Lets get married ; so what?

Lets get married ; so what?

We can’t really live apart; we tried three times.  We love each other – it’s pathetic.  You and me, we met through a transvestite friend  and we laughed at the fact that we were drawn to each.

And now its another matter.  We miss each other when we’re apart.  We both light up just having a drink together.   We’re having no luck dating other people – and we’re  are both really trying to do that.  I’m unhappy without you and you’re not having a lot of fun either.    Its pathetic, but we’re drawn to each other.

We’re drawn to each other, but that is what’s hard to understand.  I’m a senior Jewish guy who bikes a lot but is kinda dumpy and beat up looking.  You’re  a pretty much younger thing who teaches Yoga and rides bikes with me.   Ok, how’s that anything much in common?

It’s not.  Our shared swimming and biking and dope smoking isn’t really enough.  What works is that we are attracted to each other.  It’s a Boy-girl thing that does transcend other considerations like money or you looking like you’re having dinner with your father whenever we go to Langer’s for corned beef.

   

All of which is what brings me to my marriage proposal.  I want us to have a marriage on the QT ( or on the 'down low' as they might say).  We tell no one and we elope quietly – Vegas kinda thing (although, why go to the expense?)  We keep our separate residence as long as we can afford to.  If we can’t afford anything else, then we might have to move in together, but I don’t recommend that.   We just know we’ll always be there for each other and we'll always be kind, gentle and understanding of each other.  

Its marriage as a voluntary form of human bondage that only stings when lodging together occasionally.  The sex thing we need to figure out.  I'm OK with what we do now, but are you?  You need to tell me what to do when your ready.  Our relationship has a sexual component but you need to define it for us; I'm OK with that.  I need you to control that.

Not sure this is like a 'REAL' romance or just a mirage.  We always assumed this was just something temporary.  Can we get married just in case the ‘REAL’ thing never does come along .   You see,  you kinda are the REAL thing for me.  And that’s why I want to marry you.

Hey Charlie

Hey Charlie:

Not sure how to communicate. Blog, tweet, facetime, e mail, Podcast or Analogue phone.   Kinda like parables, but don't really know any except for maybe the story of Holden Caulfield in the Cather in the Rye; He would have seen things for what they are and called it right.  But he was 17 - I'm 3 times that age.

This is why our whole fucking generation is looking to our kids for answers.  We just don't know anymore but I used to think Holden Caulfield had the answers.  So, its a cluster fuck, we're confronted with tough choices and bad decisions and what do we as boomers do?  We bail,   or start dying off and speeding it along with a virus. 

And now its all your lousy problem.  I mean baby boomers skated.  We never dealt with any real problems.....our parents and the welfare society they created - VA bennies,senior housing, senior bus fare, senior blow jobs.  All a fabrication to allow baby boomers to grease the skids for a soft landing.  Its stuff that is outrageous and can't say, Charlie, that I would understand it if you were angry.  Thank you for letting me slide, cause you never really show that anger to me.  Its like you were the accepting parent all along.  

Which is something I always wondered about you, Charlie.  You always let  me put every decision, every life choice and every plan for myself on you're shoulders.  It was like a reverse father-son deal that was more like a 'relationship' than parental. 

Why are you so kool?  Like too kool for school.  I appreciate it because of course you know I'm not exactly the model of sobriety and yet, I don't ever feel dissed by you. But I don't feel like I can help you in any way.  I think I just amuse you.  Which leads me into my first you tube video - please see: https://youtu.be/IWINtUCshxY     Joe Pesci asking “Do I amuse you?”

So in this sort of rampling parting shot I thought I'd express what things would look like now, now when I'm 69.  Then if I make it to 70,  I'll write some stuff like this all over again and we'll get this like dairy, letter, artificial writing structure thing that like no one's has used since the 1870s to write a book with. One of us will have to published the thing….again, counting on you to do the shit work.

This time, April 1, 2020,  right here,  may be the high point just as Pandemic takes over and we still kinda really remember what everything was like before.  Ya see, my whole world view died in this plague.  I only tell you how LUCKY I feel that my life (up to now) has been great and far better than anyone thought it would be for me.   Of course, you were real luck.

