What does a scanner really see? he asked himself. I mean, really see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does a passive infrared scanner like they used to use or a cube-type holo-scanner like they use these days, the latest thing, see into me --into us-- clearly or darkly? I hope it does, he thought, see clearly, because I can’t any longer these days see into myself. I see only murk. Murk outside; murk inside. I hope, for everyone’s sake, the scanners do better. Because, he thought, if the scanner sees only darkly, the way I myself do, then we are cursed, cursed again and like we have been continually, and we’ll wind up dead this way, knowing very little and getting that little fragment wrong too.
Yeah, I guess you could say it’s been one of those days.
CORNELIUS THE HELPFUL HOBO
My father has an incredible ability to look lost even when he knows exactly where he’s going. So I can only imagine how bewildered he looks to the common observer when he genuinely has no idea where he is. As for me, I’ve gotten used to it for the most part, but it still catches me off guard from time to time.
As some of you know, my family was here a couple of weeks ago, and our first family venture was to Universal Studios. Since there were five of them (2 parents, 1 sister, 1 grandmother, and 1 aunt) and one of me, we couldn’t all squeeze into one car. We discussed taking two cars,. We also discussed taking two taxis in order to avoid paying for parking. After some deliberation, it finally occurred to my parents that both of these ideas were piss poor, admittedly the second a little more than the first, and eventually it was decided that we would take public transportation to the theme park.
Public transportation, in this case, consisted of two buses, a subway/metro rail, and a tram, the last of which would be free of charge. So the six of us get on the first bus, scramble into the seats nearest the front doors and begin our trip to the theme park. After about ten minutes on the bus, somebody --I believe it was my grandmother of all people-- noticed that we were sitting in the section assigned for senior citizens and handicapped persons.. But we figured, between my grandmother and my sister, we had both of those categories covered so we neglected to move.
Half an hour or so later we got to the stop we wanted, hauled ass of the bus, and realized ever-so-quickly that we had no fucking clue where we were. So my father wandered over to the nearest bus stop and began to examine the small, graffiti covered map that was posted there. The rest of us stood behind him, with my mother, my aunt, and myself trying to make sure that neither my grandmother nor my sister wandered off. After a few minutes a bus pulled up, but my father decided that that bus wasn’t going to take us where we needed to go so none of us made a move to get on.
So I stood there, vaguely glancing at the various people as they stepped off the bus, when all of a sudden a portly little homeless man disembarked and stood against the building right beside my family. I’m not the kinda guy to judge a book by its cover --god I hate that expression-- but I thought this guy was going to rape and kill us. On the side of the street. In broad daylight. With a dozen people looking on. We’d be that family that people would be talking about when they got home that got raped and killed by the homeless guy with the gimpy leg.
Not that I let my mind wander. I was just bored.
By this time my father had been staring at the bus map for a solid fifteen minutes, appearing to be as confused by it as he had been when he first walked over to it. As I sit here now, I still can’t tell you whether my father was genuinely befuddled or if his generally confused expression was just exacerbated by the heat or something, but, at any rate, my mother moved over to help him, and even with their powers combined --powers in this case being a pair of masters degrees-- they still couldn’t decipher the markings on the map.
Then, much to my confusion and surprise, the homeless man --whom I’ve decided is named Cornelius-- walked over to my father and began to talk to him. “Where you going?” he said. My father mumbled something incoherent, either because he couldn’t express in big boy words where we were going or because he was put off by Cornelius’s appearance. After the mumbling stopped, Cornelius nodded then began rifling through his bag of personal effects. A few moments later he emerged with a foldout map of the bus routes and handed it to my father. My father smiled, said ’thank you’, and began looking at this new, easier to understand map.
But Cornelius wasn’t done. He then went back over to his bag and brought back a AAA roadmap. He handed it to my father saying “Here, just in case.” My father took the map and Cornelius stood there, expecting some kind of verbal response from my father or some money.
He got the first one.
So, refusing to give up on his quest for spare change, Cornelius dove back into his bag once again and came out with map for each one of the subway systems. Once again, my father took the maps, offered some kind words, but no money.
I found out later that before leaving for California my father had asked my mother to go to the bank and get a bunch of singles for tipping purposes. My mother came home with like thirty bucks in ones, all of which were still stuck in my father’s wallet as we made our trip to Universal. Thus, his wallet appeared to be home to a few hundred dollars in cash, and he didn’t feel like getting knifed only to have the assailant discover the truth later.
Not that this story would have made Cornelius feel any better.
