But officer, I reeeeeeeally had to pee . . .

One of the reasons I find blogging fun is that it forces me to research and find out things I would never in a million years have otherwise discovered. Here is a case in point:

On my trip to Los Angeles over the holidays, I (of course) spent a lot of time checking out the changes in my downtown, and I was surprised to see that the long-awaited $1/4 million (yes, that's $250,000 EACH) public bathrooms, which have been the subject of so much for controversy for at least the past 5 years, have finally been installed in 4 places.

By way of background, downtown suffers from a lack of public restroom facilities. This most often comes up when discussing the homeless, and whether or not it is legal to cite someone for public urination when they are homeless and have no other alternative but to pee (or much, much worse, believe me) right out in public. It's obviously a huge sticking point (no pun intended) with the local (non-homeless) residents and business people.

It's such a big problem that I had to research it, since business people were actually getting cited for washing down the poop on the sidewalk in front of their businesses because it goes down the gutter, into the ocean, and spreads e coli or something totally disgusting that I want to stop writing right now. Ew. Flashbacks. Anyway, suffice it to say that I have intimate knowledge of facts on subjects such as the volume of feces the average person produces each day (you'd be shocked).

So the city ponied up a $MILLION$ to buy four of these free-standing, European style potties that are self-cleaning, timed automatic doors, etc. They have running water, are automated and also physically hooked into the sewer through the sidewalk, and it costs a ton to install them (ripping up the sidewalk, etc.), not to mention the price of the actual structure.

By the way, I believe the Americans with Disabilities Act required that they be able to have the door closed for at least 20 minutes, after which time they would automatically open. This is terribly awkward for at least 2 reasons: 1) if you are truly disabled, or just sick, and aren't finished within that time, you could find yourself stuck on the toilet when the door automatically opens to the busy sidewalk, and also 2) if you are a hooker or druggie looking for 20 minutes of privacy, there is a LOT you can efficiently accomplish in that chunk of time.

So once the city bought them, it was a massive controversy over where to place them. None of the legitimate businesses or residents wanted them anywhere near them, since they were anticipated to be huge crime and filth magnets. One did get installed at 5th and San Julian (in the heart of Skid Row) before I left, and it was quite the happening spot, shall we say.

So I was rather surprised to see one located at 5th and Hill Street, right atop the Metro stop at Pershing Square, and close to the bustling Jewelry District, but not the classiest corner (but a great spot if you are looking for heroin- it's where actor Leif Garrett was arrested a year ago).

So when this fancy pisseria (I think that's actually what they call them in European slang) appeared in my path, I had to laugh at the sign that said it is STILL not in service!! Years of getting the political will and the money to buy them, another several heated years of figuring out where to physically place them, and it's still "Not In Service (yet)." The "yet" made me think that someone was reeeeeally being hopeful about having a clean, safe spot to "rest" when shopping downtown. Hopefully they aren't holding . . . their breath.

In looking into this matter, though, I found that there is something called the American Restroom Association, which advocates for free access to safe, clean, well-designed bathrooms across the country. Who knew?? And who knows? I'll need a job when I get back to Los Angeles- this might be right up my . . . alley.

p.s. John noted that the 2007 World Toilet Summit is going to be held in . . . wait for it . . . New Delhi, India! Having been there, I can think of no place more appropriate, since the place is basically one giant toilet (apologies to my gracious host, Sanjeev).

Yes, spending a month in India taught me the discipline of prolonged bladder control, since there really wasn't any place I'd consider visiting in my daily touristing. My (male) travel companions just used the sidewalk, like everyone else!

p.p.s. To this post, I have to add that the BEST thing about people peeing on the sidewalk in Downtown Los Angeles is that . . . it washes away the vomit!

Holiday Haiku

Christmas
is
gone
Except
for
the
chocolate
That
lives
forever
On
my
thighs

Douchebag Diplomacy (sorry for the vulgarity, just quoting an "honorable" Congressman!)

Traveling back to Binghamton after a long and luxurious visit with family in Los Angeles, I felt right at home at LAX when I ran into 2 well-known actors and my first lobbying client (sorry, mom, it was a slot machine manufacturer), all in the security line.

But the best run-in lay ahead of me, on the airplane, where I ran into someone else I knew. I would never have noticed him except for the following scene that played out in the two rows immediately behind us. Try to follow along:

In the row immediately behind us sit 3 people: a middle-aged man behind John (we'll call him "Seat Recliner"), an 8 year old girl, and then a 4 year old boy behind me (who kicked my seat the whole flight and who I had to have a chat with, despite the fact that his mother was sitting right there and seeing the whole thing). In the row behind those 3 was a middle aged couple (the man ("Angry Dad") and woman ("Enabler") sitting down, wearing glasses in the photo) and their 6'4" son ("Gigantor") sitting on the aisle, himself sitting behind the middle aged guy behind John.