I was the kid who flunked 3rd grade, had discipline issues - hated structure and like little girls.  Always liked little girls.  But I liked guys too.....I like people and have a fun life with lots and lots of people in it.  Its what I wanted for my self towards the end.   Never cared about withdrawing from anything - other than maybe the bank or....as a method of birth control.

I’m very lucky you’re my kid.  My father was a not a very respectable character and my mom was mentally challenges as in nuts.  So the likely hood of me making it to college thru an MBA program were slim (you’re namesake, Charlie Samter, said I wasn’t really college material. ).  Just like the likelyhood of me having a kid graduate from Georgetown Law School and becoming a lawyer were also pretty slim. 

So its been great til now. But now its stuff I don’t know how to navigate.   Now shows America that its sort of open society and freedom is hopelessly out of synch with modernity and all the very tough issues that must be faced now.  Climate Change, Pandemics, Income Inequality, Aging Population - and it all starts hitting now.

No more dodging the bullet.  American’s exceptional -ism is dead.  Now the deal is we have to run to keep up.  Keep up with autocratic societies that can do things we simply cannot do:  like contain a virus.   Open Societies and rugged individualism is no longer allowed for Great World Powers or whatever they call them in Orwell's book 1984.     No, my America is over and maybe it’s my fault, my generations or what the fuck does it matter who's fault.  You gotta get about the job of fixing it Charlie.  And you will,  I have no doubt.

Back from the Dead

BACK FROM THE DEAD: COVID19 RECOVERY STORY

by BERNIE DUBINSKY

I’ve always thought of myself lucky, but not until I caught the COVID-19 virus did I realize how lucky. 

As a 70 year old overweight guy who biked a lot but still had all the other risk factors, I thought if I got this virus, I was a goner. The news of 2020 Pandemic hit me as the start of a collapse of life as I knew it and I’d assumed part of that deal was, if I caught the virus, I’d be dead. Made sense.  The virus targeted my generation and was gunning from me, kinda like the Arnold nut job character in the Terminator.  Every time I looked over my shoulder, there it was, always about to catch up and when it did; I felt for sure that would be, ‘all she wrote’. 

Didn’t work out quite that simply.   Right after 2021 started I took sick – not all the symptoms, but enough that my heart sank.   Testing took forever but a positive result came back Jan 6^th – just in time to watch the Capital get over-run.  I felt like I was being over-run by an invader as well. Couldn’t sleep……started drifting in and out of consciousness…no appetite, constipation, non-stop nausea.  Now this was weird, like LSD, Peyote and Mary Jane all wrapped up into one bad trip. Trouble is, I wanted to hold off taking this trip, I wanted off this airplane. 

Like it or not, it was on.  Nights filled with bad radio voices, endless channel flipping on unwatchable cable TV and bad movie ideas from Netflix as I sat in my place zoned out.  Until I noticed something.   I could hear shouts and cries, e mails from over my cell phone. All messages from folks in the cooperative I live in. Like vague chants, me neighbors kept nudging me.  

They were rooting for me to stay alive.  The Terminator caught me, but these guys in my housing cooperative  figured I could beat it.  Imagine that?    These much younger voices drowned out all the other bad news and self-doubt and old movies.  Maybe I was just being a drama queen and this is not the “Sickness onto Death”?  

Turns out, those voices were right. I started by me getting hungry again.  That’s what happened first.  In the middle of the night, I grabbed a week old rotisserie chicken in the fridge that was given me by a neighbor, threw it in dirty baking dish and warmed it up.  In the dark, at 3 am, I wolfed that chicken down, like a caveman, and ate half of it – not even putting salt on it, just slicing it with a Swiss Army penknife.  .

First real food I had eaten in 10 days.  Protein craving was my body’s screaming out for energy for the fight.  My body kept telling me; “you’re gonna fucking die, you moron, if you don’t help me with this virus – forget your imagined death, I’m struggling here to stay alive.”  And that’s what I did. I forget my doom and gloom stuff and started listening to this my beat-up old body. 

