Will, Edgar, Bill, Lynne, Bobb, Barbara, Jim, Regina, Ian, Sue, Bob, Steve L, Jeanette, Ben
Oct 26
While Javier was handing round the huge green menus, conversation among the early arrivals turned to the strange American concept of practice dating - which, like many female concepts, is a euphemism for a Platonic relationship, which is in turn a euphemism for no sex please, I don't fancy you.
It is a tribute to women that they will go through these charades, which men will undertake only under threat of blackmail or the prospect of vast riches. Unless of course the woman in question is a brilliant conversationalist, in which case the man's thoughts will turn carnal anyway, whatever her looks. Women don't understand this, but then few of them understand the male need to dominate, which invariably boils down to notches on the bedpost.
Does there have to be fireworks? No, but it's a bit dull without them. Yes, men are shallow, childish, animalistic games players who will play along with female games mainly in order to further their own masculine agendas.
As Sue Dadd shrewdly observed, it depends whether you are the asker v askee. If, like most women cleverly do, you manoeuver yourself into the position of askee, you have more options as, crucially, you have not declared your position. On the other hand the askee, usually some sap of a guy, has stupidly put his cards on the table, just waiting to be trumped by the lady, who then dictates the play (which is how they like it).
Dating is like selling, Ian said - the more the merrier. Will Frankel said I'll give anyone two hours of my time.
But, as frequently occurs in other situations, money is the key. Regina pointed out that on practice dates the two people go Dutch. A vital line is therefore crossed when one of them insists on paying. A relationship has begun. The practice is now for real - maybe, but the maybe stage is when it gets to be fun.
Edgar is about to end a relationship, as he is losing his doctor. Reason: said doctor is abandoning insurance jobs, the bread and butter of most surgeries. But the price of the insurance company check is a roomful of records, with a staff to manage them. Something I still find it hard to come to terms with is the extent to which conversations with a GP here revolve round money, which often decides what sort of treatment will be implemented. I am on a physical therapy course, but I couldn't go back to my orthopedic specialist on the day of one of my therapy sessions as this would have breached some insurance rule. So I had to make an extra journey. For someone like Edgar, and the rest of us, it is vital to find a doctor who does play the insurance game. They charge much less for cash jobs, but they are still dearer. And anyway, we need insurance cover in case of suffering a major illness or injury. And when you're in the system you're in the system. It's like pregnancy: you can't be a little bit pregnant.
As this was the penultimate Conrads session before the Presidential election, discussion fell to who would win and what the winner would do about the crunch-recession-depression-crisis thingy.
The McCain-Palin show is looking very rickety, veering on a freak show - and that is the opinion of many Republicans. So is the way clear for Obama? Democrats refuse to believe it until it happens. The race card, so much more of a factor in the US than anywhere in Europe except perhaps Germany, muddies all rational discussion although newspaper commentators seem to be deciding that the positives and negatives roughly cancel out.
So we are likely to get a US President of color, a Democrat, who will inherit the worst econonomy since FDR in 1932. We have come so far and become so prosperous that it is still impossible for many people to imagine we could go back to the deprivation of the 1930s, mass unemployment, terrible poverty. But a penetrating article in the Wall Street Journal, End of the Age of Prosperity, shows how it could happen.
Everyone knows we lack confidence, but no one knows why and therefore no one knows how to restore confidence. The WSJ article suggested that we were suffering from precisely the same malady as in the 1930s: too much uncertainty. The election result will remove one strand of uncertainty but, despite FDR's magisterial leadership in the 1930s, his election was not enough of itself.
The new man can't do nothing and he will be constantly criticised for being too slow, too quick, too meddlesome, too much in the hands of the free-marketeers and Wall Street. The temptation to order the banks about will be immense. And, despite all that, we could languish for years until something happens to unify purpose. Let's hope it's not a world war again.
