcus down from their perch, I paid for the drinks with my credit card and I herded everyone out into the walking area. I knew if I could steer the ringleaders, Monica and Marcus, others would follow.            “Marcus, help me out, I need everyone walking that way, okay?” I begged.            “Piggy back rides!” Marcus shouted, and Monica immediately jumped on his back, and Marcus went zig zagging around the walkway, slaloming between the families with strollers. Heads whipped around and I heard more confused comments. He looped around and rejoined our group, cackling and encouraging others to join in.            Two more guys lined up with Marcus and then three girls jumped on their backs, so then three drunken men were careening through the crowd with drunk laughing women on their backs, all making zooming World War I bi-plane noises.             I wasn’t happy, but it was working. My staff followed Marcus and his fellow flyboys as we weaved our way up to the parking structure. The loudest bi-plane was Victor, a tall, lanky and quiet editor from Texas. The howling woman on his back was Eleanor, the music supervisor who gives the editors music cues. I wasn’t surprised that they were partners in crime; Eleanor has been spending extra time in Victor’s bay helping him with his cues, enough for people to comment. Everyone on staff sensed a romance brewing.            Then Victor tripped. He was drunk, and his hands were busy clutching Eleanor’s thighs close to his body, so he couldn’t get his hands out in front of him fast enough to block his fall. He hit the concrete face first. I heard the thump and looked over, and I saw Victor convulsing on the ground, face down in a widening pool of blood. Everyone fell silent as I rushed back. The strollers kept going, too wary to approach.            Victor was unconscious for five seconds. He was in pain but mostly embarrassed, and he just wanted to leave, but I encouraged Eleanor and his best friend, Peter, to keep him seated. I looked for someone official to call a doctor, but I saw a security guard was already talking into his walkie-talkie. We pulled out T-shirts and handed them to Victor so he could sop up the stream of blood pouring down his face.            Less than a minute after impact, something amazing happened. Ten security guards appeared and created a phalanx around him so none of the tourists could see. Then a doctor arrived and examined him.             Victor answered his questions correctly -- name, age, year, president, color, day of the week. His pupils were the same size. He needed stitches, but his bleeding had stopped.              “Who’s in charge here?” the doctor asked.            “I am,’ I admitted.            “Get him out of here,” he said, and pointed towards the exit.            My drunken piggyback pirate biker gang fell silent and was compliant as we trudged for the exits. I looked back and saw that three janitors were already mopping up Victors blood.            We were almost at the trams when someone tapped me on the shoulder.             “You’re in charge of this group?” the official Disneyland rep asked.            “Yes I am,” I said.            “Can I get your name, address and phone number and your birthday?”             “What do you need my birthday for?” I asked.            “So we can send you a Disneyland discount for your next trip here.”            I gave him fake information, just in case I was being put on a watch list for jerks, idiots and drunken morons.             Although I was embarrassed and ashamed, I was also impressed - there’s a reason why the Disney Corporation is the number 1 entertainment company in the world and on the Dow Jones. They can handle my hellions and me in less than a minute.            In the van, on the way home I explained to Victor that even though he didn’t like the idea, we were going to go to a hospital. He needed to be examined by another doctor, this was an official company trip, and there were liability risks...            “I’ll take him,” said Eleanor.            Then I had another ten-minute discussion. Eleanor assured me she was sober, she had a car, she would take him the emergency room.            “This isn’t how I wanted to her to know me!” howled Victor.             He’d stopped bleeding, but there was now a bump above his eyebrow that was as big as an egg.            “He could have a concussion. He has to stay awake, and he has to see a doctor,” I explained.            “I’m not going!” howled Victor.            We compromised. Once we all got back to Los Angeles, Eleanor took him in her car to Cedars Sinai, while I followed. In the emergency room, the doctors and nurses looked at him and were unimpressed. It would be an hour wait at least.            “You can go home, I’ll stay with him,” Eleanor assured me.            I left them in the waiting area. He was rolling his head and moaning while she held his hand and stared into space.            I left the hospital feeling waves of relief, regret, amazement and amusement sweep over me. Gradually it all turned into affection, which I still hold for that day, especially considering the eventual ending:            Victor and Eleanor fell in love and moved in together a few months later. When the season ended, Eleanor moved on, and sent me a nice hand written note thanking me for the job, the trip and for being a good boss, they’re now happily married and they have two children.             I still have the note, and the group photo.
The names have been changed, and the photo is from a different hooky day trip to Disneyland, at the request of Victor and Eleanor, who don’t want their kids to learn about their parents through this blog. They’ll tell the story their own way.

An East Valley Weekend Guide

For this week’s post, instead of pontificating about life and death, here’s some immediately useful information. Here is a great San Fernando Valley weekend, great for kids and adults alike, and especially fun for people visiting from out town. You’ll feel like you’re indulging; yet it’s easy on the pocketbook. Most of the costs are for eating out at restaurants. And you don’t have to go into Los Angeles for any of it!
FRIDAY NIGHT            Start at Pit Fire Pizza in North Hollywood -- it’s at the corner of Magnolia and Lankershim Boulevards. It has great pizza, good beer and wine, and you can eat around the outdoor dining pit. They have an outdoor DJ spinning on Friday evenings, and since this is in the heart of the NoHo arts district-----you’ll see dancers, actors and musicians strolling to their different classes or rehearsals.



            Afterwards, cross the street and head to the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences theater building, just a bit further up on Lankershim Blvd. You’ll see the giant Emmy fountain and life-size statues of different TV greats, from Johnny Carson to Sid Caesar.  This only takes ten minutes, and it’s surreal. Have someone snap a photo of you talking to a bronze version of Lucille Ball.



            If you want dessert and coffee accompanied by music, head East on Magnolia and you’ll find Republic of Pie. It’s crowded and noisy on a weekend night, but the pie and coffee are great and they have live music on Fridays. Their pecan pie is the best.



            However, if the evening is warm, go instead to the Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant in Toluca Lake, on Riverside Boulevard. On Friday nights they have a classic car show, and you will see cars from the 30’s through the 70’s, old classics, Caddies, muscle cars, kit cars, and homage Rat Fink roadsters. It’s a great people mix of old surfers in Hawaiian print shirts, young rockabilly types and low riders. This is classic Americana, and people from out of town always love it. If you want to eat there, don’t wait for a table, just grab a seat at the counter. Their vanilla milkshakes are great.



SATURDAY            Wake up early. If you like old style diners, eat breakfast at Du-par’s in Studio City. They’ve been around since 1938, although the built they one in the Valley in the 1960’s. They are famous for their fluffy pancakes and their pies. Gooseberry is the best.