Been symptom free now for 6 days and as the 45^th prez just left my old hometown, DC: other clouds have started to lift.  I’m sleeping again, eating and yes, even going to the bathroom like normal.  No more split consciousness; clarity of thinking has returned. I’m recovering nicely, according to my HMO.  One more negative test result and I'm good to go.  Imagine that?    I’m still alive. 

Looks to be pretty clear for now.  Feels great! New movie playing in the mental VCR, its Charles Dickens Christmas Carol and I’m Scrooge, back from the dead on Christmas morning.  But that could all change with yet another health reversal.  Just hope it’s not like Arnold always says: “ I’ll be back.”

                                                                                                                        

My Closeted Affair with a Trumpster

I never knew I was sleeping with someone that voted for Donald Trump until a couple of weeks after the 2016 election. Dee and I had been an ‘item’ more or less for 5 years and we never did figure politics as part of the attraction. We just knew we both loved to bike and swim and head to the beach at random times. Both had irregular schedules that let us meet during week days and both needed the affection and intimacy that drew us together.

It turned out that politics was what pulled us apart.

Being 25 years older than her seemed the least of our problems. She was drop dead gorgeous when really young and age enhanced her looks for me. What had been very small breasts on a tallish, athletic, small boned young woman become kinda voluptuous boobies when they began to drop as she aged. Her flaxen hair cascaded over shoulders built up from hours of Yoga and swimming; her larger thighs bespoke more of biking muscles than flab and her pale blue eyes distracted you from noticing her mounting wrinkles. Even her grey hair streaks were camouflage by her sun bleached coif.

For a pot bellied aging lefty like me, Dee was heaven sent. True we had to be very careful about sex ’cause Dee could still get pregnant, but that wasn’t much of an issue. Half the time my borderline diabetes gave me hit or miss performance and Dee never did find ecstasy with the dirt bag losers that were drawn like flies to her beauty. She wasn’t exactly frigid but the joys of sex had always eluded her. So in terms of sex it was a pretty good match — she didn’t want it in and I couldn’t get it up.

We shared lots more interesting intimacy than the old ‘in and out’. She is an exhibitionist who loved getting naked in front of an audience and I was always willing to watch — and that extended to showers together, sleeping in the buff together ( especially at wake up time) and even bathroom stuff (which did weird me out a little, at first). I even bought this little cot mattress that fit along her bed so we could fondle each other side by side in a harmless fashion. Not getting overly excited, but feeling kinda nasty and dreamy all the same.

It was the sort of magical LA street romance of convenience made possible by biking back and forth across LA from downtown (where I live) to West LA (where Dee lives). I became her cut-rate sugar daddy and she became my younger paramour by default. We did all kinds of low-cost outings together like the Hollywood Bowl, or a trip to Hansen Dam or late night Karaoke and drinks. But our real love was getting high on pot. And that happened as soon as her eyes met mine. I paid for most everything but not in an overt way — it was always Dee’s intention to even the financial score but I knew she never could.

Dee was trapped in the gig economy ever since the world renowned Yoga studio she had worked for went bust. Dee had been a teacher/admin supervisor for a wacky Yoga franchise operation for a number of years that was a convenient bike ride away from her over priced West LA apt.

When the company closed its doors, she never was able to pay her bills and was forced to rely on her parents for help. I buying her dinner or taking her to a movie was a thrill she appreciated as something outside of her budget. I did not expect anything back for my largesse. Dee was extremely independent and willful and hated to take anything from anyone. It’s all part of that Republican thing about being a ‘rugged individual’ and never taking a hand out. I accepted her party affiliation as just another eccentricity.

As 2016 advanced towards the election, I noticed Dee was watching some strange stuff on You Tube. Alex Jones, “Lies from the Mainstream Media” , and lots of hate stuff about Hillary and the “Deep State” were on the I-pad I lent her and I wondered what it was all about. Truth is I never much cared about her politics. I was more into our physical activities but it was interesting that she was such a strong Trump devote. She loved his grand plans to disrupt the establishments. I only later realized how much all of that fed into her resentments about being left-behind by a tricky economy that was very unforgiving.

