2010, OCTOBER

October 30

So Jerry Brown says he wants to “take the power from the state capital down to the local level, closer to the people.” Down to the level of, say, Bell—whose entire administration is under indictment for surreptitiously raising their own salaries and pensions in the manner of Fortune 500 CEO’s and paying for it with illegally assessed taxes.

Down to, say, Vernon—a city of 1800 businesses, 50,000 workers, and full-time population of 89. Vernon pays its administrators 7-figure salaries. Not that the populace is complaining, though: virtually all of the legal residents are members of the family. Vernon is now facing disincorporation, a particularly appropriate Halloween penalty.

Down to, say, Rancho Cucamonga—whose councilman was recently convicted of fraud for taking a county salary for a job he did not actually do. Why are they singling him out?

Or down to Irwindale—whose leaders face felony counts for their junkets to 5-star Manhattan restaurants and Broadway shows. They are only charged, so far, with misappropriating $200,000 from the redevelopment funds provided by the federal government. But I’d like to know where the rest of the money went: $87 million has been spent for affordable housing, but no affordable housing has been built.

If the Vernon dissolution solution is applied to all the other cities whose leaders are bleeding them dry, we could end up with a single, giant City of Southern California. Run by Bernie Parks and Mark Ridley-Diddley. Now that’s what I call Halloween scary.

Maybe what Jerry Brown means by bringing the power to the people is along the lines of “Here. It’s all yours. Government is hereby abolished.” A somewhat unusual attitude for a Democrat, but the Tea and Libertarian parties would be delighted. I can’t say it sounds all that much better to me, but Italy long ago proved that anarchy is a viable form of government. And it would certainly be cheaper.

October 25

The recently completed new Holiday Inn Express in San Dimas seems to be doing decent business. It’s the third motel within a block. Now, I’ve lived in San Dimas for 25 years and it’s a nice little town. But it has no major tourist attractions, no serious industry, it’s not really on the way to anywhere else, and it’s 30 minutes from downtown LA when there is no traffic and no accidents on the freeway, which is approximately never. So I’d like to know who stays there?

This mystifying circumstance is not limited to my town: you see not one, but clusters of motels all over in places you would swear nobody goes. What induces somebody to put up a third motel where people don’t go? Why don’t they go bankrupt immediately?

Come to think of it, how does Starbuck’s get away with putting coffee shops closer together than stoplights? The answer is, they don’t—they finally overreached and have had to start closing some of them. But still, you have to wonder. Why would they build stores so close together that you could walk across the country and have Starbuck’s coffee with every meal?

There’s no point in asking the barristas in the Starbuck’s next to the gym, or in the Starbuck’s on the corner a half-mile away, or even the Starbuck’s inside the Von’s market in the SAME PARKING LOT. Their understanding of business stops at “Do you want room for cream?”

I tried to ask the Holiday Inn corporate office, but nobody who might have known wanted to discuss it. I did ask the manager of the new motel if he had any idea who his customers were. He thought they got a lot of traffic because of the county fair, which would explain September, and business people selling stuff to stores like Home Depot and Costco. People come to the fair and stay overnight? Who knew?

October 20

The hottest new chef in town doesn’t even have a fixed place of work: he moves from place to place every few weeks and his fans follow him. He was last seen cooking for some weeks in an art gallery, and before that at a place called Gram & Papa’s. Why does he do this? Apparently because he was a flop (he got one star from our local food critic) when he had a real job in a restaurant. So how does he manage? Well, he’s pretty and has a French accent, his wife is a marketing genius, and he makes cutting-edge cuisine.

What the hell is “cutting edge cuisine”? Sounds dangerous--I’m not sure I’d want it in my mouth. Like blowfish in a sushi bar. Maybe that’s the point.

October 12

Seems like more and more cars are being recalled these days, even Hondas. We were just notified that ’01 and ’02 Accords have a defective airbag detonator (Detonator? Man, I wouldn’t have used that term. Actuator, maybe.) that could be extremely dangerous. This is the 2011 model year: how dangerous could it be if it took them 9 or 10 years to find out about it? On the other hand, maybe they knew it all along, but are just getting around to mentioning it. What else do you suppose the auto manufacturers aren’t telling us?

October 7: Ingenious solutions to problems you didn’t know you had:

Eyeglasses with individual flip-up lenses, for photographers who want to put one eye in the viewfinder and leave the other eye corrected.