            Now the weekend is really beginning, and it’s only 9 a.m.            Put on your hiking boots, sunscreen, glasses and hat, fill a water bottle and a day back, and then hop in the car and drive West on the 101 Freeway. Be on the road by 9 a.m.; take the Las Virgenes exit and head towards Malibu. You are entering Malibu Canyon, which is one of the most picturesque roads in all of Southern California.  Roll down the windows, drive through the canyon and enjoy the rolling hills. Look right and you’ll see Malibu State Park, which is worth exploring, but on a different weekend. The rolling California hills end as you reach the Malibu mountains, where you’ll see cliffs as dramatic as anywhere in Italy. Far below you is Malibu Creek. There are several turn out spots, but check those out on the way back.




            Once you reach the Pacific Coast Highway, make a right, head north and enjoy the Pacific Ocean views until you reach Corral Canyon Road. Make a right. Most people stop and hike in Solstice Canyon, which is at the bottom. Instead, keep driving up Corral Canyon to the very top of the mountain. It’s a steep road, and it will take ten minutes to get to the top and you’ll pass a few dozen homes. Just when you think you’ve made a wrong turn, the paved road will end. Keep going for another 200 yards and you’ll find a parking lot. You have found a spur of the Backbone Trail, which runs along the top of the entire Malibu Mountain Range, from Will Rogers State Park at one end to Point Mugu at the other, 68 miles total.  Each section of the trail, from trailhead to trailhead, is 3 to 5 miles, making your overall hike 6 to 10 miles.







            The Corral Canyon section is one of the best. If you head north of the trail you drop down into a lush finger valley with thick trees, a gurgling stream and even a small waterfall. Or, from the parking lot you can head South and hike out in the open. This section of the Backbone Trail brings you past huge sandstone rocks, with amazing views down into Malibu Canyon, and then further along you reach a wide open trail surrounded by tall grass and California Oak trees and you’ll get a fantastic view of the Pacific Ocean below you. I’ve hiked there many times and rarely see anyone. It’s quiet and you are so high up the ocean looks tilted.


NOTE: The hike in this direction is a long one, and leads all the way back to Malibu Canyon, so you might not want to do the whole hike unless you have all day.Once you are done, head into Malibu and eat at The Malibu Country Store.  They serve great meatloaf sandwiches. Now head back to the Valley.
            Next, you need to relax. Check out Luck Puppy on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, where they let you play with the rescued dogs that are waiting to be adopted. Most of them just want a lap to sit on, and it’s great stress relief for anyone. You can also take a dog for a walk! If it does its business and you clean up, they’ll give you a free volunteer t-shirt. You have to sign a waiver before you play with the dogs, and it’s nice to give a donation.  I consider it cheap babysitting, which is why I donate.



            Or, if you’re feeling more artistic, make your way to Kit Kraft in Studio City, on Ventura Place.  It’s more expensive than larger art stores, like Michaels, but they do have everything in a much smaller space. You can buy model airplanes, spools of lanyard strips, modeling clay, glue guns, temporary tattoos and rock tumblers. There is always a cheap deal on display at the counter that’s worth checking out. Last week I bought a wooden pinwheel that we are painting and shellacking for our front garden.


            Its dinnertime! Head over to LA LA’s Argentine Grill on Ventura Blvd. They have a multitude of steaks, but I suggest the grilled chicken. Or, if you are feeling bold, the blood sausage is great and so are the sweetbreads. If you are going to eat animals, eat the whole animal. They have great Argentinean beer, red wine and fantastic French fries.





SUNDAY            On Sunday, Ventura Place in Studio City is blocked off for the Farmer’s Market. Park a few blocks away and walk, or just ride your bike or scooter. They have great fresh tamales and fresh juices, which is a perfect breakfast. You can buy fresh produce to cook for lunch or dinner, and you can get your groceries for the week. There’s a good French bakery stand, a mushroom stand that’s amazing, and Secret Squirrel Cold Pressed Coffee. They also have good florists. Look for the special plants called “Chinese Lanterns.”


            If it’s after 12 noon, warm and sunny, grab a swimsuit and a towel and head to the Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks Swimming Pool. It costs $2.00 if you have a Los Angeles Library card.  This is one of the only 50-meter pools in Los Angeles. They have a five-meter tower, two three-meter and two one-meter diving boards. Jump off the five -meter platform once, and you’ll be hooked. Want a diving lesson? In spring and summer, there’s often an instructor giving tips to kids and adults as they line up for the one-meter board.  LA84 is an endowment from the profitable Los Angeles Olympics that still pays for sports instruction for youth 30 years later, and they’re still paying for diving and swimming instructors. I learned a front 1 ½ dive from an LA84 instructor.                       Now it’s about 4 p.m. on Sunday.              Go home.            Read the paper, or a good book.            Do your Kit Kraft Art Project            Ride a Bike            Have friends over and cook the food you bought.            All this can be done for less that $200 for the weekend, for a family of three. Eliminate the restaurants (my favorite indulgence) and it drops to well under $100.            Pit Fire                        $50.00            Classic Car Show            Free            Dessert                        $10.00            Dupar’s                        $20            Gas to the hike            $10            Malibu Store                        $20.00            Lucky Puppy                        $10 donation             OR            Kit Kraft Deal                        $10            Kit Kraft                        $10 (for lanyards or current deal)            LA LAs                        $50 (buy organs)            Tamales                        $10            Fresh Produce            (this is variable, counts as groceries, so not included)            Pool Fee                        $6            Growing up in San Francisco, I learned buy osmosis to have disdain for Los Angeles. When I moved to Los Angeles, I learned to have disdain for the San Fernando Valley. I hope the disdain continues, so I can continue to have my quiet blissful weekends, far from the madding crowds.
ENJOY!
Here are your links:http://www.pitfirepizza.comhttp://www.seeing-stars.com/immortalized/emmyplaza.shtmlhttp://www.bobs.net/events/classic-car-show http://republicofpie.com/ http://www.du-pars.com http://www.hikespeak.com/http://venturacountytrails.org/TrailMaps/Backbone-Kanan-Zuma/AreaTrails.htmhttp://www.nps.gov/samo/parkmgmt/upload/Backbone_Trail.pdfhttp://www.kitkraft.biz/home.phphttp://luckypuppyrescueandretail.orghttp://www.lalasgrill.comhttp://www.studiocityfarmersmarket.co...http://www.laparks.org/dos/aquatic/facility/vannuys_sopool.htmhttp://www.la84.org

Memento Mori...Why I love Halloween

I love Halloween in Southern California for two reasons.                The first is the weather. In Southern California the weather is still nice enough at the end of October that you can be outside in flimsy costumes after sunset without getting cold. Further north or east, children have to wear parkas over their costumes and dodge ice on the sidewalks when they go trick-or-treating, which defeats the purpose of wearing a costume in the first place. A wizard wearing a parka is dumb, and I remember preferring to freeze rather than sully the presentation of my alternate persona  with a layer of winter clothing.            Halloween is also the only American holiday on which you open your door to strangers. If you are lucky enough to live in a neighborhood in which Halloween is popular, like mine, the doors not only swing open, it’s warm enough that they stay open, and we are often invited inside for more food, drink and fun, and we actually socialize with neighbors.