I had all the ‘baby boomer’ advantages in terms of career opportunities, investments and benefits of marriage. This meant that I led a comfortable middle-class existence afforded by good health and fortune. Dee was not nearly as lucky and it gave her a radically different perspective on the economy and everyday life. The Bogard/Becall movie “To Have and Have Not” summed up our relationship and how politics came to interfere with our bliss. (For Bogart it was the French Resistance in that 1944 movie.)

My whole world is made up of progressive friends working to cure the World’s ills like climate change and abuse of women or LBGT discrimination. My friends bike as much to make an environmental statement as to get cross town. We were all shocked out of complacency by Trump’s win.

The big question was ‘Who the hell voted for Trump?’ Only folks in the ‘fly over’ States my liberal friends and I concluded. Wrong. Dee told me she did. It caused me to shutter and deny it was true. I couldn’t tell my friends. I avoided them and started living this weird ‘closeted’ life style where we stopped socializing with others.

Her revelation cast a whole new light on everything. I hadn’t thought of myself as a ‘pussy grabber’ in the Trump mode. I had noticed that nasty old white guys gave me a big wink when Dee and I loaded our bikes on the bus and scrambled aboard, but I missed the Trump effect until Dee started advertising for Q-Anon on her bike basket. Then, those old white guys started up conversations with us and called us ‘fellow patriots’. It threw our whole relationship into a weird narrative that gave me motion sickness.

If she’s a Trumpster, I must be a wannabe ‘pussy grabber’ -’cause that’s the sort of women who hang with those sort of guys. I just couldn’t face my friends, the world or even my reflection in the mirror knowing that about myself. Finally came that day when I had to send that ‘Dear Dee’ e-mail. I sent her the lyrics from Cole Porter — Just One of Those Things song and lamented about us having to part. It was a bittersweet parting.

I guess even love is polarized in the era of Donald Trump.

Don't Look Up": The 1% Bet Wrong on Survival

"Don't Look Up" just proves that Karl Marx had it right about U.S. capitalism after all. He predicted, “The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.”  Capitalists love to create speculative bubbles, one after another, where the only losers are the last ones in.   Dogecoin, Bitcoin, Game Stop, NINJA mortgage loans that purchase inflated houses and of course there's Anti- Vaxers betting that everyone else is wrong.  And so the wheel spins round and round as  our sweet speculative economy heralds the noisy end for a declining civilization.  

De Caprio's latest film "Don't Look Up" is a huge satire of our entire capitalist upper crust as seen thru thru the prism of eminent, pending disaster. Much like the predictions of the astrological consultant Nostradamus, (famous for his book Les Propheties, published in 1555 ) two astrophysicists in Michigan  uncover a huge meteor that's about to hit planet earth and no one cares.  At least not until they can look up and see it coming.  These Michigan guys are real astrophysicist and they have scientific proof for their claims but that's besides the point. 

Earth's rescue hopes are dashed by our need to create yet one more speculative bubble; "How much gold is there in that there meteor?"  A venal, much adulated Capitalist clown is willing to bet your life that there's plenty.  He browbeats an even more venal US President into calling off a rescue attempt in order to feed a  speculative urge with all the 1% ers walking off a cliff like sheep behind him.   

You've got Hollywood's very best ensemble cast leading this cast with terrific cameo performances of every box office attraction known to man.   Better entertainment simply can not be found.  

Its a hell of a plot devices - the world ending.  And it would be one terrific parody but for the fact that its way too real to life.  We actually live our lives with climate change occurring at an accelerating pace  - and we've manage to blow off the threat of doom 'cause we need to.  Like a bunch of Republican's who need to deny Biden won or that there was a coupe attempt on Jan 6th - we just can't handle the truth.  Lets hope we make out better than the folks in the film.  

