My Pops

I want every one to know that I love my Pops. I have always loved my Pops. I can't remember a time in my life where I didn't respect and care about my Pops. If you aren't familiar with my family allow me to inform you that "Pops" is what my brothers and I call our dad. I can't really tell you for certain when we started calling him Pops but whenever that was it stuck and we have been calling him that ever since.

Anyway, I really do love my Pops. We've never had "issues". I never resented him for anything he did while I was a child. We've had one semi-serious argument since I was 12 and we both admitted we were wrong and hugged and made up within 20 minutes of the dust up (for the record, I was more wrong than he was). Basically, we'd make for a really boring episode of a day-time talk show.

My Pops never claimed to be the smartest man alive, but he was always ready with an answer for any query we threw at him. I remember a time when we were driving down interstate 5 in central California and I asked him what the giant stands with the large propeller things were for. He quickly told me that they were called windmills and they kept the earth spinning on its axis. A little farther down the road we saw the other kind of wind mills, the kind that look like giant egg beaters. When I asked him what that kind was for, he without a moments hesitation told me that they kept the air in our atmosphere circulating so that we wouldn't breathe stale air. In other words, my Pops was a creative genius.

I would like to tell you about an event in our family's history that has become a story that will be passed down from generation to generation until it is only spoken of in distant memory but with the utmost respect for my Pops.

One day in 1992 my Pops came home from work and told my mom he needed to speak to her privately. Now this was weird because in a family of 7 privacy is a foreign concept. But he stressed that it must be private and it must be now. He led my mom back to their bedroom, closed the door behind them and told her she had better sit down. What happened next is legendary.

My Pops had a very concerned and pained look on his face. He began pacing back and forth in front of my mom and wringing his hands. He kept muttering things like, "I need to tell you something important."; I'm not sure how to say this"; "This will be hard for you to understand."

My mom is a worrier. She (not unlike me) can see the worst possible outcome in a situation and it makes her nervous and causes her discomfort. She is not a worrier to the point that she stays up at night wondering and troubled about unimportant things. But when something gives her adequate cause for concern it will bother her. As she was sitting there on the bed a million terrible thoughts were rushing through her mind: Is he having an affair? does he have cancer?did Tom Selleck die? (you'd have to know my mom to understand that one).

My Pops just continued pacing back and forth. He was completely distraught at how exactly he would drop this difficult news on his wife. His worry was how she would look at him after she knew his secret. The pain of the task that lay before him was evident in every aspect of his demeanor. His countenance had dropped. A line of perspiration had appeared across his forehead. He was so fraught with worry and anguish.

At this point my mom was really concerned. She was trying to gather herself, to summon all of her courage, in order to pry this troubling information from him and begin to deal with the fallout. In her best "calm" voice she said,

"Rod, just tell me."

My Pops stopped in his tracks. He turned and faced her. He leaned in close, and with an ashen face and in a raspy voice he told her his secret.

"Kay....I'm Batman!"

Yep, that's it! My Pops is brilliant. This maybe the greatest practical joke a man has ever played on his wife. This story is often rehearsed in our family, usually with a tone of awe and raucous laughter. My Pops is a comic genius! I love seeing the expressions on people's faces as I share this story. I wish I could be sitting next to you in person now just to see your face when you read the line above.

I love my Pops for many reasons, but I will always fondly recall this moment of triumph. Every time I think of it a smile spreads across my face and my heart swells with pride. I wish everyone had the same kind of relationship with their dad that I have with mine, but let's face it, not everybody grows up with batman as a father.

My Montezuma's Revenge

Have you ever met one of those people who always orders the same thing at a restaurant? It doesn't seem to matter that they've been there eleventy-hundred times, they will without fail order the same exact thing. It doesn't matter if the restaurant were to mark up the price a bazillion times, they'd either quit eating there or shell out the money! Do those people annoy you? Do you find yourself wanting to grab them and shake them and scream, "For the love of everything sacred and holy, will you please just pick something else!"? If this is true of you, putting aside your obvious need of therapy of some kind, you may want to discontinue your perusal of my blog. For yes, as you may have guessed, I am one of those people.

If that bothers you then I am sorry that I don't really care about your personal issues. If you haven't caught on yet, this blog is not about you--unless you have the misfortune of being one of those people that annoy me enough to write about. In which case, it is very much about you, but not the way you probably hoped.

As I mentioned earlier, I am one of those people who gets the same thing every time I go to a particular restaurant. If I may (which again, this is my blog, so yes I may), I would like to let you know why I have become such a creature of habit. Pure and simply put, I find security and comfort in it. If I don't try anything new, I am never disappointed. Every now and then at the behest of my wife, I will sample a new entree and almost every time, I am disappointed.

