FACE IN THE CROWD

Whenever I log onto Facebook, my life flashes before my eyes. And I don't think I like that very much. I'm certainly an easy mark for the site's more addictive qualities -- the word games, the indulgent "things about me" lists, comparing how I've aged against people I've known for decades. Facebook functions as a reunion of every facet of my life -- and it makes me realize I don't want to spend too much time in some of those places. 

I used to be someone who clung closely to nostalgia -- I'd pull out old photos, read old letters, think of how much better things used to be, because, of course, the present never measure up when its measured against the past or the future. I'm not very nostalgic anymore, though. Part of the reason is I no longer have the space in my mind and time in my life to take those flights of fancy. Also, my house lacks meaningful shelf space, so the pictures, the letters, the boxes of memories stay out of sight in the garage, piled under garbage bags filled with outgrown kids clothes and grocery bags filled with receipts dating back to forever. My vinyl's in there as well. I do harbor a fantasy of converting the garage into an office/hang space in which my kids will be introduced to this primitive form of music listening. It doesn't look good at the moment, but it is this small thing that keeps me pushing forward, attempting to convert my creativity into an impossible amount of cash. 

As for the nostalgia, I get more than I could ever ask for on Facebook. All eras of my life are represented among my 300 + "friends." There's a girl I've known since the age of 6. There's the high school people, the college people, the people I've known through various jobs and the women I've kissed, slept with, or at least wanted to. In this virtual world, all is forgiven. We can all be "friends" and share our kids' pictures and be really anything we want to be, creating personas via the types of items we post or link to, the notes we create, and the professional shilling (oh, sorry, networking) that sometimes goes far beyond what I would define as good taste. 

I experience a particular sensation with I check in with my college friends. I was a student at UC Berkeley in the 1980s and lived in a co-op called Barrington Hall. I won't attempt to describe the living experience here, other than to say it was like a really passionate, really unhealthy love affair that seems a lot more fulfilling when seen through the rear view mirror. 

There is an "Ex-Barringtonian" group on Facebook, of which I'm a member. Granted, I have no inhibitions about posting photos of myself from 20 years ago in various narcotic states, wearing various shades of eye shadow. Sometimes, though, I read the boards on the group page and get the same rush of emotions I felt when I lived there -- that there is a hierarchy in which only "old members" truly fit in. Objectively, I understand that this is merely my personal hang up. That perhaps there is a part of me stuck in a state of arrested development -- the insecure 20 year old who always felt on the outside looking in. Strangely, though, I was "friended"  by someone from Barrington who never bothered to speak to me when we lived together. And all I can think is Why? 

By contrast, when I observe (read: spy) on some of the "wall" postings of people whom I knew in high school, I realized that I had in fact grown. Certainly, I'm not the most private person; I've written extensively in print about my childhood, much of it not very pretty. But sometimes I feel like I'm at a high school reunion from hell -- that Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days" is on an endless loop (which, of course, makes me want to drive my car off a cliff). But again, this is my own hang up. I'm being judgmental, I suppose. Who am I to mock those wanting to capture some of the alleged magic of decades past? Well, why can't memories just be memories? 

The Internet just ruins everything. 

GOING UNDER

I guess the news was good. The doctor called me to tell me I have something called a granular cell tumor on my esophagus. Benign. 1cm. Not a big deal. We'll check it out in a year. Okay, great. I have to get sedated and have plastic shoved down my throat on an annual basis. This is it. Now it begins. Time to go on high alert with every tweak and pain. The slow crawl to the grave. Yeah, baby. 

I actually work the denial pretty well, especially when asked about it by those not in my immediate family. Still, it's a pretty hard slap at my completely irrational vision of a future in which my generation will live to be 200. 

It started with a visit to my doctor. I mentioned I had a small bit of discomfort while swallowing and he ordered X-rays. As a lovely parting gift, he told me he wanted to monitor my blood pressure since it seemed a bit high. 

Tickticktick. The X-rays come back and it's time to go to the hospital and have 30 minutes of my life wiped from my memory, thanks to the drugs used to knock me out. I wake up and have no sense that there was any intrusion into my body. I think the scariest part of any surgery are those moments leading up to the big event, when you are drilled with questions and a series of documents are shoved before you. I signed them, knowing  even without reading that they were largely clearing the hospital of wrongdoing should I accidently die from the anaesthetic. Whoops! But those guys are doctors. What, me worry?