  

The Trump Silver Lining

The Trump Silver Lining

Donald Trump, asshole that he is, is kinda bringing us together as a nation.  That’s just my private belief, not based on any scientific proof (something that the Don never did believe in anyway).  The Trumpster may be in the dumpster according to approval ratings, opinion makers or all that’s holy, but by God, he is causing us to reach out to each other as never before.  We are all huddling together for comfort – kinda like our ancestors did when we had to share space with feral cavemen.   And it’s forcing us to deal with each other, even relate.

I can only use a parable to illustrate my belief.  It’s loosely based on my personal interpretation of what I heard on the radio this morning.    Wil Shorts, National Public Radio’s (NPR), exalted Puzzle Master, picks this week’s winner to be a constant on the show and ‘solve this week’s puzzle’   

 I’m biking in the rain, not really a puzzle fan, and praying for music to start on my earphones.     I’m trying to ignore this week’s puzzle as Know-it-All Will attempts to solve all the world problems with wordplay.  (Chinese Ping-pong anyone?) Usually thr NPR contestants are REI types out of the mid-west, or librarians in New York City or retired government worker in Portland, Ore.  But no, not today.  Today it’s an old white guy in Clearwater, Florida – not a place that supported Hillary. 

The contestant starts off horribly by revealing all of his personal financial, career and marital mistakes in his first reply, but things change for the better when he gets into the actual puzzle stuff.  He’s really good a solving puzzles.  Even ends his last reply with a song that helps to solve the last piece of the puzzle.

And in that on the radio moment of joy and mutual appreciation, I begin to have like a Gestalt - Wow!  That’s it.  If Wil hadn’t been cool after the old white guys first spoke (misspoke)  just BECAUSE the guy was not one of many of the ‘downtrodden’ that NPR is always broadcasting about  - you know, the victims of violence, war and pastilles, LBGTers, under counted persons of color or Reform Temple Jews - it could have gone in a wrong direction.  I could see where the guy was fixing to use a bad pronoun, call somebody sweetheart or light a cigarette.  And it could have triggered Will and you’re in the soup lickety-split.  

You could tell this contestant was no liberal.    The contestant  was not a PC kinda guy; but it all worked fine because they pulled together for the sake of the SHOW. 

And that’s what’s happening.  The expression I keep hearing is:  “If things don’t change and we don’t wake the fuck up, we’re gonna have 4 more years of Trump.”  That means bury the hatchet, forget the past, and look beyond the stupid boundaries and barriers that seem like walls right now.  Shoulder to the wheel to push this rock up the hill together to get this guy out of office the best way – vote him out.   Let’s not have mission drift – let’s get rid of Donald Trump first; then go back to quibbling over all the other stuff; AFTER we’re out of danger.

And there is the ‘silver lining’.  Even a straight, white male from the red-neck part of Florida would rather help his son pick out a dress; and even go so far as to wear a matching one himself, if that’s what it takes to pull together to get rid of Trump.   

Whatever it takes to get rid of this guy and make things right in America again.             ( They were never all that great.)   We gotta pull in the same direction now and not even contemplate the horrors that may occur if we don’t.  The stakes are too high not to.   

Eskimo Brothers

Kinda shocking. 

Lance had no idea it was my ex-wife he was seeing.  We had only been friends for a couple of 3 years and just rode bikes and shared weed at liquoor store stops.  I mean, he knew I had an ex-wife; but like, he was all of maybe 40 years old and she had been my ex about that long a period of time.  So it seemed; until I relized that Lance was sleeping with her - and that he had no idea.

It happened like this; I was going by my favorite brewery in the Arts District on Alameda and just as I pulled up on my bike, Lance was sharing a glass of wine with Isabella.  Sweet, sweet Bella, Bella - my ex-wife and then some.  We hadn't spoke directly to one another for 12 years and then BAM - Bella Bella wants to be my friend on Facebook.  I chalked it off to starting a new account, but still, why now?