Ian spoke wistfully of the twilight world he inhabits, consisting of the three Cs: Conrads, the Coffee Gallery and Cantalini's. Is it a parallel universe or an alternative universe? I think it's one of an infinite number of satellite worlds that constantly circle LA, just as they do every great city. The center can only hold so much before activity bursts out. Hollywood and Beverly Hills burst out from Downtown, which has become reduced to satellite status.
Ian also highlighted a common problem in leafy Altadena, Pasadena and South Pasadena. When a tree sprouts branches into a neighbor's land, who does the law say is responsible for trimming it? Ian's black preacher neighbor turned up in his front garden to demand that Ian trimmed his tree, which had spread over the fence into the preacher's garden. Ian insisted that the part which was over his neighbor's space was his neighbor's responsibility - not so, Lynne subsequently discovered. The neighbor CAN cut it, with the owner's permission, but the obligation lies with the person on whose land the tree grows. Ian talked his neighbor into doing the job himself, with much mockery of his hand gestures and preacher's dramatic speech. But the preacher hadn't done his homework.
The internet would have settled that dispute, as it does so many others. The free access to such a storehouse of knowledge should make the present generation of children far better educated than their predecessors, as Bob argued, but Jim disagreed. How important is rote teaching? Or is it irrelevant?
Today's teachers would on the whole disdain drumming into their pupils the name of the capital of every US state, as Jim can recite, and spelling is going back to being the movable snack it was 200 years ago.
But memory is less important, as long as we remember to check facts. And today's adolescents seems better able to debate, perhaps because they are allowed to and perhaps because deference is disappearing like an outgoing tide. Few adults can nowadays get away with the clincher 'Because I say so!' It's simply not enough, and it never should have been.
Despite the internet and hundreds of TV channels, there are more bookshops than ever before. School orchestras and other special-interest groups flourish as never before. But is it enough? Only time will tell, says he as he tries to bring the blog to an end.
That's all folks, as the mighty Bugs Bunny used to say, until Lynne and I return from London on November 17. But the airwaves are open to anyone else to keep the series going....
CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
Day trip? I thought he said a gay trip!
Once you've seen one wave you've seen the lot.
If you look right it doesn't matter if you've never acted in your life.
After van Gogh was assassinated he became van Gone - to Americans, at least. To Europeans he was just a nasty cough.
I dream about Hitler, not elevators.
My doctor called all his women patients Honey, but only because he couldn't remember their names.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Gloria and Obama
Bill, Lynne, Edgar, Glenn, Will, Jim, Steve G, Bobb, Barbara, Bob, Gloria, Jeanette, Steve L
Oct 19
It was a rare and delightful treat to see Gloria in Conrads, complete with wide-brimmed black straw hat and now-obligatory bluetooth earpiece (no one phoned, but who cares?).
Gloria told an extraordinary story of how she got into the Democratic convention and witnessed Obama's acceptance speech, Greek pillars and all.
Seems her daughter urged her to go to Denver, even though she didn't have a ticket or any documentation, or even a hotel room. But Gloria found a hotel on the outskirts of Denver, and they advised her to drive into one of the hotels nearer in and park there.
Milling around in there, she came across a lady who had a spare pass to the Convention. 'I didn't know who to give it to, but I guess this is yours,' she told Gloria.
The bus wouldn't take Gloria to the the Investec arena because she wasn't an accredited delegate, so she decided to hop a cab. She shared with a journalist from the Chicago Tribune, who refused any help with the fare because it was on expenses - so Gloria got to the Convention on Sam Zell's tab!
She apparently had an excellent seat, some way from the platform, but within reach of VIPs such as Bill Richardson - and she met several friends and relatives from Denver as well as her home town. Only Gloria....
It just goes to show how far you can get with a little patience, persistence, politeness, inoffensiveness and sweet reasonableness. Being a little old lady helps, too.