The Avo-Saver, a device for sale in the supermarket that looks like a leprechaun’s sandal. It’s shaped like half an avocado, with a central depression for the pit, intended to store the leftover half and keep it fresh. Probably works almost as well as Saran Wrap, if you cut your avocado exactly in half lengthwise, and the pit fits in the hole.

Next to it on the shelf is its cousin, the Nana-Saver, a plastic cap the shape of half a banana for people who habitually eat only half and want to cover the cut end of the banana to save for later. And don’t have any Saran Wrap. Who eats half a banana, anyway?

Also a banana slicer—the produce section is a veritable trove of useless products. I mentioned once before that if you need a machine to slice a banana, you shouldn’t be shopping by yourself. There are actually all sorts of slicers in the market that nobody needs; for apples, oranges, avocados (it actually only slices half an avocado, the half you didn’t put in your Avo-Saver)…who buys this stuff?

If preparing your fruit for consumption is just too trying, get yourself a mechanical apple peeler.

I also noticed a gadget called a Spoon ‘n’ Spat: a spatula on one end and a skinny little spoon on the other. I have no problem with the device; the spoon could actually be useful for getting ketchup out of the bottle. But it should have been called a Spoonula. Or, better, a Spatoon.

For only $6.99 you can buy a 3” High Speed Air Cutter. I’m not sure what this is. May be useful in Los Angeles, I suppose.

Someone suggested that an umbrella hat

is a solution without a problem, but I’m not so sure. An umbrella is useful, but it ties up an entire hand that you might need for other things; if you use a cane and walk to your car in the rain, you don’t have a hand left to get out the car keys. I’ve used an umbrella hat, and I kind of like it. It’s an odd thing to carry around and it’s a little too small to be terribly effective, but it does keep the rain off your glasses (I don’t have one of those eyeglass windshield wipers). I’d rate the umbrella hat at least an imperfect solution to a potential problem.

A golf umbrella, on the other hand, is truly a solution without a problem. If you are playing golf in the rain, you have bigger problems than keeping dry.

And how about a device that dispenses ice cubes from your refrigerator door? If they hadn’t invented it, would you ever have guessed you needed it? If you have one and love it I’m sorry, but really—you can’t open the door to get the ice?

Regarding your question, "who buys this stuff?": there is a whole industry based on the creation of products which will only ever be purchased as gifts.  I can personally attest to this as the proud owner of an avocado slicer, an egg cuber, a pair of egg coddlers, corers, and various other semi-nonsensical culinary tools.  People know I cook, and they want to provide me with something novel that will help me do that.  In a first-world culture riddled with men-who-have-everything, this kind of industry is something of a necessity.  Ingenious, really.  Probably there is even an annual convention of some sort, and I'm dying to go if I can figure out when and where it is.

Re the umbrella hat, your point is good but I have found another, usually less garish item which I can use to keep the rain off my glasses.  It is called a "hat."

I am with you on the refrigerator door ice cube dispenser.  We have one, and I always, always open the door and reach in and grab the ice instead.  I don't ever use the cool water spigot either.  I consider the dispenser a waste of space, but we couldn't find a decent refrigerator that didn't have one.  It's like trying to buy a cell phone without a camera. --DG

I must differ on the door mounted ice cube dispenser -- I would like one, not just because it's convenient (you don't need to go rooting around inside the freezer) but it must also be more energy efficient. How much energy is wasted over years of opening the fridge to get ice? (That would be an interesting thing to calculate, actually -- the cost-per-five second opening of a freezer or fridge door). Thought now it occurs to me -- is the freezer door less efficient when closed if it has a big recessed ice dispenser mounted where there should be insulation? --PF

October 4

I read that the University of California Pension Plan is looking at a $20 billion shortfall. Because they invested with Bernie Madoff? No. Because they got caught in the market crash? No. Because the Regents, in their infinite wisdom, decided twenty years ago that the plan was overfunded so they stopped putting money into it. This is the same pension plan that deducted my contribution from my paycheck while I worked there (ever so briefly) and years later couldn’t find any record of it. When I sent them my copy, they allowed as how I wouldn’t be eligible to get it back anyway because I forfeited my pension (even my contribution) when I left.

I hope they have an Economics course, as well as one in Ethics, in the prison where they send the criminally negligent.

The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect--well, yes, come to think of it, I guess they do.

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