Lance and I traded all kinds of sex stories.   His were far more interesting; he could still have plain old vanilla sex 'cause he had that old drive for a kid.  Not me.  I had a kid, thank you and all the stuff that goes with it; including Bella, Bella.  It was swell; for a time until the kid got old enough talk back and I realized that home decorating, conspicuous consumption and first class travel matter not to me.  I just wanted to play with a six year old, bike the beach and phone in my work assignments as a feature writer for the LA Times. 

We sure did have this great kid - Dani - who liked to work just as hard as his mother and most of all - wanted to make money.  None of that was me; but I never did complain.  It simply ended, very rocky and with no need for an explaination.  Bella, Bella and I had made our contribution to mankind with Dani and it was good.  No need to make the patheons of long lived marriages.  We both had other things in mind.

So that was 14 years ago and except for an occasional pleasantry during a family encounter; there was no need to explain.  Kinda like an old Cole Porter slogan; "Never complain and never explain".  (Or was that an old Katherine Hepburn movie?)  We were adult who could live with our mistakes - at least that's what I thought.

So you can imagine my suprise at the random encounter of Bella, Bella messaging Lance groin as toasted each other and kissed.   It was a tender moment - the sort that she'd love to share; sun godess that she was.

Cranksgiving Los Angeles 2017

Charity scavenger bike ride for Para Los Ninos....ride starts at Echo Park with all riders dumping shoes into a bag and then finding them; next grap list of stores all over central LA and items you need to get; next get on bike and get items - with receipts and times stamps; get back to 3rd and Loma fast after you hit 10 stores - see if you're the first.  I always win the senior division - only entrant. 

Open Letter to Charlie Rose: Hang in there Fella !

I didn’t understand when you  moved to a morning news show on CBS.  Why you started doing all these specials, and travel assignments and now, now, you started a ‘week in review’ show – with predictions no less.  Silly.  You’re like 10 years older than I am – and you had a heart, medical something; I mean, Charlie….WTF.  What are you thinking?

And then I heard you interview a fellow reporter, who’s a millennial, and I realized why you need to stick around.  I mean the guy was trying to track the Russian investigation and the politics of it all and he regurgitated some press coverage from MSNBC and said nothing about the week’s huge story; the acrimony that’s happening on Capital Hill around the issue.  No nose for the news…tone death; clueless.  Your questions were the only thing that saved his ass.

If that’s the caliber of your replacements; hang in there Charlie!  We especially need you right now.  I mean guys like Huntley and Brinkley are the past (and Uncle Walter ate his last tuna fish sandwich), so we need you Charlie.  At least you remember who Liz Smith was and know who’s the last ambassador to South Korea and why the Justice Department should never be political.   And once more; you still care about these things.    People are fast forgetting how to do that; or why you should.

You are daily fighting the aging process to do all that you do,  and now I understand why.  You gotta keep up ‘cause you’re needed. We need you Charlie to be a journalist. A beacon of truth, justice and even handedness.  We need you to train new ones.   To set some kind of standards (or at least pretend to).  We need you to work just as along as you can; or until Walt Whitman’s words ring out:

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, 

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, 

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

Forget, the rest of that poem, Charlie.  Its strictly not a good tweet.  (No one’ll knows the dif anyway.) 

THE NOT SO GRAND STORY BEHIND THE WILSHIRE GRAND

Not done.  That's right.  All the hype....tallest this, tallest that, first whatever...its all deflated by the reality of a building that's unfinished.  Not ready for prime time.  Not ready for the public.  Its missing signage, unfinished leasehold improvements for the shopping frontage on Fig and worse of all a spooky elevator without buttons that feels like being trapped with Hal in  '2001: A Space Odyssey'.  There's a deep, dark story behind the reason this multi million dollar structure is finished off like a cheap apartment building in a undesirable part of Van Nuys. The court forced them to open - like now
.
Trapped in a spooky elevator ride into the clouds:  Note the faux skyline view.  Why not the real?

Clearly, this place got forced open before the finishing touches could be put on it.  Its just not ready to accommodate any serious influx of patrons.