So right before we are getting ready to land, we hear some loud, raised voices getting into an argument just behind us. Apparently, Seat Recliner had invaded Gigantor's meager leg room one too many times on the flight, and Angry Dad intervened on behalf of his son and laid into Seat Recliner. Despite the eyeglasses, Angry Dad was a bit of a football-jock-meathead-type, and he got pretty loud, although not overly rude. He said something to the effect of "My son is 14 years old and 6'4". You are an adult. Just because you have the ability to put your seat back, doesn't mean you should."

Then Seat Recliner started going off about being a bad role model for his kids and a bad dad or something, and Angry Dad started getting really mad, at which point his Enabler wife, who clearly has to endure this behavior frequently, started shushing him ("Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.") and trying to defuse the situation.

There was a lull in the arguing, and, just when you thought it was over, each participant had to get in his parting jab. Loudly, but under his breath, one said "Asshole," to which the other replied, "Douchebag." Priceless.

So when we landed a few minutes later, I was eager for the chance to get a good look at our brawling backseat neighbors. As though the blogger gods had sent me a belated Christmas gift, I realized that I knew the "douchebag"- he was none other than a California Assemblyman-turned-Congressman named Adam Schiff. I hadn't seen him since my lobbying days in Sacramento, but it was definitely him.

My guess was confirmed when I realized that it was an L.A.-to-D.C. flight, and that it would explain the super-snotty and inattentive mother sitting across the aisle and letting her 4-year-old kick the crap out of the back of my seat for 4 hours and 15 minutes. (As a bit of icing on the cake, Adam's wife is named Eve - she was every bit the stuffy Congressman's wife.)

As a side note, our dear Eve almost got into a fight, herself, when we landed and a guy opened the overhead bin and a small bag fell on her. She was not so much injured as offended that someone would allow an errant object to touch her. She got all pissy at the guy, who was a very nice, gigantic, muscly, black guy with big diamond earrings, by the way. When she said something about how he should be more careful, he was way too classy to say anything even in his own defense.

His don't-talk-shit-to-my-man-or-I'll-kick-your-ass fiancee (we'll call her "Feyonce' ") however, was quick to insert herself, and said to Eve "It's not like he did it on purpose!" It stopped there but I'm pretty sure that, had we not been on an airplane governed by serious federal transportation rules, Feyonce' would have taken Adam's Eve out to the Garden and given her a little streetwise lesson about sin . . .

OK, back to Congressman Seat Recliner. A couple of thoughts: First, Congressman Schiff is apparently big in foreign affairs, which made me wonder if he shares his special brand of Douchebag Diplomacy with foreign officials around the world. One can only imagine the "ugly American" that he might be when traveling abroad. Ugh.

Second, the thing that Angry Dad said really struck a chord with something I have recently been thinking about politicians and their ethical and moral compasses. In my observation, there are 2 kinds of politicians: the ones who do everything they can that is technically not illegal, and then the ones who are just plain corrupt.

The corrupt ones are the ones you read about (a small percentage of all politicians), and the envelope-pushers are all the rest. These (the envelope-pushers) are the guys who milk every perk, every benefit of holding public office, either because they think they deserve it or just because they can get it away with it . . . technically. Just because he was technically within the rules to keep pushing his seat back, Congressman Seat Recliner should really have been more thoughtful and realized that the kid behind him was unusually tall and also young and pretty helpless to defend his knees and, more importantly, his personal dignity. Best to have a simple chat with him before putting the seat back or, better yet, not recline at all (it was only a 4 hour flight, and not a late night one).

That was a long blog, but the moral of the story for this entry is that you can rest assured that our elected officials are spreading their own special brand of Douchebag Diplomacy all over the world, one nearly-physical altercation at a time.

What a Difference A Little Bit of Jesus Makes . . .

What, pray tell, could these two photos possibly have in common? Well, they are of the same thing: our landlord/next door neighbors' front door. Both are taken on the occasion of big festive holidays, and yet the older couple who lives there clearly feels very differently about the 2: one is obviously from Christmas, and the dark one? Halloween. All you can see is the glow of the doorbell piercing the darkness.

You see, the reason I took the photo of their front door on Halloween was because it was so hysterical to me: Halloween is a HUGE deal on our low-traffic, kid-friendly street- we had over 150 kids at our door and had to run out for candy replenishment. Yet theirs was the only house on the entire street that was pitch-dark. Not even a porch light on. I don't know what the Halloween-equivalent of "Bah Humbug" is called, but this is it, in visual form.