            Thanksgiving and Christmas are family holidays -- the streets are quiet as people nestle in for quiet times away from the world. Independence Day, Labor Day, and Memorial Day may have parades, but by mid-day they end up becoming barbecues to which you need an invitation. Halloween brings neighbors together.                   When Lily becomes too old to trick-or-treat, we will transform our own home into the same kind of open house, half party and half way station where parents can rest their legs, adjust costumes, and eat, drink and laugh before the kids demand that they hit the streets again to gather more candy.             The vast parking lots of So-Cal are also put to good use on All Hallow’s Eve. If your neighborhood isn’t ideal for trick-or-treating, you can pay and bring your kids to a “Trunk-or-Treat” event. You park your car, decorate it, and the kids hit dozens of cars for candy instead of homes. It doesn’t feel that odd, since your car is your second home when you live in California.





            The other reason I like a SoCal Halloween is that it’s imbued with a gentler reminder of Death. Let’s face it, Death is an important part of Halloween, yet it seems less threatening here. Autumn has no biting cold wind, and as the daylight dwindles down the sunsets are red and gold, and bright colors are still everywhere.              The Mexican holiday, Dia de Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is November 2nd, but it seeps into American Halloween here in the West, with bright colorful skulls and dancing skeletons in sombreros. Stories with Ichabod Crane and Rip Van Winkle are still told at Halloween, but they belong to distant New England with its stormy dark forests.



            As a child, seeing the happy skeletons and the colorful skulls appear just as the leaves were changing colors and falling from the trees made my own eventual demise more tolerable and understandable. Everything dies; it’s not such a bad thing. It’s what you do with your life that matters.



            The skulls and skeletons also remind me of the Latin phrase Memento Mori -- remember that you die. The Romans used this phrase to remind one another of the briefness of life, and that death makes us all equal. In ancient Rome they would print MM at the end of certain streets as a reminder to young and old, rich and poor that we are all just people. Death is coming, so remember to live life each day to it’s fullest. By honoring death, you thus honor life. The flip side of Memento Mori lis Carpe Diem ... seize the day. This is the day that God hath made, rejoice and be glad in it.             The Day of the Dead ... Memento Mori.



            I have always been drawn to the Memento Mori paintings from the Renaissance, in which a young man or woman contemplates a flower, a skull, and an hour glass. Life, death, and the passage of time.            I therefore mark the passage of time in October, right at Halloween. I think back an remember what costumes our family wore in previous years -- the Addams Family, Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and Gypsy Fortune Tellers. I open drawers and find clothes I haven’t worn since Autumn last year. I find my father’s old watch and put it on again, to remind me of things past. This moment is here, now it’s passing, this moment is here, but now it’s passing. As the seconds tick and the years pile up, I am faced with the truth that I no longer have the time to pursue every goal, or the time to delay my long-standing dreams much longer. It’s now or never.             Memento Mori. Carpe Diem. No regrets, no fear.            Some people reassess their lives this way at New Years, some do it on their birthdays. I am always asleep on New Year’s Eve, and my birthday is in May, when the world is fresh and my life is full and busy. Life slows down now enough for me to see it. Autumn and Halloween hold golden light and warm evenings, with running children and laughter and costumes and hot food and deep glasses of wine with good friends, and I ponder with gratitude how I got here and what I still can accomplish before I shed my own mortal coil.            Lily and I are making our own Day of the Dead skull. It’s paper-mache, and we’re painting it with bright colors, flowers, hearts, and covering it with glitter. For Lily it is a fun Halloween art project that reassures her that skulls aren’t scary. For me, it will become my own Memento Mori, and I will draw MM on the side.

Kid Culture

My daughter Lily and her friends spend their time at recess singing songs and doing clapping games.
Here’s her current favorite. They sing ABCby the Jackson 5, but only for the first three lines, and then it becomes a rap done in tandem with an elaborate clapping pattern:
A,B,C, it's easy as 1, 2, 3,My mommy takes care of me,My daddy says, ooh aah, I want of piece of pie,Pie too sweet, I want a piece of meat,Meat too tough, I want to ride a bus,Bus too full I want to ride a bull,Bull too black, I want my money back,Money too green, I want a jelly bean,Jelly bean too red, I want to go to bed,Bed not made, I want some lemonade,Lemonade too sour, I want to take a shower,Shower too cold, I want a piece of gold,Gold to shiny, I want to kick your hiney,Hiney too smelly, I want a bowl of jelly,Now count to ten with your eyes closed,
(At this point you must do the complicated clapping pattern with your eyes closed,and if you mess up, you must start over again.)
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10!
Watching her perform these chants makes me realize that she lives in a separate culture to mine, a “ kid culture” to which I once belonged years ago, but forgot about --
-- until she sings a piece of “kid culture” that I remember from my own childhood, and a buried memory will surface and become vivid and alive again. It’s another reason I love being a parent; as I witness my daughter move through childhood, I will glimpse something that sends me time traveling back to the West Portal schoolyard and I am suddenly eight years old again, like her.
I remember one song that the girls used to sing to taunt the boys. It starts with the word “boys,” but the girls would insert the first name of any boy they liked enough to harass:
Boys are made of greasy grimey gopher guts,Mutilated monkey feet,Itty bitty birdy feet,French fried eyeballs,Swimming in a pool of blood,Gee, I forgot my spoon!