    According to an employee who knows, the contractor had a finish date that got extended not once, not twice, not even less than a dozen times - more times than anyone could count.  Except the courts.  The courts forced the opening with heavy fines, and that clearly shows.  If the place was not open by a that June day the Mayor proclaimed how great it all is - June 23rd - then there would be hell to pay.  Yeah, maybe it WILL BE great, when it gets finished.  Til then, its empty, hostile to pedestrian traffic and just plain unfinished.

On my recent Friday afternoon pedestrian visit entering from that grand entrance off Fig, I expected to see the grandeur of a press photo - like below - note the people replicas scurrying below:

Instead, what I saw was and desolate entrance to nothing - without one inviting sign or friendly indicator that the building was even open, let alone, ready for business.  You kept wanting to turn around at every step up from the street because the place looked abandoned.

 On a Friday afternoon, you would expect the bar  on the 70th floor should be humming 'cause of the view, and tourist should have been streaming in, and the ground floor should have been packed with folks drinking and eating at the open eateries.  But  nothing was happening.  Here's one of LA's newest most exciting tourists attractions and no one at the street level even knows its open.  No signage. Nothing that invites a pedestrian in.

   Not many folks visiting  for a space meant to be crowded.  Photos below are at  3 pm on a  Friday afternoon:

And the InterContinental Hotel has no check-ins:

And the bar's empty too:

Could be a good thing.  Forget the signable and the normal crass commercialism tailored at inviting folks in and being friendly.  Stay cold and forbidding Wilshire Grand.  I like an empty spot to take a date or an out of towner who thinks LA is overcrowded.  Let's keep this a secret kinda place - even if it is the tallest whatever, whatever.  I like it empty.

Cruising Downtown LA's Art District - Late Nite

" Never have so many paid so much to be on the wrong side of the railroad tracks." 

- Bernie Dubinsky@DubinskysDigest

DubinskysDigest: The Cut-Rate Sugar Daddy

Being cheap is a way of life for me and my much younger paramour.  Partly out of necessity but largely because we compete with each other to see who can be smarter about not spending money or who can get something for less.  Our motto is:  " The trouble with money is, you can only spend it once."

For example, Whole Foods Supermarket.  Its a rip off - everyone knows that, especially in their prepared food section - where a hot plate meal can cost as much as dinner at the Four Seasons.  And you still won't have enough to eat.  So we figured out that if you stuff a lot of rice and curry in a large soup container it costs much less ( no weighing by the pound ) and you can have more than enough left overs for the next day.  That's a good example of being cheap/boarder line psychotic that we're talking about.  

We take buses everywhere - me buying the monthly unlimited senior pass for $20 of course.  And we would sooner choke each other to death rather than NOT purchase the advertised Subway Sandwich of the day - its always at least 50 cents cheaper.  We almost never eat out - unless its Norm's and we buy all our veggies at the 99 cent store - but never the frozen ones (they come from China). Our biggest thrill is use every last coupon we can clip, find on the street or at the supermarket.  Of course we bicycle a lot (to save on gas)  and sometime it gets kinda tiring going that extra 3 miles to the right supermarket to redeem those coupons.

Now this doesn't exactly fit the paradigm of big spender 'older man' with his oh so young, voluptuous girlfriend dressed in revealing lingerie and giving a Lolita lick on her lollipop.   And that's because that is not exactly our  situation.  I ended up dating my biking buddy - for a number of reasons - the chief being she's a pretty women and I found her irresistible; the other one is that she's very cheap.  Which means we always enjoy the same things together - like biking to the beach, walking along the sand and eating at little Formica  topped  joints in Koreatown where the menu only gives you half the story.  (Ya gotta read Johnathan Gold in the free LA Weekly to find out the rest.) 

Being cheap is not just a Sunday affair with us.  It extends into our sex life together as well.  Now while it is  true that sex is free, contraception is not.  Although condoms are sometimes free at health clinics, it always seems that they are never free when you really need them.  So we resolved not spend that money by resorting to certain, uh..... 'deviate' practices; which I'm certain my readers are already very familiar with so I need not belabor that point. 