The week before Halloween, I had the occasion to speak with the lady of the house, our landlord, who warned me about the evils of Halloween around our neighborhood: "Nothin' but kids by the busload, I tell you. They drive in from all over just to come to our block. Begging candy like homeless people. And the parents! Shameless. The parents drive in from the wrong side of town and carry an extra sack for candy, 'For the baby in the car,' they say. Ha! A likely story. They just want more free candy. Constant door-bell-ringing all night. You can't even have dinner. I'm sick of it!"

It was such a nasty, vicious tirade she went on, that I literally started laughing at her right in her face. After a few seconds, I think she started to see what I was laughing at- her hatred of all things child-related and poor-people-related - and she and her husband both started to laugh, too. It was priceless. (Thank God they ended up laughing!)

Yes, you guessed right- they have no kids themselves. Never wanted 'em, don't have 'em. And cats and dogs? She hates them. She also likes to say mean things about the nice teenaged-boy down the street who has Down Syndrome, "Have you heard the sailor mouth on that boy? I tell you, I wouldn't trust him!" So needless to say, Halloween and all its damn kids? Not so much for her.

Christmas, however? Now THAT is a whole different ballgame. She is Slovak-Catholic and he is Armenian-Catholic and boy do they live at the local Slovakian Catholic church: he calls bingo every Thursday, she is always making holubky for the fundraisers. I guess that is why they go all-out for Christmas (as opposed to Halloween) with their decorations: Halloween is about candy-grubbing kids, but Christmas, now THAT is about JESUS!

Our Binghamton Christmas

In case anyone was wondering how we decorated our house for Christmas . . . we didn't. Unless I find some lights at a garage sale for $0.50 (like I did with the halloween jack-0-lantern string of lights) or something, it's sort of hard to justify investing in holiday decorations that aren't likely to get more than 2 or 3 uses before we leave. And since we're going home for the holidays, we didn't want to buy a tree that was going to become a fire hazzard while we are gone.

Not to be totally kitsch-free, however, I did break out the few ornaments we have collected together, and used them to adorn a sego palm that I bought because it reminds me of Los Angeles and the one my parents have at their house. The result is a pretty sad-looking "Christmas tree" but it does the trick, since it makes us laugh.

What's going on at THIS church?

Too good to be true. Sort of like Jesus giving me a lay-up; a little reward, if you will, for finally showing up to mass. A blog entry waiting for a scribe, right there in the church newsletter.

OK, I admit that these are two of the blurriest, least legible photos of text, but I've been studying for the Bar exam all day and I'm not in the mood to fuss with images. Just trust me when I say that the first one says, "Rev. George Dyer, S.T.D."

First, What, pray tell, is an "S.T.D." degree? And how does one achieve that dubious distinction? Get your mind out of the gutter! This is not an indicator that Rev. Dyer has engaged in activities unbecoming of a man of the cloth. Rather, the "S.T.D." in this case refers to a Doctor of Sacred Theology. Why they continue to call it an S.T.D., and not a D.S.T., is beyond me.

Really makes you think that the Catholic church may be a victim of its own failures of marketing: no wonder they have hardly any new priests entering the seminary! You are signing up for a life without sex, but if you study really hard, you might wind up with an S.T.D. at the end- hardly a wise trade-off!

The next photo is of text that announces a meeting of the "Nocturnal Adoration Society" at 10 pm. I have never heard of such a group, but they meet way too late at night to be up to anything pious. Sounds like happy hour with sacrificial wine and Jesus-wafer/Body-of-Christ snacks, to me. With Reverend S.T.D. and his late-night meetings, I am getting suspicious about what goes on at this church!

"Jesus Saves" . . . But not on heating bills

Bad Catholics that we are, I've lived here since February and, despite best intentions, had yet to make it to one of the many Catholic churches around here for Sunday mass. First, a little background on the Catholic scene in Binghamton: Los Angeles is certainly a "Catholic city" because it's majority Latino, and is actually part of the country's biggest archdiocese, with 5 million congregants. Binghamton is part of the Diocese of Syracuse and, as you might have guessed, not quite so many parishioners as L.A. - only 350,000.

These numbers are misleading to me as a resident of the area, though, since I didn't feel like I interacted with a lot of Catholics around me, personally, in my daily life in Los Angeles (aside from the millions of Latinos, of course). Sure, they were present, but so were Jews, Muslims, etc.

Here in Binghamton? The Catholic church pretty much seems to have a lock on the local religious market. When I moved here, it seemed to me that there was a Catholic church in just about every neighborhood; that, just like the local dive bars, there was one for each little enclave.