My wife Robin, who grew up in Sherman Oaks, California, sang the same rhyme. She remembers it differently, however, and insists that the correct phrase is “chopped up monkey meat.”  Maybe both are correct and are regional variations of the same song.
Robin was thrilled when Lily came home knowing this next classic, which she’d forgotten about. It started long before Robin was a child and it is still being passed down, girl to girl, through the years.
Miss Mary Mack Mack MackAll Dressed in Black Black BlackWith Silver Buttons, Buttons, Buttons,All down her back, back, back,She asked her mother, mother, mother,For Fifty cents cents centsTo see the elephant, elephant, elephantJump over the fence, fence, fence,He jumped so high, high, high,He touched the sky, sky, sky,And he never came back back backuntil the 4th of July, lie, lie…NO, YOU LIE!  (you both stop clapping and then point at each other)
What defines culture?  A culture, whether it’s French, or Swahili, is a group that shares the same songs, games, jokes, art, fashion and cuisine. What Lily and her friends are doing qualifies as culture, especially when you throw in the lanyards, rainbow loom wrist bands and the cootie catchers (fashion and art work) that they create for themselves.
And no adults are involved; kids always teach other kids, and they pass their culture down through the generations, while the original “authors” or “creators” of these works are usually lost to history.
My own crowning creative achievement was learning how to make a switchblade out of popsicle sticks and rubber bands, and then sharpening the wooden tip by filing down the edges on the playground asphalt. Gary Nakamura taught me how -- eat four Orange Creamsicles at lunch and save the sticks, get four rubbers bands, and get busy.I showed Robin how to make a popsicle stick switchblade early in our dating, and I believe it was the reason she fell in love with me. She knew that I was still a kid at heart, and that I would enjoy having kids.The Internet and Youtube is changing this, however. Now kids can learn the same game that other kids are playing across the country, and even around the world.
“The Cups Song,” is the perfect example of this. This is another popular game and song that all the girls are doing on the schoolyard.  As you sing the song, you play the “cup game” at the same time -- either alone, in pairs, or in larger and larger groups. Here are the lyrics, which I’m sure you’ve heard:
I got my ticket for the long way roundTwo bottles of whiskey for the wayAnd i sure would like some sweet companyAnd I’m leaving tomorrowWhat do you say?
When I’m goneWhen I’m goneYou’re going to miss me when I’m goneYou’re going to miss me by my hairYou’re going to miss me everywhereOh, you’re going to miss me when I’m gone.
The song “When I’m Gone” was written in the 1930s by one of the Carter sisters and the cup game that kids play is decades older, but the two were paired together in a movie from 2012 called Pitch Perfect, starring Anna Kendricks, and it became a radio hit.Lily never saw the movie, nor did we. However, after first learning the song and game on the playground, she perfected it by watching “how to” videos on Youtube. I walked into my office one day and found her at the computer watching a video of a young girl from Atlanta teaching other kids how to play the game. Kid Culture has gone viral.It all comes full circle this weekend, when I teach my daughter how to make a popsicle stick switch blade. I just checked, and there’s a how to video for it on the Internet.
Kid Culture is alive and well.

FROM WIKIPEDIA "Cups (When I'm Gone)" is a song popularized by American actress Anna Kendrick from the film Pitch Perfect . The basic song, " When I'm Gone ", was written by A. P. Carter [ and recorded by the Carter Family in 1931. After it was revived in 2009 by the band Lulu and the Lampshades combining it with the Cup game and a further 2011 viral video by Anna Burden , Anna Kendrick recorded the song that proved to be a hit in the United States and internationally.The cup game (which goes with the song) is a children's clapping game that involves tapping and hitting a plastic or styrofoam cup using a defined rhythm. The game can be played by many players and is often played in large groups. Each player possesses a cup and in unison the players tap out the defined rhythm using their cups. When a player makes an error playing the rhythm, that player must drop out of the game. Game play continues until only one player remains.

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

This California Bull blog post is about the new Affordable Care Act, and how it will affect California.  But first, let’s examine this amazing photograph!            This photo was taken in the early 1960’s at a Christmas party for the young staffers at Boston General Hospital. The man is either a medical intern or a resident, and the women are probably nurses or wives, although it’s possible that one of them is an intern or resident as well.            I love this photo because it captures both their world and the world of the early 1960s so well -- the era celebrated in TV shows like Mad Men.  We watch, amazed and shocked at how we once were, while also waxing nostalgic for the mid-century style of an expanding and influential America.            Notice the peeling paint and wallpaper on the wall behind them -- this is not some fancy ballroom, this is a student social hall. And the piece of round metal on the right hand side of the photo -- what is that? A water or coffee dispenser?  Nowadays it would be made by Igloo, or Rubbermaid, but that steam-punk cylinder comes from before the age of plastic. There’s probably no plastic anywhere in that room, except maybe some costume jewelry on a few women’s wrists.             But let’s talk about what the photo is really about: the amazing style of the four people posing. Everyone is in their mid-20s, they’re working 80 hours a week and they have no money probably, yet they look fantastic. Granted, it’s one photo at one Christmas party, but if the same party were happening today, everyone would be in scrubs and Ugg boots, and their hair would still be wet from their shower.  They’d still be struggling, only they’d each also have s cell-phone and a massive debt in student loans.            My favorite outfit and hairstyle is on the girl on the left.  Her harlequin print dress goes up to her neck and down to wrists so no skin shows, yet it still shows off her figure.  Her hair is also pinned perfectly with a little curl on the forehead.  I also like the next woman in blue, and how she manages to hold her black clutch in the crook of her right arm while not spilling the drink she’s holding.            The guy is cool and casual -- the girls all have cocktails, but he does not. He saves his hands for cradling two women at the same time, claiming both, yet claiming neither. My dad, who comes from that era, told me that if someone wants to snap your picture, put your drink down first, especially if it’s a beer. It will always make you look smarter in photos. This guy knows my dad’s rules and has a few of his own.            I also love that he’s wearing all grey -- grey suit, grey tie, grey pocket square, and a perfect square haircut to top it all off. He looks crisp and elegant in a simple suit, probably the only one he owns.              Our country was expanding then, all things seemed possible, and these young people have eyes full of promise. Now, 50 years later, young people who are the same age as the young professionals in this photo can’t find jobs that earn enough money to live on their own, so they’re moving back in with their parents.  Forty percent of them, in fact.  They are college educated, the best and the brightest we have, and their futures are nowhere near as promising as they were 50 years ago.              If that Christmas party were happening this year, there would be gender equality among both the doctors and the nurses, and more racial equality.  However, today’s doctors and nurses all face long hours of work to pay off all the debt they have racked up in student loans, some in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. If that were my reality, I’d show up in Ugg boots and scrubs as well.            Being a physician in the 1960s was a ticket to upper middle class freedom, where your training and expertise could make you a stake holder. Now, being a doctor, especially a specialist, means twenty years of school work and debt before you see a payoff.  Over the past fifteen years, smart ambitious people have gone into technology or investment banking and hedge funds, because the pay-off was in five years, not twenty. We need more smart people going into medicine again, but right now it’s an expensive crap shoot for everyone.            As the Affordable Care Act takes effect, I support it, both for the patients and for the doctors. Yes, even the doctors. I know this is coming, because overall costs will go down, for everyone. I look to Western Europe and Singapore, where a hip replacement costs $15,000, not $150,000, health care is less than 10% of GDP, yet the doctors are still well-paid and respected, and there is still an incentive to innovate and create.             Let’s use my family as an example for the patient side. We have some health issues, and we pay 1/4 of what we earn in some kind of health insurance or health care, and 1/4 of our professional time managing that health care, which includes fighting incomprehensible billing or shopping for better deals. On the physician side, most young doctors will spend a 1/4 of their income in the first ten years of practice paying off the debt they incurred. All of us would benefit from cutting our health care costs in half, and then putting the money we saved back into the economy.             That’s what the Affordable Care Act will do for me, and I can spend money on improving my business. Innovation. Research. Improvement. Infrastructure. Education. Taking a risk. Then we will expand and grow again, like we did 50 years ago. I am already planning ways to spend the money I am going to save -- and it’s going to help the whole state.            California will show the way, for we are the new and true bellwether state.            What does this photo mean to you?            Do you know any of the people?            Will you be enjoying the benefits of the new Affordable Care Act?

I want my MTV?????