But the doctor speaketh, and he gave me the clean bill. Easy for him to say.

 

BEWARE THE BEARD

Santa Claus gives me the creeps. Maybe it's because I'm a Jew in a Christian world. Maybe it's because I grew up virtually gentile for a large portion of my childhood. Flocked trees, plastic trees, ham encased in jiggly gelatin inside rusting tines, fake fireplaces with low-wattage yellow bulbs hiding behind accordion-textures cardboard. And Santa Claus. And that big, white, fucking beard. He's the whitest of wonder bread. Jesus. He's everywhere.

I've told the story before, but my "greatest" Christmas memory is when, at 12, I was sent by my gentile step-relatives to pick up beverages at that liquor store on Overland near Palms, the one with the duck on the sign, while the gifts were being opened. Sneaking into the Vatican to see the Pope for Midnight Mass with a consumed bottle of wine on Christmas Eve, 1986, gets an honorable mention. 

When I finally grew up, in my mid-30s, I became more interested in my Jewish faith, largely because it was important on my soon-to-be wife. We took it slowly, hitting the high holidays at the Shofar Group service, held at the DGA on Sunset. Rabbi Jan was our master of ceremonies, and he was the perfect Hollywood rabbi; his flock included many sitcom third bananas, so it almost felt glamorous. It was Jew-lite, but it helped me get a grip on what has become a fairly significant portion of my life. Now we belong to a conservative synagogue (though I admit I sometimes still have trouble wrapping my brain around that).

2008: Two superconsumers -- ages 6 and 3 -- run roughshod around our Valley Village crip. Chanukah is an every-five-minute discussion. Thank you, TV. You help pay my bills, but you are the fucking devil. (Though I will admit, I did Tivo something called Sex Change Hospital on the title alone.) Commercials are evil. "I want that" has replaced "hello," "please," and "thank you" in the kids' lexicon. And if we don't acknowledge their televised bloodlust, there is additional hell to pay. But I have it down to a science. I look up at the tube for a millisecond, say "ok," and that seems to satisfy them, at least until the next advert pops up. 

They're well-verse in Chanukay because they both attend a Jewish private school. Yet during those odd moments when we venture outside the house or school, we are bombarded with Santa Clause. And Santa Claus is like crack to my kids. 

We were at the horribly useless (except for H&M, my wife assures me) Americana mall in Glendale last weekend. It's bad enough that the very-good-but-still-overrated Katsu Ya opened a Eurotrashy outpost of their sushi empire there -- are they becoming the Chan Dara of sushi? Just asking -- but they've also put up one of those scary Santa's Workshop things in order to extort parents for big cash for cheeseball photos of the little ones sitting on the old guy's crusty lap. 

Of course, Emmett, my 6 year old, wanted to check it out. He wasn't totally psyched about it or anything, but maybe he thought there might be free candy (always worth a long wait in line). Or maybe it was like a science field trip -- to see how the parallel universe lives. Or may it was to have that reference in his memory for a punchline of some sort later in life.

We waited in line for about ten minutes before we were ushered in to meet with The Great One. By this time, we were joined by my wife, Carrie, and my daughter, Liv, 3. Liv was smartly freaked out by the fat guy in the red suit who wanted her to sit on his lap. Good girl. Instead, she clung to my leg, gawking at the spectacle of her brother -- the kid does homework that's entirely in Hebrew -- sitting on the lap of the embodiment of crass Goy-dom. 

I sensed Emmett regretted it as soon as he reluctantly got on the rent-a-Santa's knee. It was a proud moment, I must say. Santa had to work for his minimum wage with my son. Emmett didn't immediately cough up what was on his wish list. (Just ask me. I have it memorized.) Finally, he admitted he wanted video games. But when the guy asked if Emmett had been good this year, my boy paused. His expression was one of: And exactly why should I be telling you this? To his credit, Emmett told the truth. "Sometimes," he said.

I figured Emmett knew he could be honest. After all, he got his lollipop. And he knew Santa wasn't the guy he had to butter up in order to get what he wanted. 