Apparently this perception was dead on: The little city of Binghamton (about the same population and geographic size of Rancho Palos Verdes) has no fewer than TEN Catholic churches, each with an enrollment averaging about 2,000 people. That means that 20,000 people, or nearly 1/2 of the population of the entire city, is a registered parishioner at one of these ten churches.

And it is true, in practice. It seems that EVERYONE around me is Catholic. In fact, a lady at the gym the other day was shocked that I didn't know what a "feast day" was (it's an east coast Italian Catholic thing, apparently, and sounds very idolatrous to me). She exclaimed, "What? aren't you CATHOLIC?" well, I happen to be, thanks for assuming, lady.

These many, small churches are based on an immigrant model, with each one typically catering to an immigrant population that lived in the enclave (recall that waves of immigrants came over in the first part of the 20th century to work in the shoe factories and as cigar rollers). That means we have St. Cyril's for the Slovaks, St. Patrick's for the Irish, St. Anthony's (pronounced "Saint Ant-nee's") for the Italians, St. John's for the Ukrainians, etc.

The reason I know all these Catholic church fun facts is that the Diocese of Syracuse right now is having to get serious about possibly closing and/or merging some of these churches. With the population at 1/2 of what it was 50 years ago, and also a dramatic decrease in the number of priests, the church simply cannot support these parishes.

Which brings me to my story for this morning: I chose to go to St. Patrick's (photos above) not just because it is a lovely 10 minute walk from my house (there are so many churches, I could easily walk to several of them!), but because it is the oldest one and has the most incredible architecture. Isaac Perry was the architect, and he also designed a lot of important structures like the N. Y. State Capitol in Albany and the Binghamton Psych Hospital back in the 1870s.

As I sat there in mass, awe-struck by the 100+ foot tall vaulted, fanned ceilings, I was impressed with the sheer volume of the airy space. I guess I'm starting to think like a local, though, because I was thinking that their heating bill must be thousands of dollars (our house, in the winter months, costs $400 to keep it barely non-icy!) and no wonder they cannot afford to maintain all these churches around here.

No sooner had I had the thought, than it was time for the collection. The lady announced that the first collection would be for the church, as normal, but the second collection would be for . . . the heating bill! No joking- I couldn't make that one up. Needless to say, I was happy to contribute to both, and happy for a warm place to enjoy the architecture and soak in a little Jesus at the same time.

Southern Tier "Graphic Design"

Sometimes, a simple sign can really convey so much more than its mere text indicates. For example, a well-designed logo with a cool image can tell you a lot about a company or a business- that it is creative, or traditional, serious, or fun-loving.

This general rule certainly holds true in Binghamton, but no one is going to be hiring any of the "graphic designers" who make the business signs around here. We are continually amazed by the actual functioning businesses that seem to get by with - not only a hand-made sign- but a poorly hand-made sign, at that. (John and I call these "Southern Tier Specials," in reference to the Southern Tier region in which we live.)

Today I had lunch at the sole ethnic food place downtown. I think people just call it "the Indian place" because that is sufficient to distinguish it from all the other dining establishments, but really, shouldn't a proper restaurant - where you are going to pay money and put the food in your body - shouldn't it have a proper sign? Understand, my dear readers, this "CURRYs of INDIA" homemade thing is the ONLY signage on the entire restaurant.

I don't know how long the restaurant has been there- maybe not that long since the sign isn't faded out like the other photo- but don't you think they could invest a little bit of money in something as important as a SIGN for their business?

Which brings me to the other sign pictured above. Now, if you wanted to sell a piece of real estate, do you think you might want to do a little more than take your sloppy hand-writing, slap together a few pieces of notebook paper, and tape them in the window for God knows how long, as they faded in the sun? I'm tempted to call the phone number, just to tell them how crappy their sign looks.

You should see the building it's taped onto - a real eyesore, right in the middle of downtown. Really sends a great message to future investors by screaming "Please buy this piece of shit dilapidated building that the owner cares so little about, he hasn't even made the effort to use his best hand-writing in the homemade sign from circa 1984." It's an old printing business that I can pretty well guess made a fine living up through the 1970s, spewing pollutants into the ground on which it stands. I guess if you buy the building, they throw in the toxic liability for free!

Al Qaeda infiltrating the Los Angeles County Assessor's Office?

I just went online to see if my property taxes were paid on the Hermosa Beach house- In case you didn't know, you can easily look up the size, year built, and last purchase price of virtually any house in Los Angeles County by going to the County Assessor's awesome website. This site is so great that I used to use it instead of Mapquest to find people's houses.