Despite my predilection to culinary invariability, I feel that I would make an excellent food critic. You may scoff at such conjecture but what I lack in variety I more than make up for in ability to aptly describe what I am eating and can be very persuasive when called upon. If you are one of those narrow minded sorts who thinks that you have to have a variety of experience to know what's the best, I would just ask, Who is more of the fool-the man who knows what he likes and orders that or the man who tries a hundred different things, only to settle upon the exact same thing that another man chose at once?

However, my point is not to tout my own prowess, but to pass on to you what I have learned from my trip to several different Mexican food eateries. First off let me state, I lack the consent of these places to mention them in my blog, therefore I will be giving them fictitious names. However, I will be leaving clues so that you might surmise the identities of these establishments and steer clear or patronize them at your leisure. Secondly, I would like to say that my findings may be somewhat tainted as I am a fan of tex-mex and not Mexican food in its traditional form. I have been to Mexico and I feel that we in America make it so much better. ( I here illustrate my point by directing your attention to Chinese food. It was just mediocre until they brought it to America and some genius said, "Why don't we try deep frying it?" and a succulent sensation was sired).

Let us now turn our attention to the first restaurant (these are listed in order of my favorite from least to most). Let's call this restaurant "The little bull". This restaurant is considered tex-mex but it may be more accurate to refer to it as mex-tex because it is far more Mexican-y than it is Texas-y. Here I ordered, the taquito/flauta platter. Mostly because I don't like this restaurant very much and feel it is next to impossible to mess up a taquito. I will say that they were good and the Mexican Cesar salad was delicious (the pine nuts add a special twist). I would have quite enjoyed my meal if it hadn't been for the woman seated at the table next to us. I am not sure how old she was but I am quite certain that she is too old to be that plastered at 5:00. She was so tanked that when she had finished drinking her meal, she refused to tip her waiter, preferring instead to give the money to the bus boy who had been shuttling the drinks she was imbibing from the bar, fueling her booze soaked repast. Overall, I give the restaurant 4 stars (out of a possible 100). It was good, but if you want me to return you'll find someway to quarantine the alcoholics in the bar!

Next on my list of lunch is a little restaurant we shall call "Blevy's". Some people think it is named thus because it was founded by actor Blevy Chase, but that is just an urban legend. Here, I ordered the flautas and empanada platter (are you beginning to see a pattern?). The food was terrific. I especially like this restaurant because if it is your birthday they give you a big sombrero with "Blevy's" written on it. The thing I wish to address here is the hostess. When we walked in the man with whom I was eating said to her, "Tres, Senorita!" She looked at him perplexedly and said, "I am sorry, I don't speak Spanish." I interpreted for her and we somehow made it to our seats. As much as I love Blevy's, I am concerned that they employ such people and am forced to ponder-if this is who they have as the face of their company, what kind of mental midget is working the grill?

Much of my young life I considered Blevy's to be my favorite but only because I hadn't learned that our next restaurant existed. As my #1 favorite restaurant I give you, (drum roll) Over the Boarder! They have the best empanadas, flautas, nachos and pretty much anything else you would find at a tex-mex restaurant. If you have noticed, I have mentioned multiple items because this is one of those rare instances in which I was not disappointed by venturing outside of my comfort zone. As a matter of fact, I have never been disappointed by Over the Boarder. Their food is excellent, I have never met a waiter/waitress, host or cook I didn't like. They are even selective in their clientele. They don't let just any one eat there. If you choose to eat there, you are obviously a person of high taste and astute discernment.

Well, I suppose I have ignored my boys long enough. They are threatening to get me banned from Over the Boarder if I don't stop and play with them. I know they're probably bluffing, but that's not a hand I'm willing to play!

My Driver's Education

When I was a kid I can remember watching the cartoons on the Disney Channel (mind you this was back when they showed Disney Cartoons-you know Mickey, Donald and Goofy not Miley, Lindsey or (insert name of latest "tween" sweetheart to foster the image of a rebellious harlot to get back at Disney for forcing childhood innocence upon them into their teen years). One of my favorite cartoons was the one about Goofy becoming a different person behind the wheel of a car. I remember distinctly how he was very calm and polite and would go out of his way to avoid even stepping on a bug and then he would get behind the wheel and transform into a Mr. Hyde- type character. This once caring and concerned citizen became a tyrannical despot who felt that all others should yield to him and allow him the right of way. He didn't just feel that way, he considered it his right and demanded others' observance of it.