Will has many of those qualities, except the last, and they could yet get him his cherished goal of becoming a governor of the Academy of Motion Pictures. He was talking about it at length, painting an image of an anachronistic organization that just happens to own one of the media world's most valuable franchises - the Oscars.
Short of being nominated for an Oscar, entry to the Academy seems to be a tortuous process ruled by obscure committees packed with accountants in suits who couldn't tell a decent cinematic performance if it smacked them in the eye. The consequence is that creatives like Will have to wait for a stroke of fate - the right person in the right position at the right time - to get them in.
And it's all that times ten for one of the coveted governorships, which seem to come up about as often as a seat on the Supreme Court. Not only are there a limited number of places, the competition is that much more fierce, with secret telephone campaigns for individual candidates.
None of that is Will's style of course, so he waits his turn. Would he like to be a governor?
'It would be very nice,' he said, looking into the distance.
As Sarah Palin would put it - You Betcha!
The betting doesn't look great for Jim's friend, Phil Spector, as he undergoes a retrial for the murder of Lana Clarkson, starting this week and going on for two or three months.
It's not so much what Spector did that night in February 2003, so much as the criteria for a conviction for second-degree murder. Some reports suggest that the victim merely has to die in the accused's house, and she certainly did that.
But Jim visited with Spector recently and he was apparently in remarkably good spirits, with a new lawyer and what he believed is a strong case. Let's hope so: the penalty is 18 years inside, a terrible blow at Spector's age - 69 in December.
CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
I didn't want to sound like a stupid fan, but I was
The trouble is there is no fucking outrage in this country
I'm recording all I can while I can, before my voice and fingers seize up
Running the Academy is just a chance for people to throw tomatoes at you
If McCain keeled over we'd all be in a bowl of shit
Before the war you could drop out of sixth grade able to read and write - now you can come out of UCLA without being able to do that
Oct 19
It was a rare and delightful treat to see Gloria in Conrads, complete with wide-brimmed black straw hat and now-obligatory bluetooth earpiece (no one phoned, but who cares?).
Gloria told an extraordinary story of how she got into the Democratic convention and witnessed Obama's acceptance speech, Greek pillars and all.
Seems her daughter urged her to go to Denver, even though she didn't have a ticket or any documentation, or even a hotel room. But Gloria found a hotel on the outskirts of Denver, and they advised her to drive into one of the hotels nearer in and park there.
Milling around in there, she came across a lady who had a spare pass to the Convention. 'I didn't know who to give it to, but I guess this is yours,' she told Gloria.
The bus wouldn't take Gloria to the the Investec arena because she wasn't an accredited delegate, so she decided to hop a cab. She shared with a journalist from the Chicago Tribune, who refused any help with the fare because it was on expenses - so Gloria got to the Convention on Sam Zell's tab!
She apparently had an excellent seat, some way from the platform, but within reach of VIPs such as Bill Richardson - and she met several friends and relatives from Denver as well as her home town. Only Gloria....
It just goes to show how far you can get with a little patience, persistence, politeness, inoffensiveness and sweet reasonableness. Being a little old lady helps, too.
Will has many of those qualities, except the last, and they could yet get him his cherished goal of becoming a governor of the Academy of Motion Pictures. He was talking about it at length, painting an image of an anachronistic organization that just happens to own one of the media world's most valuable franchises - the Oscars.
Short of being nominated for an Oscar, entry to the Academy seems to be a tortuous process ruled by obscure committees packed with accountants in suits who couldn't tell a decent cinematic performance if it smacked them in the eye. The consequence is that creatives like Will have to wait for a stroke of fate - the right person in the right position at the right time - to get them in.
And it's all that times ten for one of the coveted governorships, which seem to come up about as often as a seat on the Supreme Court. Not only are there a limited number of places, the competition is that much more fierce, with secret telephone campaigns for individual candidates.
None of that is Will's style of course, so he waits his turn. Would he like to be a governor?
'It would be very nice,' he said, looking into the distance.