Every time I saw County Assessor Rick Auerbach at a political event, he remembered who I was because I always gushed about how great and powerful the website is! Want to see what houses in your neighborhood are going for? Type in your address and then click on "search for recent sales" after your own property info pops up.) Yes, it works for famous people's houses, too- public property records do not keep their owners' secrets!

Anyway, I started to see about paying my taxes online using their secured method, and was asked to type in the letters that I saw in the box- you know how they do that for encryption or online security purposes and the word is something like "magic" or "poodle"? Well, this time my secret word that popped up, for me to view and type in, was FATWA!

Last time I checked, a fatwa was a really bad thing for western civilization. It came up in the context of things like, "Visitors to the Middle East should be warned that the Ayatollah has issued a fatwa against all things western." Perhaps Los Angeles County could find better randomly generated passwords for us? Rather unsettling, to say the least.

Millennium Dress Code

I took this photo a while back when we were visting friends in Syracuse. Although it has fallen on hard times in general, Syracuse still has a pretty nice nightlife scene in a sort of revitalized historic district.

It seems that the local proprietors want to make sure that the "wrong" kind of people (like the Olsen twins, apparently- read on) don't start hanging out in their carefully-crafted renewed urban core, because I came across this gem of a dress-code sign.

It's hard to read, and I couldn't hope to capture the whole thing in my cheezy cell phone cam, but here's what you are looking at:

"NO ATHLETIC WEAR
NO EXCESSIVE BAGGY CLOTHING
NO DO-RAGS
NO OVERSIZED CHAINS OR MEDALLIONS
BASEBALL CAPS MUST BE WORN FORWARD OR BACKWARDS
NO TORN OR SOILED CLOTHING . . . "

As we saw with the link above, it is clear that the "no excessive baggy clothing" prohibition will do wonders to keep out the Hollywood-homeless-dressing-twins crowd, but I still want to know- Who is wearing "oversized chains or medallions" in 2006? Maybe I'm just getting old, but that sounds very Mr. T or Flavor Flav circa 1983 to me.

And "do-rags"? Is this a real phrase now? Apparently so, but I would still love to hear what my mom would say if you asked her what a "do rag" was. (By the way, that do-rag link is definitely worth poking around-the photos are awesome- someone please point out the difference between a "do rag" and a "sports do rag" because it is not apparent to my eyes.) After poking around the internet, I can see that apparently non-homies wear them now. I guess I am getting old.

Moving along now . . . has our society slid so far into the toilet that we now have to direct people to put their baseball caps on straight? Has that awful look so infiltrated the American mainstream that it has to be explicitly barred?

"No torn or soiled clothing" . . . where is the fun if you can't go out on the town to chat up members of the opposite sex if you can't don your grungiest, most soiled, stanky clothing? Again, see link to Olsen twins.

OK, enough blogging for one day- it's been about 3 hours and only 3 blogs to show for it- and you guys think this is easy! Soon enough, I'll be studying for the New York bar and then you'll really miss me, you'll see.

Every new wife gets ONE incident like this, right?

This Thanksgiving, John's mom came to visit us for a week. Although we spent Thanksgiving dinner at the Binghamton Club ($20.95 plus service charge- we couldn't cook at home for nearly that cheap!!), we did do a bit of cooking at home over the weekend.

Before I left L.A. and my parents' nest, I made sure that my mom gave me a lesson in how to make those tasty gravies she is always pulling out of . . . uh, nowhere. Scrape the drippings, add the Wondra flour and Kitchen Bouquet, some wine and some orange juice, a bit of boullion maybe . . . voila! I've made probably 20 gravies since living here and they have - without exception- rocked the palate.

In my best effort to impress my mother-in-law with my new-found kitchen skillz, I was all excited when we decided to roast a chicken on Saturday night. Pyrex baking dish full-o-bird, the leeks, onions and anise stuffed all around, I took the thing out of the oven, removed the bird and veggies and popped the dish onto 2 hot burners on the stove top. Now I was cookin' with gas! or, electricity, as it were . . .

However, there's something my mom didn't tell me, apparently because it is so obvious that she didn't think she needed to: that is, one does not put a glass baking dish on top of a hot stove to cook the gravy, or one will have gravy-magma all over one's kitchen!

Yup, my huge lot of tasty gravy- orange juice, wine, boullion all melded so nicely and almost finished- exploded and sent pints and pints of molten gravy all over my stove top. Oh, and this would be a good time to mention that our house here has - ready for it? CARPET in the kitchen. Who puts carpet in the kitchen? It's literally impossible to clean it. We call it the "chicken carpet" because you can slop all sorts of infectious kitchen detritus - like salmonella-filled chicken juice- all over it and it just magically disappears, absorbed and seemingly gobbled up by the creepy carpet. YUK.