I only bring this up because I have been contemplating my own driving skills and feel that I also make a sort of Hyde-esque transformation when driving a vehicle. Before you get on your high horse and "tsk-tsk" me, just seriously consider your own driving habits. It amazes me (as I think from the safety of a desk and not behind a wheel) how I almost always assume the other guy is at fault (although, in my defense that is usually the case). I am not so level headed behind the wheel and it is at those times that I "know" the other guy is to blame-not me!

Case in point: Near my home there is a shopping center on either side of the street and an island in the middle of the road almost completely blocking access to the other shopping center depending on which side of the street you're on. The only way to turn left out of the strip mall on the east side is to turn right and pull a U-turn from a turn lane which serves as the only access to the strip mall on the west side of the street (still with me?). The point is the other day I found myself needing to turn left out of the east side of the street so I pulled into the turn lane and waited for traffic to clear so that I could make my safe and legal u-turn. The problem was that while I was waiting for traffic to clear, a car prepared to make a right hand turn out of the west side shopping center. This woman pulled up to her stop sign (I had no such posting impeding my progress) but only looked back at the traffic coming at her and failed to even look at the lane in which I was patiently waiting to make my turn. Now the sensible and kindly thing to have done would be to wait for her to proceed knowing that she hadn't seen me. However, the Hyde-ian part of my brain was triggered and instead of ensuring safety, I felt it was necessary to assert my personal rights-specifically that right to proceed first when I don't have to stop and the other person does. As you may have guessed, I pulled out, she did too and was completely shocked and awed that there was now a silver mini-van where she expected only black top. What happened next is what baffles me and is really the point of my rambling today. She began to lay on the horn and yell all manner of cursing and insinuations about me and various farm animals. I did not appreciate this! My window happened to be down at the time so that my ears received the full brunt of her slander and calumny. My window being down also afforded me the opportunity to defend myself from this salacious speech. In a calm rational voice (that never exceeded a decibel above a normal talking voice), I stated that I didn't have a stop sign and that she would do well to heed the advice of my kindergarten teacher, Ms. Saul and, "look both ways next time!" Except you know from the tenor of my introduction that this is not how it went down at all. No, I yelled at her that I didn't have a stop sign and went on to imply that she was a woman of low moral character. I am not saying this was right. But when she began to yell at me because I was adhering to the rules of the road it was just like Goofy! I became a different person entirely.

For the most part, I am an exceptional driver, especially with passengers. If I, in a moment of clarity, realize I am the one at fault in a near miss, I have no trouble waving or admitting in some way that I am at fault. But if I am not-LOOK OUT!

That is why I feel that there should be some kind of class or test that one should have to pass before they are allowed to get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. Hey, November's just around the corner, maybe we can get it on the ballot this year!

My Neighborhood-No More

For the past six years we have lived in the same place. That is something of a record for us. From the time we got married (July, 2000) to the time we moved into our current abode (July, 2004), my beautiful bride and I had moved no less than seven times. That may not sound like much to you, but is about six more times than I would have preferred (and the last time I checked this blog was called, “Jared-muses” not “some insignificant chirp who feels the need to one-up everyone’s story no matter how outlandish they are forced to exaggerate-muses”). Anyway, I love my little condo, I really do. It is almost perfect. I say almost because there is one drawback to living here (other than the ridiculous HOA fees charged to me by the neo-facist, communistic property management which I refer to as the Fourth Reich). That major hurdle to perfection is the menagerie of tenants who dwell around me.

I must pause here to say that for the most part, we have been uniquely blessed to not be surrounded by only terrible neighbors. In six years, our most directly connected neighbors have been mostly tolerable. There is the single, school teacher who lives directly across from us (and happens to be the only other original tenant in the 36 units that surround our immediate area). Other than the Macaw and a penchant for playing his guitar and singing loudly, he has been a very pleasant neighbor (and at least he sings well). Also, there are the “Extremes”. I called them that (until I learned their names) because he is a moto-cross rider (as attested to by the fact that he has a couple of bikes and walks around in a full back and neck brace after a crash, which happens with uncanny frequency-I didn’t say he was good) and because he has the word “extreme” tattooed across his back in eight inch gothic letters (which are often visible because he never wears a shirt when he’s not wearing the back brace). They are a nice couple and we always got along swimmingly. But that pretty much wraps it up on the good neighbor side of things. One unit, the one with which we share a wall, has been particularly productive in the bad neighbor department. The original tenants smoked like they were in their own personal episode of MadMen and still believed all of the phony doctors who recommended smoking as a stress reliever (although, I don’t suppose dead people have too much stress, so in a way, they were right). The bigger problem was that they would leave their cigarette butts all over the place-at least until my wife swept them all up one day and piled them up at their front door.
The next set of tenants was a family-Mom, Dad and teenage daughter and son-typical American family, right? A little too typical if you ask me. My wife said that they weren’t terrorists, but he always walked around with a “Die, American Pig” scowl on his face and the family seemed to get along more as co-workers than as relatives. A couple of calls to Homeland Security and they moved away a short time later (Ok, I admit that I was also consuming several seasons of 24 while they lived next door and that may have contributed slightly to my assumptions).
The most recent set of “winners” to play musical renters was a young couple with an infant daughter who lived there for a month. They moved in week one, the cops came to visit week two, he moved out week three and she moved out week four. In the past month or so, there has been an influx of renters moving into the vacant condos surrounding us. The most ridiculous of the new tenants are the ones who moved in directly above us. I am not sure what they are doing but it sounds like they are moving stuff across the floor continually. I don’t believe it could be furniture- who moves furniture that much? I think it might be dead bodies. Maybe they start to stink a little bit so you move them over to the window. But you don’t want the neighbors to see you airing out your dead bodies so you got to hide them back in the closet again. I am willing to hold my tongue and not turn them in if they would please, for the love of everything sacred and holy, stop moving the bodies around! If it persists, I believe the FBI has an organized crime division who will be getting a call.