I want to start a music video company.              I want to hire music video directors and put them on staff, hire creative department heads, get equipment and start cranking out videos for Head Bangers Ball and for Yo! MTV Raps.  Maybe Warner Bros. Records will hire me to do a video with a major artist like Sting or Madonna, and get paid $200,000 to make a four minute music video.  That’s the ticket.  Then once I’m in the door, I can grow my company so that it’s as big a company as Palomar Pictures, or Propaganda.   Once there, it’s an easy hop to producing and directing commercials, and then creating a feature division and start doing movies. But my bread and butter will come from the constant stream of music videos I will produce.  I can crank them out better and faster than anyone, and every music group or artist needs one.             As outdated as that sounds, that was how UCLA Film School fellow graduates and early career colleagues of mine talked in the early 1990’s.  Then, Bunim Murray Productions created a show called The Real World , and MTV stopped being about music videos, and a mini-industry died.  When was the last time you saw a music video on regular TV, not on Youtube?  It’s crazy how much things change in twenty years.            Now what do you think when I write this?            I want to start a TV production company.              Specifically, I want to start a TV production company and create content for all those cable channels.  Ten years ago, that didn’t seem like such a crazy statement.  Six years ago, just before the economic downturn and just before the first iPhone came out, it still wasn’t a crazy statement.  Today, saying you want to start a TV production company for cable is now as crazy as saying you want to start a music video company.


            So much has changed. Remember Sting singing “I want my MTV,” all in high notes?  That drove more people to get basic cable and start shelling out $30, then $45 and then $85 a month for cable TV to get hundred channels and endless choice, most of it bad.  But people like their trashy shows, mixed in with some quality, and they love sports, lots of sports, and with that, cable TV exploded.  I remember HBO trying to stand out from the crowd by promoting themselves as being a step above -- “It’s not TV.  It’s HBO.”  They took flak for that (it is TV), but I paid $85 a month to get The Sopranos, just like everybody else.Yet this was in the Motley Fool a few weeks back: Comcast’s $2.2 Trillion Nightmare Imagine what cable companies would do if everyone stopped watching...
Well, after some number-crunching, The Motley Fool determined that industry big wigs like Comcast would lose $2.2 trillion! And tech moguls like Apple and Google are convinced that Comcast’s nightmare scenario is approaching faster than you think...
Experts are calling it "The Death of Cable TV." All because 3 little-known companies could allow 99% of Americans to drop their cable bills - and bankrupt Comcast - by 2014!
            My most recent job proves the paragraphs above. I spent the second half of my summer working hard and being well paid by Bunim Murray Productions to produce a pilot for for the cable TV network Style.  That’s the reason I stopped writing this weekly blog.  I was working on a pilot instead, and it came first.  But on the day before I delivered my first cut to the network, Comcast and NBC Universal announced that The Style Network was becoming The Esquire Network, for men, and it would be happening in three weeks. Many people lost their jobs overnight.            This rapid change happens in radio all the time, when the classic rock station becomes a country station in a night.  Now cable TV changes almost as fast.  I still got paid, I still did a good job, and I expect it will air somewhere.  It mayeven become a series somewhere.  Mostly, I am glad that I got to work at Bunim Murray Productions again, after a decade away. And it doesn’t feel like they’re going anywhere, either; it’s the networks that will be going away.            I have felt the scramble in cable for about five years -- I helped produce a show called Southern Belles for SoapNet, and there were huge billboards for the first season in Times Square in New York City -- and in less than five years, The Disney Company shuttered that network.            I still get plenty of work in cable TV -- producing, directing, writing and editing -- and I’m thankful for it.  But I do feel like I’m moving deck chairs on the Titanic when I get notes from these networks. No one working in cable knows where they will be in five years.            Production companies will still be around, and content will still be produced -- whether it’s for Youtube, Netflix, AOL, direct download, or a subscription through an app on your iPad, iPhone, or Internet TV -- no one knows.  Bunim Murray Productions, Vin di Bona Productions, Fishbowl Worldwide Media, and Worlds of Wonder are TV production companies at which I’ve worked in the two years, and all are already producing programming directly for the Internet. These companies are nimble and change quickly.  They are all already planning for the next generation of programming. What does the viewer want?  Eight 30-minute shows?  Or thirty 8-minute shows?  They can deliver the content, and they will be fine.              What you don’t want to do is start a music video production company, or a TV production company servicing the cable industry.  Even if you manage to sell three shows, if the network goes under and you have overhead costs...that’s bad news.            And I have another confession to make.  I myself don’t even purchase cable TV anymore. I gave it up for good ten months ago, and any show that I want to watch I either can find on-line through Netflix, Apple TV and iTunes, Amazon or Hulu.  I can rent or purchase a la carte and keep up with anything -- and still stay current with all the trends in programming and thus remain employable.             I am an anachronism, living proof of what I write.            Will I miss cable TV?  Not really. I paid $85 a month and still had to watch commercials, which is why I got TIVO.  And then I got rid of that too.  Cable TV was cutting edge at one time, but it feels like it will have a thirty year run and be gone.  It will be replaced by apps on tablets and phones, and Internet Portals.              Can Comcast morph into something new? So that instead of going to Channel 67 to watch the Esquire Channel I hit the Esquire button on my iPad and experience programming for men that way?  Maybe, but they better move quick.            Will I miss producing for cable TV?  Not really.  My daily work hasn’t changed much in five years, although the landscape has.  I’ll still be producing, directing, writing and editing something and making a living somehow.  I might have to do it cheaper and faster and better, but that’s always the case now, especially since 2008.            I’ll go to whatever company needs my help telling a story, and maybe sometimes sell a few of my own.              Producers, directors, writers -- how has your work changed?            

I saw a lion..