A few minutes later we all got on a bus and left Cornelius standing there on the corner, five maps lighter and none the richer for it. But part of me likes to think that Cornelius didn’t really want any money. I like to imagine that that’s what he did with his time: ride around on public transportation looking for people that were helplessly lost and then providing them with the proper maps to get to their destination…a map dispensing angel if you will.
In his mind, I bet Cornelius thinks he’s a superhero. And for us disoriented travelers…I guess he kind of is.
SO GLAD TO MEET YOU ANGELES
I think that living somewhere for a couple months gives you a pretty good idea of what that place is all about. In truth, Las Angeles isn’t that hard to understand. It’s crowded and noisy, and everybody’s busy schedule is more important than everybody else’s busy schedule, and I get that. I really do. Not that I can relate on any real level, as I don’t think I’ve ever been honest to God busy in my entire life, but I can understand it.
I don’t, however, think that everybody’s self-important nature is the reason that this city is so fucked up.
My guess, and this could just be because I’m from the Midwest, is that that people out here are crazy because of the weather. Now, I’m sure you’re thinking “What fucking weather? Isn’t it nice everyday there?”
These are legitimate questions and it seems reasonable that if anyone has a right to be crazy because of the weather it’s the good people of Missouri. Who could honestly maintain sanity in an environment where the weather is essentially bi-polar. One day it’s hot and sunny and the next day it’s foggy and your giblets are freezing. That’s enough to make a grown man go insane, or at the very least cry a little over the loss of feeling in his unmentionables.
But think about this…think about having the same weather every hour of every day of every year. Sure, sometimes it rains and some days the smog is slightly thicker than others, but just think about it. Snow, sleet, flash floods, hundred degree heat, these things provide for excitement and a change of pace. The people out here have nothing. For Christ’s sake I’ve been here for a little over two months and I haven’t seen a single rain droplet. Nor, for that matter, have I heard any. Every day has been identical to the one immediately before it and immediately following it.
So here’s my theory: the uniformity of the weather is causing the people around here to slowly lose their minds --monotony is a gateway to insanity. You can go ahead and quote me if you like.
Walking outside and feeling the exact same thing every day would be enough to make me go insane. Granted, it’s summer now so I’m okay with it, but I can’t imagine dealing with this shit in the dead of winter.
I suppose what this whole thing comes down to is nature vs. nurture. Is there something about Las Angeles that attracts the self-indulgent, narcissistic assholes? Or does the SoCal environment simply turn good people evil?
And before you answer that first question with a “yeah, it’s called the movie industry,” consider for a second that not everybody out here is involved in it. There are people here that clean bathrooms, drive cabs, sweep the streets, police the laws, and flip burgers, and I’m sure they account for some of the self-indulgent population as well.
Something to think about at any rate.
Yeah, I guess you could say it’s been one of those days.
CORNELIUS THE HELPFUL HOBO
My father has an incredible ability to look lost even when he knows exactly where he’s going. So I can only imagine how bewildered he looks to the common observer when he genuinely has no idea where he is. As for me, I’ve gotten used to it for the most part, but it still catches me off guard from time to time.
As some of you know, my family was here a couple of weeks ago, and our first family venture was to Universal Studios. Since there were five of them (2 parents, 1 sister, 1 grandmother, and 1 aunt) and one of me, we couldn’t all squeeze into one car. We discussed taking two cars,. We also discussed taking two taxis in order to avoid paying for parking. After some deliberation, it finally occurred to my parents that both of these ideas were piss poor, admittedly the second a little more than the first, and eventually it was decided that we would take public transportation to the theme park.
Public transportation, in this case, consisted of two buses, a subway/metro rail, and a tram, the last of which would be free of charge. So the six of us get on the first bus, scramble into the seats nearest the front doors and begin our trip to the theme park. After about ten minutes on the bus, somebody --I believe it was my grandmother of all people-- noticed that we were sitting in the section assigned for senior citizens and handicapped persons.. But we figured, between my grandmother and my sister, we had both of those categories covered so we neglected to move.
Half an hour or so later we got to the stop we wanted, hauled ass of the bus, and realized ever-so-quickly that we had no fucking clue where we were. So my father wandered over to the nearest bus stop and began to examine the small, graffiti covered map that was posted there. The rest of us stood behind him, with my mother, my aunt, and myself trying to make sure that neither my grandmother nor my sister wandered off. After a few minutes a bus pulled up, but my father decided that that bus wasn’t going to take us where we needed to go so none of us made a move to get on.
So I stood there, vaguely glancing at the various people as they stepped off the bus, when all of a sudden a portly little homeless man disembarked and stood against the building right beside my family. I’m not the kinda guy to judge a book by its cover --god I hate that expression-- but I thought this guy was going to rape and kill us. On the side of the street. In broad daylight. With a dozen people looking on. We’d be that family that people would be talking about when they got home that got raped and killed by the homeless guy with the gimpy leg.