What was once a pleasant little condo has been turned into a glorified apartment complex which I feel shall be featured on COPS very soon. The nefarious conduct has escalated. The other day I walked through the courtyard to our garage and was almost knocked over by the smell of mary-jane (and I don’t mean the perfume worn by Spiderman’s on again, off again love interest). However, the majority of criminal activity has been limited to the building across the parking lot from us. This is where the stabbing occurred. It seems that some guy didn’t like that his girlfriend broke up with him and moved out. So he found her new place (across from us) and paid her a visit one night. He bullied his way into the house and an argument broke out (which usually happens when one party infringes upon another). Long story short: he stabbed her; she played dead; cops were called; paramedics arrived; he was arrested, she moved away; the neighborhood was peaceful again…but for how long?

The winner of "Neighbor of the Decade" though goes to one particularly strung out single mom. I shall, for the sake of brevity, refer to her as, “the woman”, in lieu of the other name I have for her, "Crazy, Paranoid, Insomniatic, Crack Whore, the first”. If I may, I will share with you this particular story in better detail than the previous ones I have related.

One night, about 10:00 pm my wife and I decided to call it a night and head to bed (this is not married code, we really are so boring sometimes that we actually go to bed that early). We had been asleep for roughly three hours when we were startled awake by knocking on our door. I sleepily stumbled to the door and peered through the lookout hole and saw the woman. She was standing there in a bathrobe with hair disheveled and a wild paranoid look in her eye. I generally sleep without a shirt (this is not said to gross you out but to explain my next move) so I called through the door, rather than opening it, in order to ascertain what she could possibly want. She began to ramble on about us shining lights into her house doing so with a vocabulary that Andrew Dice Clay would have envied. I realized I was dealing with a different kind of crazy than the garden variety crazy we normally see, so I went back to the bedroom to get dressed. When I returned to the door she was nowhere to be seen. By this time my wife is up, robed and wondering at the commotion. I stepped back inside and closed the door. I then proceeded to the other side of the house (which was like three steps) and went out onto our patio. The woman was making her way back across the parking lot from her condo and beginning anew with baseless accusations of us keeping her awake by shining lights in her windows and keeping her from some obviously much needed sleep. I tried to explain to her that despite the fact that our personal hobby is staying up late and clandestinely shining laser lights into our neighbors’ window, we had actually been in bed for three hours. That little revelation took her to a dark place because she unleashed a torrent of profanity that would have been worthy of an HBO special. She then added a little wrinkle to her story. Apparently she is also a photographer, because she explained that she was in her dark room with the door closed and she could still see us shining lights into her windows. Putting aside the need of x-ray vision to see us shining lights in her windows through the closed door of her dark room, I am intimately aware of the confines of these little condos and there is no place to even set up a dark room. If she has a dark room then I’m Abraham Lincoln and I have neither the height nor the capacity to grow a beard like our sixteenth president.
At this point my wife transforms from the mild mannered housewife that you all know and love into the proverbial momma bear who’s cubs are about to be awakened by this crazy, delusional, paranoid, insomniatic, crack whore (the first). I am now forced to place myself in between momma bear and the woman who keeps poking her. This is not a place I want to be. On one side I have the aforementioned harlot and on the other I have my beautiful wife turned angry mom transitioning from defense to offense. One ear is being filled with every foul word (and maybe a few she made up) known to man and the other a series of quick retorts that made me flush with pride. Eventually this woman needed to return to her crack den (with a dark room) and refuel because she stormed off angry. My wife and I returned to our bedroom and tried to go to sleep.
The next morning we called the police just to get on record that we had a crazy neighbor (it came as no surprise to the cops), lest we find our tires slashed or a horse head in our bed. However, later that day as I returned home from work I found a note stuck to our door. I fully expected it to be a ransom note for our cats or the plants on our porch (she was that unstable), for which I was not willing to pay a red cent. Instead, it was an apology note stating a list of reasons why we should forgive her behavior, although not once did she mention withdrawal or acid trip (two of my prime suspects in the case of the crazy, paranoid, crack whore the first). She basically listed everything that went wrong in her life and said that those things were to blame. I wanted to assure her that I know we all have struggles the rest of us just choose to deal with them in a more dignified less psychotic manner. My wife was largely unimpressed with this apology and figured that if she can wake us up and cuss us out in person than she should have the decency to apologize in person. I tried to explain the disconnect between decency and crazy but she was still in momma bear mode and would not be dissuaded. From then on, every time I saw the woman, I was as pleasant to her as possible. I am not sure if crazy people can be killed with kindness but I felt it didn’t hurt to try.