Tigers are roaming the streets of Paris.
Bears are roaming the streets of New York.
Lions are roaming the streets of Los Angeles.
Which of these statements is true? 
            The first two statements are absurd.  The last one is a fact of life.   Los Angeles is the only major city in the world where wild lions live within the city limits and sometimes descend from their wild habitat to roam the streets of the city.            I am speaking of the species Felis Concolor, the mountain lion, the puma, or the cougar. I have seen this predatory cat while hiking on the Mulholland Trail, which runs along the ridge of the Santa Monica Mountains which separate the San Fernando Valley from Los Angeles and Santa Monica.              My wife Robin has also seen a mountain lion, perhaps the same one, while walking in our neighborhood with my mother in the early morning.  She was on Valleyheart Street, which runs next to one of the ribbons of cement that holds and steers the Los Angeles River through the San Fernando Valley. The puma was walking parallel with her on the other side of the street, moving silently through the thick bushes and trees planted on the ridge that slopes down to the river’s edge, following a water source just like a wild cat in Africa.  She and my mother made a hard left and went deeper into the neighborhood.            I would like to emphasize one world -- LION.  When I saw my Felis Concolor, I did not wonder if it was just a big dog with a long tail.  When I came around the bend in the trail I saw a light brown cat that was eight feet long, with a tail that was four feet long and as thick as a baseball bat, ending at thick dark brown tip.  I immediately thought I was looking at a female African lion with a small head.  I was hiking with a friend and we both froze, and adrenalin hit my bloodstream in a micro-second and I was ready for either fight or flight.              I didn’t have to do either, thank God.  The cat glanced at us, almost as if it had heard us coming and wanted to see what kind of animals we were.  We made eye contact, and then the cat turned and padded off the trail and down the steep embankment with no sound -- absolutely NO sound.  As it flicked its tail and disappeared I also noticed that its fur was thicker and more glossy than an African lion’s fur.            It happened so fast and with such silence that my friend and I had to ask each other if it had really happened.  Of course it had, and it was stunning.  A wild lion lives in Los Angeles.              My wife Robin walks in the neighborhood in the morning, and my mother and she were walking the usual route.  My mother was in the middle of a long story when Robin glanced to her right and saw the silent cat moving through the trees. It wasn’t stalking them -- it just seemed to be wandering.  Robin wanted to interrupt my mother to show her the puma, but was afraid that if she made a sound the cat would run. Eventually, they turned away from the river, and when Robin glanced back, the cat just seemed to have disappeared.            Los Angeles is a major city with isolated islands of wild habitat within it.  The Santa Monica Mountains start near Highway 5, and and the stretch north for forty miles in one long arc.  The 101 Freeway and the 405 Freeway then slice that range up.  Beyond the San Fernando Valley is the long arc of the San Gabriel mountains, which also gets sliced up by freeways and roads. There are probably four mountain lions that live within the Santa Monica Mountains, and  since they have such a wide range, they have to cross roads under freeways to get to a new habitat.            There is a story in the paper about the lions at least once a year.  When there is a drought there is less food for all the animals as you move up the food chain, and the hawks, lions, coyotes and other predators head down into the asphalt and cement of the city to look for food.            One came down and was wandering around the streets of Santa Monica, close to a school.  He  was shot with a tranquilizer and moved, but he may end up coming back. They sometimes attack each other over territory or prey.  They may end up in-breeding, or they will risk death to cross to another island habitat to find a mate.            It’s part of the fabric of life here, which I love. I hope they survive. The West is still wild, in tiny pockets.             And whenever I think back on my experience, I can’t help thinking -- I didn’t see a big wild cat in the middle of the Los Angeles city limits. I saw a LION.

Not Enough Time

      I am trying to create a new career for myself, enjoy time with my family, and live a long, healthy and fulfilling life.  I am inundated with advice from all forms of media on how to accomplish this, and like any well organized person I start by building a list of things to do, and a calendar by which I can do it. If I take into account ALL the things I should be doing, according to the experts, I have no time for a real job.            Here is how my week breaks down. There are 168 hours in a week (24 x 7).  Everything I list below is a bare minimum of what I’ve read that experts recommend that I should be doing to lead a balanced and healthy life, mixed in with the mundane chores we can never escape:
AN IDEAL WEEK8 hours in bed per night, (this includes sleep and lovemaking) = 56 hours a week
1 hour of exercise, six days a week = 6 hours a weekMeditation/Mindfulness/Quiet solitude, 30 mins. a day = 4.5 hours a weekPreparing Real Food, Family Meals, Cleaning Up, 3 hours a day = 15 hours a weekPersonal Care (hygiene, grooming, dressing) = 30 min. a day x 7 = 4.5 hours a weekStrategic Planning (investment, future purchases, schools, mortgage) =  2 hours a weekPersonal Improvement, Education (all those self-help sites) = 2 hours a weekWorship, Volunteering, helping others  = 2 hours a weekShopping for Food, Clothes, errands = 4 hours a weekSpending time with friends, Socializing = 3 hours a weekEntertainment, News, Magazines, TV Movies, Social Media = 4 hours a weekHome Organizing (bills, cleaning, filing, arranging) = 4 hours a week.Outside Appointments for Health and Household Maintenance (doctors, dentists, accountants, car repair, etc.) This is about 25 hours a year, or 1/2 hour a week = .5 hours a week.
Working on the Home (watering, planting, painting, repairing, organizing, boxing, making the computer and internet and printers work) = 2 hours a week.
Time for Children Only (All of the above can involve kids, but there is also time where the above must stop, so children come first.) Bike riding, swimming, watching recitals, reading, homework. I have only 1 child, so my lowest estimate is = 7.5 hours a week.
Time for Wife Only (this is going out one night a week, and having an adult conversation or two in the morning or evening, where we can pause and contemplate our lives together) = 4 hours a week.
Vacation 13 full days a year (Christmas, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, Labor Day, Memorial Day, plus 7 days of vacation days a year) = 13 x 24/52 weeks = 6 hours a week.
                       Everything listed adds up to 128 hours. If there are 168 hours in a week, and I need 128 hours to lead a balanced life, that leaves 40 hours for...work. This, however, does not include commuting to and from work, which at a minimum is 1 hour a day.  I can, however, listen to news podcasts in the car to stay current on issues, so I can steal 4 hours from my Entertainment and/or Personal Improvement line. 
            However, once I start to multi-task too much, I fall out of balance and I do neither task well, so I am reluctant to do too much of this.            I also didn’t plan for the twister.  Life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans, right?  Let’s build some crisis management into this equation. I am referring to those tribulations that enter every person’s life -- from illness to accidents, to parents with Alzheimer’s, to children with disabilities.  At first, a big problem will erase the entire chalkboard and you’re back with a tabula rasa, where nothing matters.              Over time, however, you must learn to manage the crisis, and find the hours. I could get by with less sleep, order in bad take-out food, and skip exercising -- those are the choices most of us make anyway.  However, I want to give my personal life and my family the attention the all deserve.  Therefore I am going to add 2 hours a week for crisis management.            My 40 hours available for work is actually 40-1-2 = 37 hours available for work.              Anyone hiring?            How little time do you have for yourself, and how do you get it?

Near Naked Protest

I witnessed a wet and near naked version of “Occupy Wall Street” this past weekend. It was civil disobedience by middle class Americans at a water park, people in bathing suits who fought for fairness in a small but direct way, and their protest went viral and swept through the water park faster than toenail fungus in a shallow pool of warm water.             My daughter Lily, who just turned eight, loves water parks, and we’ve been going to Raging Waters in San Dimas, California for the past four years. Raging Waters is the largest water park in California, with over 36 thrill rides spread over 50 acres.             I’ve never screamed or laughed louder than on those thrill rides I’ve ridden with her at that park, and she feels the same. All day long we talk about the drop into darkness on “Neptune’s Fury,”  the bounce you get on the second waterfall of “Speed Slide,” the minute long ride of “High Extreme,” and the velocity of “Raging Racer.”