I didn't take a picture because I was too freaked out- I'd just walked away when it exploded and barely escaped having boiling grease all over my body. It pretty much looked like this, but with gnarly looking gravy pouring all over the avocado green stove and running down the front of the stove, sprinkled with vicious bits of glass. I guess I'm not alone, at least. I found a really good article about the phenomenon of exploding pyrex, which appears to be happening more frequently. Anyway, I think I've used up my one "Back when we were newlyweds living in New York, I was cooking for your grandmother and did the dumbest thing . . . "

Chicago's Millennium Park

Due to Thanksgiving and other generalized laziness, I have not been so great about blogging. So forgive the lag in my entries. As I last wrote, we were in Chicago the weekend before Thanksgiving, and I still have some cool photos, so I'll pick up where I left off.

When I was working on the downtown L.A. revitalization, I was involved with the planning and development of a 3-decades-in-the-making, it's-gonna-be-L.A.'s-Champs-Elysee development called Grand Avenue. All the while, the developers kept referring to Chicago's Millennium Park as their model because it was just sooooooo great. With all that talk, and the fact that hardly anyone seemed to have actually experienced the mythical "Millennium Park," I figured it must actually be quite lame.

No so, my friend. If you ever get to Chicago, Millennium Park is not to be missed. The giant bean-looking thing above must be 30 feet tall (the impression on the underside alone is like 10 feet tall) and is hands-down the most impressive sculpture I've ever seen. It took over a year to polish the steel to that kind of fun-house mirror finish and the thing, formally called "Cloud Gate" but colloquially known as the Bean, is something that literally looks different every time you look at it, and from every different perspective. It's just ridiculous gravy on top that it reflects Chicago's incredible architectural skyline and blue skies.

The other photo is of one of these giant glass-block-covered video screens- 2 of these face each other- that are also like 40 feet tall. The best part- and you can't see it in the photo- is that the screens have a spout at the mouth level so it looks like the faces are spewing water out onto the concourse, where people can frolic. Un-freaking-believable park. And I haven't even mentioned the ice skating rink or the 6,000 person outdoor amphiteather.

OK, so where am I going here? You know that I couldn't step 10 paces into the park without being knocked over by the fact that there were NO homeless people anywhere to be found. I flagged down a roving park security guard who drives, get this a SEGWAY! (soooo "millennial") and asked him where all the homeless people were. How do you manage to have NONE?

The strapping, cute young white guy- who stood about 7 1/2 feet tall on top of the Segway- when pressed replied, "Well we don't beat them up or anything. I mean, it's a public park and all!" To which I had to explain that No, I was not looking for his military tactics at bruising the poor to keep them out. I just meant that, well, I was from L.A. and we have them in every public park you can find . . . was the secret in keeping the park well-programmed so there are always lots of "regular" folks in there . . . ah, forget it, I had already horrified the fresh faced young guy with what he thought I was suggesting . . .

Welcome to Midwestern America

I was talking with John about how I was glad that people in Binghamton aren't extraordinarily huge and fat, as they are in much of middle-America. I think that is because the really huge people are descended from farmer stock- the big Germanic people who came over to America to pull ploughs and such.

Our people in Binghamton (did I just say that?) are more descended from the manufacturers who came to America around the turn of the century to work in the shoe and cigar factories. John didn't quite understand what phenomenon I was talking about, and I said "Oh just wait until we get to Chicago. You'll see. There will be HUGE people."

As if on cue, this man was sitting near us at our first meal here. I'm not trying to be mean, just wanting to point out that different parts of our country have different body types. I don't think you'd see a man this big in L.A. Not only thick, he was also very tall- I wouldn't be surprised if he was pushing 500 pounds!

Urban Campers in Binghamton

After working for a couple of years in Los Angeles' Skid Row, I am quite familiar with the "urban camping" phenomenon. So when I see a line of tents on the sidewalk, I immediately grab for my sanitized handi-wipes and steel myself to enter the sphere of filth and disease that proliferates in an environment full of human waste, highly infectious disease, syringes, and crazy drug- and mental-illness-induced behavior.

Not so in Binghamton. This was the scene outside of our local Target on Wednesday night. Apparently Play Station III is coming out or something, and all these dorks camped out in the brrrrrrrr cold at least 2 days ahead of time. A police car cruised right by, but, alas, somehow this kind of camping is acceptable, apparently.

"Men" Who Knit

This weekend we are in Chicago, where John is attending a psychological conference and I'm tagging along. We flew through Dulles airport in Washington, D.C. On that leg of the trip, we picked up travelling companions Senator Barak Obama and also a very nattily-dressed young "man." He was wearing a pinstriped coat, tie and tie clip, snappy leather cap, and . . . knitting needles?