That is why we are pulling up stakes and moving out. Between the photographic crack den next door and the Sopranos up stairs, we have had our fill of condo life. We are looking for a nice little house with a back yard and no adjacent buildings. There’s a nice one we’re looking at on Elm Street. After the neighbors we’ve put up with we feel that even Freddy would be an upgrade.

My Culture Clash

I know what you're thinking. Two blogs in just as many days, is it even possible. Well, I assure you that it won't become a habit. But I experienced something so wonderfully entertaining that I thought I should, nay, I felt compelled to share with you.

Last Friday evening, I took my beautiful bride of ten years, three weeks and five days to the Hollywood Bowl to see the world renowned and academy award winning composer John Williams conduct the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra. The theme of the show was "The Music of the Movies". It was a wonderful delight. John Williams was engaging and incredibly talented. The Concert Mistress was exceptional and her violin solo in the theme to Fiddler on the Roof was nothing short of brilliant. I was completely inundated with culture.

I am not opposed to culture. I just don't find it as entertaining as some people do. But this was spectacular. Even though I am not a musical person in the strictest sense (I don't play an instrument or even read music for that matter), I was able to appreciate the difficulty of the performance before me.

But that isn't what I wanted to share with you today. I would rather instead share with you the counter-culture. I knew going into this that there was going to be some people here that I, under normal circumstances, wouldn't spend time with. But I was woefully unprepared for the experience with which I was confronted. I am a fan of the movies. I loved to be entertained. I love to entertain. I would have loved to be an actor and take any chance I get to be one (which usually means Church Christmas plays and the annual comedy night fundraiser I used to run as the youth pastor). But while I am a fan, I am not fanatical.

One of the souvenirs you could purchase was a light saber. They were available because John Williams, of course, wrote the music for Star Wars. But the people I saw weren't going to waste their money on those. Not because of some sense of fiscal responsibility, but because of a lack of authenticity. That's right, they weren't real enough. As we milled about in the lines for entrance and snacks, I noticed an incredibly high number of people with their very own light sabers. Some had the ones you build yourself at Disneyland or some other star wars shoppe. But some had very expensive looking replicas. I laughed to myself because I thought it was a little comical, not that they owned those things, but that they brought them. But those people were the sanest ones of the bunch.

As we progressed toward our seats, I saw a woman with a t-shirt on that had the picture of a woman's body decked out in the Princess Leia/Jabba's palace prisoner outfit. She had her hair done up in the same way that Leia did in the Return of the Jedi. The guy with her (who I can only assume was a relative or gay) was wearing a t-shirt that resembled Darth Vader's breastplate complete with light up panel and glowing tubes running over it. I thought okay, the light saber was cute but that this was over doing it a bit. They didn't prove to be the craziest of the bunch.

Then I saw a guy dressed just like Indiana Jones. I thought that was too far. However, I rationalized in my mind that I also own a pair of khaki pants and a white shirt and while I possess neither the hat nor the satchel, it wasn't unreasonable to think that someone may own these things separately and threw them together as a laugh. But this was just the tip of the weird iceberg.

I then saw a guy who defied rational thought. He was dressed as a "Padawan apprentice" (if I misspelled that-I am glad I don't know its proper spelling and couldn't care less). If you are going to dress up as a movie character, how low must your self esteem be if you are willing to be the guy who doesn't have any cool powers or know anything? That just screamed pathetic to me. But this guy wasn't even the worst.