FIXED

I'm going to be a bitter Angels fan now. I hate the idea that they're the Red Sox' bitch. The Red Sox, with the most loathsome fans in all of professional sports (they make Yankee fans seem like choir boys and girls by comparison), with the most loathsome of players. And to be beat by J.D. Fucking Drew, the poster child for all that is utterly wrong about major league baseball.  There is no baseball justice. 

But it could be worse. Scary right-wing blowhard Curt Schilling could be on the mound. But it's just terrible how it is. Ordinarily I'd embrace MOT ballplayers, but Kevin Youklis is just another loathsome Red Sox player. 

Have I lost hope? Well, it's not impossible. I'm not convinced Josh Beckett is 100 percent. The Angels do the one-game-at-a-time thing better than any other time, so they could possibly chip away and force a game five in Anaheim. But it's not gonna happen if the umpires remain firmly in the pocket of the Bud Selig, who is no doubt wet-dreaming about a Sox-Dodgers matchup. What else explains the out call on Torii Hunter, or K-Rod's perfect pickoff throw to Aybar in the 9th. 

Now, though, I'm thinking about next season. I'd do this: Ditch Vlad Guerrero, ditch K-Rod. Re-sign Anderson for less money and make him a fourth outfielder. "Cadillac" is as much Mr. Angel as the whitebread Tim Salmon. And pay Teixera whatever he wants. The Angels need the bats. Something's got to change. My team is becoming the 21st century Atlanta Braves: pretty to look at during the regular season, but totally befuddled in the post-season. 

DEBATE

Here's my Larry King blog. Bare with me.

I'm not very comfortable with a vice-presidential candidate who winks at a television camera during a debate... Is there an uglier shot in television than the wide shot during a debate when the person not speaking must smile or look amused when hearing a pile of shit from their opponent? I ask this because I thought McCain's reaction shots killed him, and Biden's reactions also looked oddly uncomfortable.... I sensed that the cameraguys at the debate had a good time shooting shots of Palin from behind... Never trust anyone who pronounces "nuclear" like this: nukeular.... 

Is Palin the backwoods female version of W?... Obama's an African American? Big deal: Biden would be the first VP with plugs. 

I've obsessively followed this campaign like no other, simply because I'm the demographic targeted by the democrats: the middle class on the verge of falling by the wayside. I hate to blame the government for my own life, but I hate Bush, so what the hell. It's all your fault... It's a dream of mine that Bush, Chaney et. al. will be charged with warcrimes, crimes against the state, anything we can get to stick, to make them pay for their atrocities... would Palin's grin be best described as "shit-eating?"

Eight years ago, my wife and I sort-of-seriously spoke of bolting for Canada if Bush got elected. Now, while feel I confident that Obama will be elected, I think we would move if McCain became president. Watching McCain and Palin open their mouths every day, pandering to the rich and the right, I will be packing my bags if this country is seriously moronic enough to buy into their bullshit.

Re-sign Rafael Furcal... 

Younger Than That Now

I'm the number on Henry Aaron's back. Another birthday came and went and, for the first time, I'm uncomfortable revealing my age. 44 just seems roundly middle-aged and I simply can't spit it out without a struggle. The march toward death somehow seems much less abstract than even a few days ago, when I was still a spry 43. I was reminded by a dear college friend that I thought the universe would explode the day I turned 20 -- but that was mostly the byproduct of being a transfer student at Berkeley surrounded by 18-year-old freshmen (and by virtue of my transfer status, which made me somehow less than...). Then again, I did always try to act older. Even as a child  I did it, probably as a mechanism to mask my-less-than-ideal upbringing as the product of a welfare-reliant single mom.  

As a result, I became far too serious about my lot in life. I was obsessed with career, with relationships. Gripping way too tight. Not pretty. Stupid, really. Again, if I want to blame everything on my childhood -- and I believe using childhood as an excuse for anything that happens in the present is just a crutch -- I was trying to overcompensate for the waterbed-like fluidity of my youth, searching for the solid ground I alone could provide. 