Not that I let my mind wander. I was just bored.
By this time my father had been staring at the bus map for a solid fifteen minutes, appearing to be as confused by it as he had been when he first walked over to it. As I sit here now, I still can’t tell you whether my father was genuinely befuddled or if his generally confused expression was just exacerbated by the heat or something, but, at any rate, my mother moved over to help him, and even with their powers combined --powers in this case being a pair of masters degrees-- they still couldn’t decipher the markings on the map.
Then, much to my confusion and surprise, the homeless man --whom I’ve decided is named Cornelius-- walked over to my father and began to talk to him. “Where you going?” he said. My father mumbled something incoherent, either because he couldn’t express in big boy words where we were going or because he was put off by Cornelius’s appearance. After the mumbling stopped, Cornelius nodded then began rifling through his bag of personal effects. A few moments later he emerged with a foldout map of the bus routes and handed it to my father. My father smiled, said ’thank you’, and began looking at this new, easier to understand map.
But Cornelius wasn’t done. He then went back over to his bag and brought back a AAA roadmap. He handed it to my father saying “Here, just in case.” My father took the map and Cornelius stood there, expecting some kind of verbal response from my father or some money.
He got the first one.
So, refusing to give up on his quest for spare change, Cornelius dove back into his bag once again and came out with map for each one of the subway systems. Once again, my father took the maps, offered some kind words, but no money.
I found out later that before leaving for California my father had asked my mother to go to the bank and get a bunch of singles for tipping purposes. My mother came home with like thirty bucks in ones, all of which were still stuck in my father’s wallet as we made our trip to Universal. Thus, his wallet appeared to be home to a few hundred dollars in cash, and he didn’t feel like getting knifed only to have the assailant discover the truth later.
Not that this story would have made Cornelius feel any better.
A few minutes later we all got on a bus and left Cornelius standing there on the corner, five maps lighter and none the richer for it. But part of me likes to think that Cornelius didn’t really want any money. I like to imagine that that’s what he did with his time: ride around on public transportation looking for people that were helplessly lost and then providing them with the proper maps to get to their destination…a map dispensing angel if you will.
In his mind, I bet Cornelius thinks he’s a superhero. And for us disoriented travelers…I guess he kind of is.
SO GLAD TO MEET YOU ANGELES
I think that living somewhere for a couple months gives you a pretty good idea of what that place is all about. In truth, Las Angeles isn’t that hard to understand. It’s crowded and noisy, and everybody’s busy schedule is more important than everybody else’s busy schedule, and I get that. I really do. Not that I can relate on any real level, as I don’t think I’ve ever been honest to God busy in my entire life, but I can understand it.
I don’t, however, think that everybody’s self-important nature is the reason that this city is so fucked up.
My guess, and this could just be because I’m from the Midwest, is that that people out here are crazy because of the weather. Now, I’m sure you’re thinking “What fucking weather? Isn’t it nice everyday there?”
These are legitimate questions and it seems reasonable that if anyone has a right to be crazy because of the weather it’s the good people of Missouri. Who could honestly maintain sanity in an environment where the weather is essentially bi-polar. One day it’s hot and sunny and the next day it’s foggy and your giblets are freezing. That’s enough to make a grown man go insane, or at the very least cry a little over the loss of feeling in his unmentionables.
But think about this…think about having the same weather every hour of every day of every year. Sure, sometimes it rains and some days the smog is slightly thicker than others, but just think about it. Snow, sleet, flash floods, hundred degree heat, these things provide for excitement and a change of pace. The people out here have nothing. For Christ’s sake I’ve been here for a little over two months and I haven’t seen a single rain droplet. Nor, for that matter, have I heard any. Every day has been identical to the one immediately before it and immediately following it.
So here’s my theory: the uniformity of the weather is causing the people around here to slowly lose their minds --monotony is a gateway to insanity. You can go ahead and quote me if you like.
Walking outside and feeling the exact same thing every day would be enough to make me go insane. Granted, it’s summer now so I’m okay with it, but I can’t imagine dealing with this shit in the dead of winter.
I suppose what this whole thing comes down to is nature vs. nurture. Is there something about Las Angeles that attracts the self-indulgent, narcissistic assholes? Or does the SoCal environment simply turn good people evil?
And before you answer that first question with a “yeah, it’s called the movie industry,” consider for a second that not everybody out here is involved in it. There are people here that clean bathrooms, drive cabs, sweep the streets, police the laws, and flip burgers, and I’m sure they account for some of the self-indulgent population as well.
Something to think about at any rate.