While one of the three Star Wars songs was being played that night some guy dressed up like a storm trooper jumped up in the aisle and began to dance up and down the stairs. He was comical and entertaining but I thought it was appropriate for him since he no doubt was laughed at a lot when he was a child (which he probably still is, at least maturity-wise). But this guy still wasn't the main attraction.

No that spot is reserved for the guy who showed up in a complete Jedi outfit. From the boots to the belt to the long grown out hair (a la Liam Neeson's Qui-Gon Jinn-again if I misspelled, I don't care). But the piece de resistance was his hand made custom light saber. I have read a Star Wars book or two (I'm not drinking the kool-aid, I just enjoy good FICTION!) and I learned that part of a Jedi's final training is building his own light saber. I have no doubt that this is exactly what this guy did. The best part was how he stood at perfect attention, light saber in hand and held perfectly straight in front of him. The devotion and reverence which he displayed would lead one to believe that John Williams was at the very heart of the rebel alliance.

I laughed within myself and out loud on quite a few occasions as the ridiculousness struck me repeatedly like a speeder cruising over a womp rat. But the thought that struck me the funniest and what I will leave you with now, is this: Between all of the Star Wars geeks, err...fans and the gay guys that flock to musicals like the "salmon of Capistrano", I was very confident that I was one of the only guys in that entire crowd who has actually kissed a girl!

My Knott's Bloggy Farm

As I've mentioned in the past I'm a youth pastor, or at least I was- until August 1st at which time I relinquished my title as Supreme Commander of the Youth Group and returned to civilian life. But while the title yet remained, it was incumbent upon me to do various things with my teenagers, not the least of which was taking them on our yearly trek to Knott's Berry Farm, this being one of our final activities with the teens.

Now I'm more of a Disneyland man (not sure if those words are often said together) myself, but in the interest of equal time I do attend other amusement parks. Such was the case on this beautiful summer day. We loaded up the bus with thirteen teens and two leaders and went to the old berry farm once owned by the Knott's family.

I've got several rules I implement when taking my teens to an amusement park. Some youth guys force their kids to stay with them the whole day. I do not. I feel that if they don't want to be around me then I don't want to be around them. I let them go off in groups of no less than four. If they get stuck with a kid they don't necessarily want to hang out with all day then they cannot ditch them. By the same token the loner kids cannot allow themselves to be ditched. Both instances will find all parties involved facing the wrath and judgment of their youth pastor, who can be pretty mean when he needs to be, or so I'm told-I generally blackout for brief periods of time after someone upsets me. When I awake I find my shirt missing, my pants ripped and turned purple and the faintest hue of green ebbing from the surface of my skin). I also do not tolerate tardiness. If you force me to wait more than 5 minutes, I will force you to walk the whole way home (which is a real bummer when we go to college days in OKC).

Once I send my kids off to go play (inevitably some will stick around because I am that awesome) I turn my attention to the flotsam and jetsam of theme park attendees.

This day did not disappoint.

One of the attractions common with all parks (whether they be theme, amusement or carnival style) is the opportunity to try your hand at some random game in the attempt to win a small, medium or large plush toy. Firstly, their games were pretty dumb. You could try your hand at a basketball game where you attempted a three point contest with extremely over inflated balls and a rim that was half the size of a standard rim (although I must confess it is hilarious to watch some punk who thinks he's better than Kobe make fewer shots than a little girl who uses every ounce of strength just to get it close). If that doesn't do it for you, you can try to kick a soccer ball into a small net that is being guarded by a comical (if not somewhat stereotypical and racially insensitive) cardboard cutout of a Mexican goalie that is bigger than the goal! As terrible as the games are, they are surpassed by the prizes you could win. Most of the plush toys were versions of various South Park characters. I don't really see this appealing to anyone but stoners and very immature guys who think that sort of thing is funny enough to watch more than 30 seconds. As you may have guessed I'm not a fan of the show nor do I think anybody should watch it. But I certainly think it's inappropriate to serve as a prize that your kids will want you to win for them. If you play some of the more expensive and thus more challenging games, you could win an electric guitar. Really?! As if it wasn't difficult enough to lug around a giant stuffed animal, now a kid has got to potentially carry around a musical instrument like he's waiting for a music producer to spring from the bushes and offer him a recording contract if he can play a song for him in the next 30 seconds.

The park workers also seemed to enjoy their jobs significantly less than their Disneyland counterparts. They walk around like zombies crashing after a red bull high and if they happen to engage you in conversation it is the weirdest thing you'll hear all day.