As Sarah Palin would put it - You Betcha!
The betting doesn't look great for Jim's friend, Phil Spector, as he undergoes a retrial for the murder of Lana Clarkson, starting this week and going on for two or three months.
It's not so much what Spector did that night in February 2003, so much as the criteria for a conviction for second-degree murder. Some reports suggest that the victim merely has to die in the accused's house, and she certainly did that.
But Jim visited with Spector recently and he was apparently in remarkably good spirits, with a new lawyer and what he believed is a strong case. Let's hope so: the penalty is 18 years inside, a terrible blow at Spector's age - 69 in December.
CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
I didn't want to sound like a stupid fan, but I was
The trouble is there is no fucking outrage in this country
I'm recording all I can while I can, before my voice and fingers seize up
Running the Academy is just a chance for people to throw tomatoes at you
If McCain keeled over we'd all be in a bowl of shit
Before the war you could drop out of sixth grade able to read and write - now you can come out of UCLA without being able to do that
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
When things aren't what they seem
Ian, Jim, Will, Bill, Lynne, Bobb, Barbara, Mary, Jeanette, Steve L, Kim, Kirsten
Oct 12
It was an international evening at Conrads last night, ranging from Yorkshire pudding and Germanic Superman to how to ask for a cup of tea in Spanish or Japanese - reinforcing tea as the international language.
Ian was his usual squeamish self, talking with middle-class English distaste of words like uterus and whether a a father should be present at his child's birth. Ian, who has so far skipped, ducked and otherwise avoided fatherhood (as far as we know) said he wouldn't dream of being at a birth. Indeed, his father was sent away by his mother to play golf at the climactic moment. It's a strange phenomenon (Greek classists please note) that fathers are so eager to start the reproductive process but so reluctant to witness its natural conclusion - I do not include Caesarians or other surgical procedures. Maybe we are programmed to move onto the next project, whatever it may be, while the mother is unavoidably preoccupied with rearing the infant. Such biological imperatives are deeply incorrect politically, but sometimes physical necessarity has an inconvenient way of getting in the way of our preconceptions (or even our conceptions).
Bobb was wearing one of his super-hero, as opposed to Superman - t-shirts, fearing one of said heros with a boy of seemingly early pubescent years leaning with his elbow on hero's knee. It seemed to me that the boy's elbow was suspiciously near his hero's crotch, a view confirmed by what looked very much like an heroic erection. Ian thought Superman was Germanic, but is he merely gay? He certainly seems keen to impress.
Lynne confessed that since childhood she has retained a piece of nonsense speech which she is convinced means 'Would you like a cup of tea?' in Japanese. A quick internet search soon produced a translation, but it was impossible to tell how accurate it was as it was in Japanese script.
At this, Barbara volunteered that Japanese was one of several languages she had studied, including Spanish, Italian and Russian. She was unable to enlighten us as to the correct Japanese for 'Would you like a cup of tea?' but did correct the internet attempt at a Spanish translation, which just goes to show that you can't believe everything you read on the internet - but we kinda knew that, didn't we?
Up the far end of the lounge, all bar seats were taken for an enthralling audience watching the NLSC Championship game between the Dodgers and Phillies. The Dodgers were winning for most of the evening, sparking great whoops of triumph. But they still lost and that may be that, as the Phillies lead the best-of-seven series 3-1. I hate to admit it, but they seem to be the better team. This time. For the moment. We'll be back next year.
Will had most of us scratching our heads over the names of his two favorite magazines. They were both about film, and I guessed that one was called Film Fun, an old British cartoon comic that died out in the 1950s or 1960s. But it was a trick question, as Will's other favourite was also Film Fun - the US version!
Finally, Lynne offered a complex and incomprehensible explanation of why Yorkshire pudding isn't a pudding. In truth, it's only batter with some leftover gravy mixed in. But it's meant to fill up the consumer, and a name like pudding helps to do that.
CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
When my mother gave birth she told my father to play golf.
I can only remember two languages at once.
It wasn't so much a relief rally as a hand relief rally
I don't sound Essex, do I?
My to-do list goes back twenty years
Oct 12
It was an international evening at Conrads last night, ranging from Yorkshire pudding and Germanic Superman to how to ask for a cup of tea in Spanish or Japanese - reinforcing tea as the international language.
Ian was his usual squeamish self, talking with middle-class English distaste of words like uterus and whether a a father should be present at his child's birth. Ian, who has so far skipped, ducked and otherwise avoided fatherhood (as far as we know) said he wouldn't dream of being at a birth. Indeed, his father was sent away by his mother to play golf at the climactic moment. It's a strange phenomenon (Greek classists please note) that fathers are so eager to start the reproductive process but so reluctant to witness its natural conclusion - I do not include Caesarians or other surgical procedures. Maybe we are programmed to move onto the next project, whatever it may be, while the mother is unavoidably preoccupied with rearing the infant. Such biological imperatives are deeply incorrect politically, but sometimes physical necessarity has an inconvenient way of getting in the way of our preconceptions (or even our conceptions).
Bobb was wearing one of his super-hero, as opposed to Superman - t-shirts, fearing one of said heros with a boy of seemingly early pubescent years leaning with his elbow on hero's knee. It seemed to me that the boy's elbow was suspiciously near his hero's crotch, a view confirmed by what looked very much like an heroic erection. Ian thought Superman was Germanic, but is he merely gay? He certainly seems keen to impress.
Lynne confessed that since childhood she has retained a piece of nonsense speech which she is convinced means 'Would you like a cup of tea?' in Japanese. A quick internet search soon produced a translation, but it was impossible to tell how accurate it was as it was in Japanese script.
At this, Barbara volunteered that Japanese was one of several languages she had studied, including Spanish, Italian and Russian. She was unable to enlighten us as to the correct Japanese for 'Would you like a cup of tea?' but did correct the internet attempt at a Spanish translation, which just goes to show that you can't believe everything you read on the internet - but we kinda knew that, didn't we?
Up the far end of the lounge, all bar seats were taken for an enthralling audience watching the NLSC Championship game between the Dodgers and Phillies. The Dodgers were winning for most of the evening, sparking great whoops of triumph. But they still lost and that may be that, as the Phillies lead the best-of-seven series 3-1. I hate to admit it, but they seem to be the better team. This time. For the moment. We'll be back next year.
Will had most of us scratching our heads over the names of his two favorite magazines. They were both about film, and I guessed that one was called Film Fun, an old British cartoon comic that died out in the 1950s or 1960s. But it was a trick question, as Will's other favourite was also Film Fun - the US version!
Finally, Lynne offered a complex and incomprehensible explanation of why Yorkshire pudding isn't a pudding. In truth, it's only batter with some leftover gravy mixed in. But it's meant to fill up the consumer, and a name like pudding helps to do that.
CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
When my mother gave birth she told my father to play golf.
I can only remember two languages at once.
It wasn't so much a relief rally as a hand relief rally
I don't sound Essex, do I?
My to-do list goes back twenty years
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Hitchin' a Ride
Glen, Ian, Edgar, Jim, Opal, Ellen, Bill, Lynne, Bobb, Barbara, Ray, Jeanette, Steve L, Bob
Oct 5
Sorry about the lack of a diner blog last week, but I wasn't at Conrads and as far as I know no one else has recorded what was said that evening. We may never know what we missed...
The new additions this week were a British singer-turned-producer called Opal and his wife Ellen. Opal was born near Brighton but for many years they have lived in Oakland, near San Francisco. A tubby chap, same age as Ian, fond of wearing shorts (as do Bobb and Steve L). Like Ian Opal has kept every scrap of his English accent - me too, but that hardly counts as I've only been here a couple of years.