I learned to not rely on my parents, 'cause if I did, I'd be disappointed. So I married young, sold myself out young, because I was in a hurry. I often think about the path I took, one that has mostly kept me in Los Angeles, for better or worse.  Till I'm dead, I will long to live elsewhere. 

I guess it's been the usual sort of life. I've gotten to mostly do what I've wanted but I'm not particularly satisfied with my accomplishments. Somehow, there's something more interesting and more rewarding up ahead. It's one of the things that keeps me going. I suspect it's much the same with everyone. 

44. So now I'm thinking, I've got to get my ass in gear. My wife reminds me that our son's bar mitzvah is just seven years away, a thought that takes my breath away when I seriously ponder it.  Time is passing. It stares at me through my windshield every morning on my short commute: South on Colfax from Burbank to Ventura, left on Ventura to the Cahuenga Pass.   I've somehow been fated to live my life in the San Fernando Valley, the same region in which I was raised, a place that seriously reflects who I am -- and I say that proudly without irony (no, really). But it's not the same place. The change in the area I lived -- Sepulveda, Panorama City -- is drastic. The fact that these communities have become something of a haven for Spanish-speaking immigrants speaks loudly about the tenuous state of the area when I moved here in 1973. Sepulveda was a low-rent community then; thus, the price was right for us. The price is right now.

I live not far from where I grew up, but it's not the same place. (Thank god the Frosty Queen in Granada Hills remains untouched by time) This past summer, I took my son to swimming lessons, held at a private home on the Granada Hills-Northridge border. My old teenage stomping grounds. Now feels real ghetto. But in early 1979, I moved from a ratty apartment in Sepulveda to a rented house in Granada Hills north of Chatsworth Street and west of Louise. Though we had a septic tank, an unmowed lawn and four or five junked-out old Buicks taking up lawn space at any one time, I thought I'd moved to fucking Beverly Hills. The photo at the top of this website was taken in my backyard -- where my beautiful 1968 Camaro was often parked. When I say I'm Jewish White Trash, I'm not lying. 

So now I'm 44. Four years short of the age in which my mother died. An age in which my mind tells me it's time to haul ass. Fucking hell. When do we get to relax? 

THIS IS WHAT THE EVIL, SOUL-SUCKING TV INDUSTRY IS ALL ABOUT

Six years ago I kissed goodbye my career as a journalist. Which, in hindsight, may not have been such a bad thing, given what's happened to the print business in the last few years. I'd had pretty cool jobs at big national publications, but in early 2002, I was editing a trade magazine dedicated to the adult internet business. In other words, I was feeling like a giant-sized bag o' fail. 

Then VH1 came calling. They were looking for journalists to help produce a show called Ultimate Albums. It was a brutal, pressure-filled environment in which producers were being fired mid-stream if they didn't have their shit, and their scripts, totally together. For whatever reason, I was able to hang on, and decided that I wanted continue to pursue TV as a career. What was I thinking (but that's a story for another day)?

Along the way, I began pitching shows to my big boss at VH1. None stuck, until maybe now, although I'm not getting any credit for it. In an email dated July 5, 2002, I sent an email with some ideas to my friend Jennifer Vineyard, who worked for MTV in New York. Here's a synopsis for one: 

Birthright: What's it like to be the scion of a rock god or goddess. This 30-minute show would explore the lives of rock star progeny. What path did they take in their lives? Do rock stars make good parents? Lots to choose from here: Wendy and Carnie Wilson; Chynna Phillips; Elijah Blue Allman; Jakob Dylan; Jason Nesmith; Louis Goffin; Rufus Wainwright; Derek Trucks; Julian and Sean Lennon; Zak Starkey; Jason Bonham; Teddy Thompson. Of course, parent and child could jam together at the end of each show.

Six years later, Jen sent me an email: "Sounds like you came up with Cradle of Rock," she wrote. Did I really come up with Cradle of Rock, or is it an amazing coincidence? Is it odd that the person to whom I pitched the show said to the the production company that picked it up that he'd been trying to sell it for five years? Is it odd that he told me he didn't have hiring power for the show when I later learned he was in fact interviewing producers for that very show?

Certainly, the idea is not brain surgery, so I'll give the responsible party the benefit of the doubt. I'm not mad, but it does confirm how ugly and evil this business can be.