Allow me to illustrate. I went on Boomerang with one of my seniors and while standing in line, a rather portly park worker approached us and stepped inside his little area with a small control box. Once safely inside his outlined square of caution, he proceeded to lift a chain across the opening and latch it. It struck me as funny, being a large man myself, that this tiny wisp of a chain (that somewhat resembled the chain of a pocket watch) would securely hold him in place should he lose his balance and tumble towards the opening of his box o' safety. So I said, "There, now don't you feel safe?” Now there are two types of fat people: the ones who are jovial and love to laugh as much as they love deep fried everything (see my previous post for more on that) and there are the ones who live in their mom's basement. They usually exhibit a lack of social skills and/or anti social behavior and carry with them an in-depth and intimate knowledge of role playing games and World of Warcraft. My friend the park employee was the latter which was obvious when he replied thusly, "It's a safety measure, sir." Really, I didn't realize that, I thought it was a barrier to keep out the tens of people who want your job!

I happened to be wearing a Batman shirt and this sparked his interest greatly. He asked me (in more of a statement) if I was a DC comics fan, being sure to add that he preferred Marvel. I am a fan of Batman and Superman (my personal favorite is the Green Lantern) but I don't choose sides. So I said, "I don't get caught up in the whole east coast/west coast thing" (A reference that sailed over his head by three or four feet). Undaunted by my reference to pop culture, he then said, "Okay, then, who do you think would win in a fight: Batman or Superman?"

I was taken aback at first as I stared unblinking trying to figure out if he really just asked me that. I was looking for the worm hole to Jr. High and the Van Damme vs. Seagal debate. I'm not sure if I'm more surprised that I answered him or if my answer made a compelling argument. I said, "Batman! Superman may be supernaturally strong but he has a weakness that makes him mortal and when he's like that, he's kind of a wuss! Whereas, Batman has proven that he can endure getting the crap beat out of him and still rise victorious." He didn't say much, just, "I've never thought of that." He then told us to keep our hands inside the car and enjoy the rest of our day at Knott's. As the coaster left the platform he had a look on his face as though his entire world paradigm had been altered. When we returned to the platform he was nowhere to be seen and his replacement said he muttered something about the foundations of his life being shaken and needing some deep fried butter. He's probably in his basement abode on his inflatable couch curled up in the fetal position desperately clutching his superhero dolls-err-action figures to his chest.

At lunch, I returned to the park entrance to meet with my teens. While waiting for the waifs to arrive I noticed a commotion at the turnstile. A security guard was standing there with arms folded looking down disapprovingly as a Brazilian man argued his case. One of the rules is that no outside food is allowed in the park. This man tried to circumnavigate this rule by hiding a bag of Doritos and a tray of Chips Ahoy cookies in a Brazilian team soccer jacket. While I feel that the greater offense was desecrating the snack foods by concealing them in soccer paraphernalia, the park takes a dim view of rule breakers. It seems that when the ticket checker discovered the food she accidentally dropped his jacket on the ground. He decided that this was the most egregious error of all and attempted to deflect attention from his crime by asking to see as many park officials as he could to whom he could plead his case. One by one they came all the way up the chain of command and as they did he demonstrated what happened to each one of them. He would tell them how angry he was that the bag checker dropped his jacket on the ground and then he would act it out. He must have rubbed that jacket on the ground no less than 10 times in demonstration. His chief complaint was that they soiled the collar and that it would need to be dry-cleaned. He demanded that Knott’s pay for it. From my vantage point I could clearly see the stain on his collar and I am convinced it was nothing more than sweat. The park attendants held their ground on the jacket and eventually gave in on the snack food allowing him to keep it as long as he didn't eat it and find a respectable sports jacket in which to hide them. I was a little disappointed that they acquiesced so easily but perhaps when dealing with someone as unstable as a soccer fan one must be as cautious as possible.

There is so much more I could bore you with but not much of it compares to the plump park person or the furious food hiding foreigner. So I leave you with that and set out on my next blog. Tonight I go to the Hollywood Bowl to see John Williams conduct an orchestra playing music from the movies he's scored. Maybe this one won't take me two months....but I wouldn't hold your breath!

My Fair Review

I know that it has been a while since my last blogging. I want to be honest and tell you that I have not been able to post a blog because I have been extremely busy. However, I can't be honest and tell you that so I'll just lie to you instead. I haven't posted a blog in a while because I have been extremely busy. In the past month or so since my previous posting, I have been working as a fry cook in a dive of a restaurant. My boss was an extremely tight-fisted old crab. The other guy on my shift was a cashier who approached his job with the same consideration that a bear has for toilet paper (not the ones in those creepy Charmin commercials either). I have been living in a pineapple shaped condo next to a friendly yet completely stupid guy who only wore swimming shorts and despite his unattractive physique, never wore a shirt. I did hang out with a squirrel-ly girl who taught me a great deal about martial arts.