Opal was in the booth across from Ian, so naturally they talked through their different showbiz careers, from Opal's 60s soul group, the Frays, to the modern scene.
We moved on to transportation and the tantalising question for all southern Californian motorists: Why are the Chinese the worst drivers? Easy to work out why the Germans are reckoned to be the best, followed by the British, both very orderly in our way. Glen suggested that the Chinese refuse to be regimented, which may explain why all those soldiers ended up being turned into terracotta.
But it also gave Glen the opening to explain why, given the opportunity, he prefers trains. Not only prefers them, he likes hitching free rides on freight trains, a risky hobby as it is illegal and he admitted he had had a .38 pulled on him. His defence, he explained was to be well dressed and well equipped so as not to be mistaken for hobos who actually needed the ride. Whether this endears him and his friends to the railroad staff was not clear, but for Glen it's all worth it just to be able to stand in an open boxcar with the wind in his face. Rita has been with him once, but now forbids him.
Ian had an equally dramatic transportation tale of an escapade flying by mistake from Sussex to Russia in his uncle's light plane, hopping from country to country in fog - you see, American friends, it's not just London that gets fog (matter of fact I've experienced it on the 210, but that's another story).
Ian and his uncle were eventually apprehended under suspicion of being Soviet spies, but his uncle's impeccable accent got him a billet in the officers' mess while Ian had to explain his way out of his trendy leather jacket. The perils of being a fashion icon.
CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
In the 60s it was all that Stones crap
OJ got convicted and you know what? Nobody gives a damn
I'll tell you how to make money - get a job in the Mint!
In the old days the straight man got 60% of the money because the comedian needed him to set up the jokes
Dick Tracey is like a dream world
Oct 5
Sorry about the lack of a diner blog last week, but I wasn't at Conrads and as far as I know no one else has recorded what was said that evening. We may never know what we missed...
The new additions this week were a British singer-turned-producer called Opal and his wife Ellen. Opal was born near Brighton but for many years they have lived in Oakland, near San Francisco. A tubby chap, same age as Ian, fond of wearing shorts (as do Bobb and Steve L). Like Ian Opal has kept every scrap of his English accent - me too, but that hardly counts as I've only been here a couple of years.
Opal was in the booth across from Ian, so naturally they talked through their different showbiz careers, from Opal's 60s soul group, the Frays, to the modern scene.
We moved on to transportation and the tantalising question for all southern Californian motorists: Why are the Chinese the worst drivers? Easy to work out why the Germans are reckoned to be the best, followed by the British, both very orderly in our way. Glen suggested that the Chinese refuse to be regimented, which may explain why all those soldiers ended up being turned into terracotta.
But it also gave Glen the opening to explain why, given the opportunity, he prefers trains. Not only prefers them, he likes hitching free rides on freight trains, a risky hobby as it is illegal and he admitted he had had a .38 pulled on him. His defence, he explained was to be well dressed and well equipped so as not to be mistaken for hobos who actually needed the ride. Whether this endears him and his friends to the railroad staff was not clear, but for Glen it's all worth it just to be able to stand in an open boxcar with the wind in his face. Rita has been with him once, but now forbids him.
Ian had an equally dramatic transportation tale of an escapade flying by mistake from Sussex to Russia in his uncle's light plane, hopping from country to country in fog - you see, American friends, it's not just London that gets fog (matter of fact I've experienced it on the 210, but that's another story).
Ian and his uncle were eventually apprehended under suspicion of being Soviet spies, but his uncle's impeccable accent got him a billet in the officers' mess while Ian had to explain his way out of his trendy leather jacket. The perils of being a fashion icon.
CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
In the 60s it was all that Stones crap
OJ got convicted and you know what? Nobody gives a damn
I'll tell you how to make money - get a job in the Mint!
In the old days the straight man got 60% of the money because the comedian needed him to set up the jokes
Dick Tracey is like a dream world
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