First of all, these needles were metal and freaking HUGE. After all that time in (92% white) Binghamton, people were already starting to look like terrorists to me, and then add to it this strangely-dressed person with huge, metal, pointed sticks? How is it that those can come on board, along with Senator Obama no less, while others can't bring their hair gel?

Alas, some of the mystery was possibly solved when we were at the baggage claim and John observed that it was not a man at all, but more likely a young woman. I think that once he saw her in action, the feminine hands were a give away.

I went through a weird emotional process at this point: I was conflicted because I couldn't figure out if I found it more disturbing that a) a woman would be dressed as a man (and fool me so easily), or that b) a man might actually be a knitter. I think this makes me a bad person for some (as yet unidentified exactly) reason, but I believe that I was more freaked out by the notion that a man was knitting. In some weird way, that violated my ideas about gender roles more than a woman dressed as a man.

Broome County Voting

We went to vote tonight after work, and I have to admit it's the first time I've ever voted at an actual voting booth, since I've always done absentee ballot (OK, my mom always voted for me, I admit it.)

First, let me regale you with exciting local voting "fun facts" and tell you that I did not do absentee ballot because I was pretty certain that voting, like everything else around here, would require no waiting in line and be extremely convenient. No letdown here: Binghamton's 45,000 residents have no fewer than 30 voting locations to choose from (Broome County's 195,000 residents have 129 locations, in total), no lines to speak of.

My voting machine looked pretty much exactly like this, but with much uglier flowered/striped curtains that looked like an old lady's kitchen curtains. It was circa 1960-something and the big old lever cracked me up. I had to call the lady in a couple of times to help me out. Kind of embarassing but I'm getting used to being an idiot since I moved here, anyway.

The best part, though, was the well-dressed middle-aged woman who was really irate the whole time she was there voting. See, New York state is absolutely freaking ridiculous in the government jobs it funds, and that especially does not go over well in an area like Broome County where the economy has been in the tank for decades, people are fleeing in search of jobs, and the old people left behind are really getting poorer and poorer.

Anyway, the lady sounded exactly like me!! She was going off about how angry she is that Broome County has nearly 20 school districts and each one has a superintendent who makes . . . are you ready for it? . . . OVER $130,000!!!

To put this into perspective, a starting lawyer at the top-paying law firm in the region makes $56,000. That same lawyer at an analagous firm in Los Angeles might make around $130,000 (of course they would work twice as many hours, but bear with me). So, by that ratio, it would be like a school superintendent in Los Angeles making $400,000. And having TWENTY of those jobs!! Each school district only has a few thousands kids in it, at most. Just crazy that the highest paying jobs in the county are public school executives . . . who don't even produce or sell anything . . . and just suck up taxpayer money.

This is yet another reason I'm so glad we didn't buy a house here and have to pay like 4% in property taxes each year, only to watch the house not appreciate in value.

Found Him: The Most Powerful Man In Binghamton!

If you know me, you know that I have a knack for sniffing out the influential people in the organization. This came in handy when I was lobbying. For example, one of the most powerful people in Los Angeles City Hall, at least as far as the lobbyists were concerned, was Louie the parking lot attendant. "Parking lot attendant" is really not adquate to describe him; he is literally a gatekeeper, in his post at the guard shack at the entrance to the parking lot inside the bowels of the City Hall building itself.

Having an "in" with Louie, and the few coveted parking spots he guarded for the Mayor, the City Council members, and a few lucky others meant the difference between leaving your car in climate-controlled, covered comfort, and walking literally 2 steps into the building . . . or parking in one of the far-flung lots that have sprung up to inconveniently accomodate cars in the modern era (in 1928 when L.A. City Hall was built, they didn't plan for these things too well).

At my old job, we literally paid Louie off: gift certificates at Christmastime, I think we even sponsored some advertisement or something on his uncle's local access TV show or some craziness like that. It all sounded sleazy to me, paying off a public servant for the use of public space, but I admit that I looked the other way because it was worth it, whatever the price.

So you can imagine my sense of accomplishment when I finally zeroed in on him: The Most Powerful Man in Binghamton. His name is Gary. He doesn't need a last name. He is . . . the guy in charge of maintaining the lanes at the Binghamton Club's private bowling alley.

I immediately caught on to Gary's magical powers when I sat with John's new bowling buddies on the first night of the bowling season a few weeks ago. The half-dozen guys sitting around the table were all relative big-shots around here, but the conversation focused not on business or even sports, but on Gary and their predictions about how he was going to oil the lanes next week, and the next.