            I also love it for another reason. Raging Waters is America stripped bare, literally, and within the microcosm of the park the issues that separate our country disappear.            Class disappears. Out in the parking lot there are Hyundais next to Hummers, and BMWs and Range Rovers next to Corollas, but once inside, there’s no way to tell who earns $200,000 a year and who earns eight bucks an hour. You can be a professor or a millionaire or a busboy or a high school student, it doesn’t matter. We all look the same in our swim trunks, rash guards and dorky sun hats.            Race disappears. Caucasian, Asian, African, Latin, are all mixing. You hear people speaking Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, English, Korean, and we all laugh and scream and giggle and yell at our kids “don’t run!” in the same way.             Most importantly, all pretense disappears. At a water park, there is no roller coaster car to protect you; you either ride on a mat, or you sit in an inner tube, or it’s just your flailing body hurtling down a rushing wall of water that rockets you through dark tunnels and then spits you out over the falls. You feel scared, thrilled and embarrassed all at the same time, and after you splash down and climb out, the adrenalin still courses through you. That’s when I turn to my daughter and we laugh out loud, our faces beaming, and we dash to the next line and join the other giggling riders anxious to do it all over again.             The last time I saw a line of such happy people was at my daughter’s primary school, watching the 1st and 2nd graders line up at recess. Adult lines are never this happy. People don’t grin when they line up at the DMV.             There’s a natural sense of fairness that happens when kids line up. In grade school, front cuts are never allowed, and back cuts are barely tolerated. Screaming “that’s not fair!” is common at that age, and only when we’re older do we tolerate the response that “no one said that life was fair.”  Adulthood is where we learn how the world really works.            But although we tolerate it, that sense of fairness never disappears, it just falls dormant within us, until something happens that makes it reappear.            And that’s where the damp protest comes in.            Raging Waters has instituted a “fast pass” line this summer. If you pay double the regular admission fee, you get a plastic wristband and you don’t have to wait in line on certain rides.            When my daughter Lily asked why those people got to go ahead of us, I explained that they paid twice as much money, so they get to cut the line. I then asked her how she felt about that. Her gut reaction was the same as on the playground -- “that’s not fair.”  Her grade school belief that “cutting the line” was wrong turned out to be shared by a lot of adults at the park as well.            When we got to the front of the next line for Raging Racer, we had to wait for the people exiting the ride to hand us their mats, so we could have our turn. Two people wearing “fast pass” bands came up alongside, and they put their hands out, expecting to be handed mats ahead of everyone in line. After all, they had paid extra.            The first person coming off the ride refused to hand the mat over, and pushed his mat into the hands of the person at the head of the regular line. The second person coming off the ride saw that, and immediately copied him...and then so did the third through the eighth person coming off the ride...and the trend took off. This spontaneous protest happened without a word. No one shouted “no cuts,” or “that’s not fair.” No one slapped “high fives” or pointed. Everyone continued to be polite. The people in second class simply refused to cater to the people in first class.             An employee from Raging Waters was standing there to enforce the new rule, but it quickly became clear that she could not. Eventually, the people who paid more did get their mats, but I could tell they were uncomfortable. They felt...shame.            The protest went viral and spread to other rides, and for the rest of the day I saw many “fast pass” purchasers awkwardly waiting to get mats and rafts from the second class people, who refused to participate.              I am not against exclusivity. Country clubs have their place, and so does first class on an airplane. But with country clubs and other places of privilege, your money buys “separateness” from the masses, where you can enjoy greater creature comforts with other wealthier people like yourselves, behind walls or curtains, and avoid encountering average folk. The masses are not in your face, and your wealth is not being shoved in theirs.            The people who bought the fast passes had done nothing wrong either; if we had been out in the real world, where class, race, and pretense insulate and separate us, the masses would have accepted this two-tiered system without complaint.              But because class, race and pretense had disappeared, that dormant sense of grade school fairness had spontaneously reappeared. The equality of the playground trumped all rules, and it became impossible for the employees to enforce the new policy.            It felt a bit like grade school as well; after all, everyone is wearing damp shorts, rash guards and dorky sun hats. When the “fast pass” purchaser thrusts out his wrist to show that he’s wearing a band that proves he should get the mat first, it’s hard to take him seriously.             However, as our society divides further into the haves and the have-nots, it seems that “fast pass” and “first class” lines will pop up in more places where the general public gathers. Wealth won’t be used to just buy an exclusive place or an exclusive product that the masses can’t have.  Wealth will be used to first “dibs” on what everyone else must wait for.             I can imagine it starting with beach parking lots, the line at the pharmacy and the banks, and checkout lines at the mall stores at Christmas time.             In the past, this would never have been imagined -- we all wanted to appear to be part of the middle class.  This used to NOT be the standard; if we were poor, we wanted to appear wealthier, and if we were wealthier we wanted to blend in with those who had less.  We shared a bias to join the middle class, and to stray from that was crass and invited public shame.             Keep your eyes out for this new twist on class division, and see how the public reacts to it.  If Raging Waters really is a microcosm of America, however, people will find a way to protest it, and cries of, “THAT’S NOT FAIR,” will no longer be reserved just for children. 