At any rate I won't bore you any longer with the details of my summer. In all of the busy-ness, I did manage to break off a day to spend with my family at the Del Mar Fair. We had an enjoyable time there. We ate all manner of inappropriate foods; we saw all manner of livestock and various things that we put on display just before we turn them into food; and we laughed at the many people who really make you wonder why there aren't greater restrictions on reproduction.
I shall turn my attention first to the fair fare. It is no secret that the true meaning of Christmas is not found in the commercialization or the gifts given and received (something I learned while spending time with a group of neighborhood kids including a pushy know-it-all, a piano prodigy, a wise yet blanket-addicted little boy and my faithful beagle who always seems to be more popular than me). In the same sense, it is no secret that the true meaning of a fair is not the awards for best farm animal or craftsmanship, but rather it is found in the food that is offered up at the fair. What would a fair be without the deliciously unhealthy aliment? It would be entirely populated by future and past farmers and that's pretty much it. While there are different things to try, the theme of a fair's food is "fried". They have all sorts of fried foods to be had. I think it is a little ironic to take something healthy like zucchini and drowned it in oil until every last vestige of nutrition is gone and then serve it with a generous portion of ranch dressing to be sure to mask any of the actual taste of the vegetable (which when you think of what it really is, the swollen ovary of a zucchini flower, is not so palatable anyway). I decided to go with something that didn't at one time resemble something healthy and ordered up a deep-fried Oreo. Basically, it tasted like an Oreo wrapped in a donut. It may not be overly healthy, but it was delicious. There were many other deep-fried options from which to choose: twinkies, snickers, hot dogs. Deep-frying even found it's way into the beverage category with one kiosk offering deep-fried Coke. I can't even begin to wrap my brain around how they accomplish that but suffice it to say if the chemical make up of your drink is such that it can survive being plunged into boiling oil you may want to rethink your beverage choice.

Believe it or not, there are rules when it comes to consuming fried foods (or at least I have rules). My main rule is: "I refuse to eat anything fried that I wouldn't eat un-fried." What I mean to say is that if I wouldn't consume it under non-fair conditions, then I won't have it fried. Which is one reason why I avoided the deep-fried...wait for it...sticks of butter! That's right you heard me. If you didn't make it to the fair this year then you missed out on the kiosk that was selling deep-fried butter. Now there is nothing I enjoy more than relaxing at the end of the day with my remote in one hand and a stick of butter in the other- whatever, I don't even like to eat my toast until all the butter is melted. But that wasn't the only thing stopping me. There were a few other omens that deterred me. One was the fact that the name of the kiosk selling these items of coronary ignorance and apathy was "The Heart Attack Cafe". While I give you a point for truth in advertising, the only type of people you'll attract with that kind of name are the mullet wearing, denim shirt with the sleeves cut-off and their name on a patch across the front Billy-bob's who's last words are generally, "Ya'll gotta see this." Another reason is the other things this particular kiosk sold. Namely, Chocolate covered Bacon. Now I love bacon, and I like chocolate, but somethings are just not meant to go together. Just because two different things taste good doesn't mean that they taste good together. But perhaps the most compelling deterrent for partaking of this schlock is the fact that the authorities saw fit to set up a triage station (which always seemed to be busy) no less than 30 feet from this outfit.

But enough about that. This post grows longer and I haven't even begun to discuss the denizens of this open air agoraphobic nightmare. There really are just too many weirdos at a fair to cover them all and do the subject any true justice. So I will select one particular group and conclude my review with a brief discussion on the failings of this particular set of people. The group I wish to discuss is one that is close to home because I have a member in my family that fell prey to their worrisome ways. I am referring to the "fanny-pack" people. I am not going to give any names but one person in our family wears one of this atrocious oddities every time we go to a public place such as this. We, and by we I mean every other person in her family, torment her mercilessly in hopes that she would finally acquiesce and discard that public eyesore. This time we decided to hold up a proverbial mirror and show her what sort of people generally use this derriere accoutrement. So we began to use our phones to discreetly snap photos of people we spied sporting these hindquarter habiliments. There was the corpulent woman with the stretchy pants and ripped sweater over a tank top, with a head band and thick socks looking like she stepped out of a Flashdance themed Jenny Craig meeting. There was also the guy in the black t-shirt with khaki shorts, black socks and dress shoes whose fanny pack I'm sure contained the key to his bicycle lock and his velcro wallet. Well, my mother-in-law finally gave in and bought herself a new shoulder bag to carry around with her. Her chief complaint is that a fanny pack is infinitely more difficult to steal from you than a purse or wallet. While I agree with her argument, I think we have all learned a valuable lesson from our trip to the fair. People may sometimes steal your wallet, but fanny packs will always steal your dignity!