Would it be "extra oily," in which case the ball gets less traction, spins less and therefore curves less? Or not-so-oily, in which case the ball will roll with more of an arc, which must be compensated for by the bowler? Enquiring minds wanted to know! And speculate. And, knowing these guys, most likely take bets on it.

At the end of the day, Gary the somewhat-mentally-challenged guy in charge of lane maintenance at the Binghamton Club wields more power than he could possibly know.

But I know!

Those wild and crazy turkey parties . . .

Below is an actual listing from this weekend's Press & Sun Bulletin. It left me extremely curious about what goes on at these so-called "Turkey Parties" that they are expressly barring minors from them. For the $2.50 fee, it can't be free booze, can it?

The mind conjures up disturbing images of naked turkey revelers in some sort of Bacchanalian feast, ladling cranberry sauce on each other or throwing stuffing-balls across the room in an Animal House-style food fight.

OK, I know, I need to get out more, but I can't make this stuff up. Here it is:

Annual October Turkey Party
West Colesville Fire Company
1305 Colesville Road, Binghamton
Doantion at the door $2.50, per person
NO MINORS ALLOWED,
Doors open at 6:30pm,
Turkey party starts at 7:00pm.

Majoring in Combating Terrorism, Minoring in Cosmetic Mule-Ass Shaving

Last weekend, I drove the 150 miles to West Point to meet up with my brother's family for a football game. The drive was gorgeous on a crisp fall morning, and the West Point campus is ridiculously beautiful. As we got a guided campus tour from Eric's buddy, we noticed a few indicators that this was not your normal college campus. My favorite was the sign for the building that offered classes both in English and in Combating Terrorism, both of which, I'm sure, are majors offered there.

The whole campus seems very student-run: one assumes, for example, that the public restrooms are cleaned with toothbrushes by "plebes" working off their demerits, for example. So later in the day, when we were at the game, I couldn't help but laugh when I saw that the school mascot, the "Fighting Mule," had a lovely "A" embossed in its hindquarters quite artfully and expertly: a big patch of hair was shaved almost to the skin, then hair in the shape of an "A" was allowed to grow back extra-long, then the "A" was carefully died blonde, for added contrast.
It left me to assume that a student had performed this feat of equine coiffing, and I wondered, does someone from West Point "minor" in something like Cosmetic Mule-Ass Shaving? It's certainly an important job, since everyone looks at it and it's a source of school pride, so whoever performs the task certainly has it on their resume somewhere.

But how is it worded? The military has such funny ways of describing stuff, is it called something important-sounding, like Veterinary Honor Guard Command Operations? I'm not feeling creative this morning, but I bet there's no end of fancy ways to describe the job of shaving and highlighting the hair on a mule's ass, and no matter how you describe it, it's probably not what the guy was envisioning when he signed up to be an army vet.

Columbus Day is a holiday: who knew??

In all my 33 years, I do not ever remember Columbus Day being anything other than an excuse for a sale at Wicke's Furniture or something. I honestly was shocked when I came to work this morning and saw that Court Street outside my office window had been transformed into a parade route.

Apparently Columbus, in addition to discovering the New World on this day in history, must have been a big fan of really bad high school marching bands, because Columbus Day seems to have transformed into an excuse for small town Battle of the Bands all over the country.

Upon further thought, I am pretty certain that I haven't heard a peep about Columbus Day in recent memory because it is not considered politically correct to memorialize the white European male who came to America, spread his syphilis to the natives, and ushered in an era of total European domination over the dark-skinned locals. In fact, I'm POSITIVE that's why I haven't heard of Columbus Day being acknowledged when I lived in L.A.

That said, I am well aware of Cesar Chavez Day, MLK Day, and, my personal favorite, Mexican Independence Day, which I am pretty certain is a holiday for the City of L.A. because my old boss used to rant and rave about that. I also am aware that the Big Jewish Holidays, Yom Kippur and/or Rosh Hashana, fall in September because I always thought it really funny that USC Law School had the Jewish holidays off, but USC Business School, the next-door building, did not.

When I am President of the Universe, I cannot wait to pick my own holidays: Date of Invention of Frozen Yogurt, Birthday of Guy Who Discovered Mascara, My Birthday, my old dog Daisy's Birthday, etc.

p.s. I spoke with my smart, 50+ year-old secretary after writing the above. I commented that I thought maybe Columbus Day wasn't so politically correct in California, but that we certainly had Cesar Chavez day off. She asked me, "What's a cesar chavez?"

Yes, that's right, yet another example of California being so far out of step with the rest of the country that it gives an entire state holiday to a man that probably 95% of the country could not identify. All because politicians are too chicken to vote "no" on the creation of more holidays, out of fear of looking racist. Ugh.