Dark California Part 3 : Porn on my block

I’ve been writing about crime on my block for the past two weeks. In this third installment, I want to write about something that’s not criminal, but it’s definitely naughty.  Pornography. For a year, on my block in Studio City in the San Fernando Valley, a neighbor was filming porn in her house across the street.            Nothing she did was criminal. In fact, pornography is big business in Southern California, especially in the San Fernando Valley. When Hollywood shoots its mainstream movies and TV shows out of town, and when the economy is bad, porn’s money lubricates a lot of businesses around here, so we mostly ignore it. It’s also easy to ignore because it’s always shot somewhere else, somewhere far from your home.            When actual porn is produced on your block, however, it’s impossible to ignore, and it gave our suburban lives a weird surreal skew. It also gave everyone who lived on the block something to talk about whenever we saw each other.            Across the street and three houses down is a small bungalow with a brick front facade. The house itself isn’t brick -- it’s insane to build a brick house in earthquake-prone California unless it’s reinforced with steel I-beams, so the body of the house is a wooden frame covered with stucco. And just like the house itself, our neighbor’s exterior appearances did not match their interior lives.            In other words, they looked just like us.              But then again, how else are porn producers supposed to look?              It started in 2006, when an undercover police officer lived in the house, a guy I’ll call Chuck. He was the one proud Republican on the block (most others are closeted around here) and he stuck placards for conservative candidates into his front lawn. He could never tell us what he was doing until the case he was working on was over. For a time he grew a long beard and rode motorcycles and never spoke to us -- and it turned out he was infiltrating a motorcycle gang somewhere at the north end of the vast Los Angeles urban sprawl.            He also had a girlfriend, whom I’ll call Margaret. She was an attractive redhead who never smiled and never made eye contact, but we could often hear them fighting at night, and her shouts were louder than his.            Chuck was a great neighbor (when he was around); he helped people with their cars and sprinkler systems, and he mowed the lawn for Sybil, the old lady who lived next door to him. Because he was so gregarious, the other guys who lived on the block (myself included) often ended up standing on his front lawn drinking a soda or a bottle of beer on a warm spring night. He told funny stories, and we all felt that some of his legit toughness might rub off on us.            Sam, the neighbor directly across from him, asked him about the shouting.            “I’m scared of her, man,” Chuck said. “She is freaking me out.”            “Why don’t you break up with her?” one of us asked.            “Because we bought the house together. With prices going up, it seemed like the smart thing to do,” said Chuck.            We all nodded in sympathy, but I’m sure we had the same thought. He’s one of LAPD’s toughest undercover cops, and he’s scared of his girlfriend Margaret?  How bad is she, if she can scare Chuck?             And then suddenly, Chuck was gone. He moved out without a word to anyone, and only Margaret lived in the house. She came and went and still never spoke to anyone. But she looked like an average middle class working woman in gray business skirts and blouses on the weekdays, walking to and from her Toyota in the morning and evening, and then in jeans and T-shirts on weekends...just like the rest of us.            Then her father moved in with her. He was in his 60’s, tan with gray hair, and he dressed in Hawaiian print shirts, drawstring pants and flip-flops. He was all beach, all the time. But that’s typical around here as well. Every fourth guy over 60 looks like a Jimmy Buffet fan or a Trader Joe’s employee.            Then her father bought a house further down our block. This was before the crash, when everyone was leveraging their money and getting crazy loans for homes, and suddenly Margaret and her Dad owned two, with Dad in one house and Margaret in the other.            And then movie production began.            It started at night, and it looked like a regular film production. They had a generator in the street, and a big burly guy in a t-shirt and cargo shorts was yanking cable from the generator into the house, and then they lit up the interior like Dodger Stadium, but kept the blinds drawn.            They parked a white cube truck with all the lighting and grip gear at the curb. A cube truck is a production vehicle with only four wheels, so it’s more like a moving van than a big movie truck, so it can be in a residential neighbor without special permits. Luxury cars would arrive and park and stay there into the wee hours. Coming home late, you’d notice the extra vehicles, the whirring electrical generator, the bright lights in the house, and the people coming and going from their cars.            But by the next morning, all the cars would be gone. Margaret and her Dad were following the rules, and as long as you have your permits in order and no car or 4-wheel truck stays in one place longer than 24 hours, you can shoot a student film or a sequel to “Titanic” in the privacy of your home.              None of us on the block really cared that much -- we’re used to movie and TV production happening everywhere in Los Angeles, and we were glad to see that people were working.            Then the shoots started happening twice a week, and then three times a week, and it went on for months. We started to notice and wonder -- what IS Margaret doing in there?            Neighbors asked her and her father, but neither of them volunteered much. When Sybil, the old lady who lived next door complained about the moaning and grappling she heard from next door seeping into her bedroom at night, Margaret and her Dad told her that they had the right to do whatever they wanted.            Then, the gossiping began. Instantly, we all knew that middle age Dad had been a porn star in the 1970’s and that Margaret had grown up with her mom and then her dad, but had really raised herself. Dad had connections in Japan, and together he and Margaret were making DVDs and Internet porn for the Asian market. And now the feral red haired child and her Dad were cranking out the porn three nights a week.            Then, just as quickly, Margaret and Dad switched to daytime shoots. Maybe they had to meet higher demand. Maybe Sybil complained too much about the bumping and grinding disturbing her sleep. Maybe they realized that fewer prying eyes were around in the daytime, there was more parking, they could use mostly daylight for their scenes, and as long as their cast and crew cars were gone before 6 p.m., hardly any neighbors would notice.                         But I noticed. I was working from home during some of that time, and I witnessed some wild stuff. I remember playing with my then two-year old daughter Lily on our front lawn when a sleek black Mercedes pulled up in front of our house, so new it had no plates yet. Two brunettes were inside, and they cranked their music and were drinking Jack Daniels from the bottle and singing.              Then one answered her cell phone, the music went off, and they left their parked car and headed to Margaret’s house. One was dressed as a sexy red devil, with a headband with horns and a little tail coming out of her mini-skirt, and the other was wearing a teeny weeny nurse’s costume. Both teetered as they strutted down the street in their platform shoes, passing their bottle of Jack as they headed past Sybil sitting on her porch and into Margaret’s house. That was very common at 2 in the afternoon.            “Daddy, is she a nurse?”             “No Lily, that’s a costume.”            “They like dress-up?”            “Yes, sweetheart. They like dress-up.”            “I like dress-up too!”            It was hard to explain that it was a different kind of dress-up.            Later, the Dad grew bolder and bought a big RV and parked it in his driveway, and that became his make-up and costume department, with the house itself being used for props and storage. The performers would show up in their fancy cars but they were now dressed in street clothes, and then they’d knock on the RV door. Dad would swing it open, and they’d climb inside.            Music, laughter, howling and shouts would spill out of the RV’s windows, and then the door would open and the performers would emerge in a cloud of marijuana smoke, dressed as judges, cops, girl scouts, pool boys and pizza delivery guys. They’d trip over some empty bottles of booze as they came down the stairs and they’d head across the street from Dad’s house to Margaret’s house, to perform their scenes.            In the middle of the afternoon, actresses with curlers in their hair, wearing stiletto heels and bras and panties covered only by sheer negligees, would cross paths with the neighborhood school children walking home from school in their traditional uniforms.            The schoolgirls did head turns after the groups intersected, but the actresses did not. They could care less.            There is an adage that the biggest house on the biggest hill is always owned by the pornographer -- yet Dad and Margaret never upgraded. Although production was increasing, they never seemed to be driving better cars, and Margaret’s sprinkler system still shot a fountain of water straight in the air every second morning at 7 am.Either the Japanese weren’t paying on time, or Dad and Margaret weren’t making money fast enough.            Then, the economy crashed.            The first clue that things weren’t perfect in porn land was their garage sale. They hung a hundred costumes of every variety on massive clothing racks in the driveway. Those who weren’t “in the know,” thought a costume company must have gone out of business or was releasing some excess inventory. The word spread to the other blocks and their garage sale did well. But on our block we knew where those clothes had been…and that they had a story to tell.  We shopped slowly and asked questions.            “What was this costume used for?”            “When was the last time this was dry-cleaned?”            “Do you know how to get these stains out?            Margaret answered questions with a shrug and “I don’t know.”            Dad’s house went into foreclosure first. The “Bank Owned” sign went up, and he moved out in a weekend. Margaret hung on a bit longer, then did a short sale with a broker, and she moved out as well.            No goodbyes, no nods, no waves as their cars drove away.             That was in 2008. It was a crazy time. New owners are in both homes -- and although that’s a story that could only happen in Los Angeles, homeowners have pulled some wild stunts to keep their homes.            What’s the craziest story from YOUR BLOCK?            What have people done to save their homes in your neighborhood?            Let me know!