We find that this a very satisfactory. if not satisfying, relationship that puts a much needed new spin on the 'older man' cliche that helps us escape the creepy dimensions of a May-December relationship.  No one ever accuses my friend of being in it 'just for the money' and conversely, the 'dirty old man' baggage doesn't quite fit on a bicycle.    We do attract quite a bit of attention when we she calls me 'Dad' and we have a lengthy colloquium on the joys on incest at parties or other public gatherings.  ( That's one taboo that still manages to raise an eyebrow.)   Mostly we just fun about things like why my girlfriend never needs to buy lottery tickets.  My life insurance policy, that names her as the beneficiary, is a much surer bet.

The Cut-Rate Sugar Daddy

THE CUT-RATE SUGAR DADDY

Being cheap is a way of life for me and my much younger paramour.  Partly out of necessity but largely because we compete with each other to see who can be smarter about not spending money or who can get something for less.  Our motto is:  " The trouble with money is, you can only spend it once."

For example, Whole Foods Supermarket.  Its a rip off - everyone knows that, especially in their prepared food section - where a hot plate meal can cost as much as dinner at the Four Seasons.  And you still won't have enough to eat.  So we figured out that if you stuff a lot of rice and curry in a large soup container it costs much less ( no weighing by the pound ) and you can have more than enough left overs for the next day.  That's a good example of being cheap/boarder line psychotic that we're talking about.  

We take buses everywhere - me buying the monthly unlimited senior pass for $20 of course.  And we would sooner choke each other to death rather than NOT purchase the advertised Subway Sandwich of the day - its always at least 50 cents cheaper.  We almost never eat out - unless its Norm's and we buy all our veggies at the 99 cent store - but never the frozen ones (they come from China). Our biggest thrill is use every last coupon we can clip, find on the street or at the supermarket.  Of course we bicycle a lot (to save on gas)  and sometime it gets kinda tiring going that extra 3 miles to the right supermarket to redeem those coupons.

Now this doesn't exactly fit the paradigm of big spender 'older man' with his oh so young, voluptuous girlfriend dressed in revealing lingerie and giving a Lolita lick on her lollipop.   And that's because that is not exactly our  situation.  I ended up dating my biking buddy - for a number of reasons - the chief being she's a pretty women and I found her irresistible; the other one is that she's very cheap.  Which means we always enjoy the same things together - like biking to the beach, walking along the sand and eating at little Formica  topped  joints in Koreatown where the menu only gives you half the story.  (Ya gotta read Johnathan Gold in the free LA Weekly to find out the rest.) 

Being cheap is not just a Sunday affair with us.  It extends into our sex life together as well.  Now while it is  true that sex is free, contraception is not.  Although condoms are sometimes free at health clinics, it always seems that they are never free when you really need them.  So we resolved not spend that money by resorting to certain, uh..... 'deviate' practices; which I'm certain my readers are already very familiar with so I need not belabor that point. 

We find that this a very satisfactory. if not satisfying, relationship that puts a much needed new spin on the 'older man' cliche that helps us escape the creepy dimensions of a May-December relationship.  No one ever accuses my friend of being in it 'just for the money' and conversely, the 'dirty old man' baggage doesn't quite fit on a bicycle.    We do attract quite a bit of attention when  she calls me 'Dad' and we have a lengthy colloquium on the joys on incest at parties or other public gatherings.  ( That's one taboo that still manages to raise an eyebrow.)   Mostly we just fun about things like why my girlfriend never needs to buy lottery tickets.  My life insurance policy, that names her as the beneficiary, is a much surer bet.

I Scoffed at Jackie Kennedy

In 1999, when John F. Kennedy Jr. died in a very tragic airplane crash in a plane he was piloting, my ex-wife told me that it was his mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, reaching out from the beyond because she was lonely for her son. JFK Jr. died so that he could be re-united with his mother.

 A fantastical story which quickly led me to be a little uncomfortable around that ex-wife. Little did I fully understand the bond between a departed Mom and her son back then. 

I never did wanna know much about any 'parallel universe'.  Always figured that the laws of nature and geometry would protect me from crashing into that barrier.   I realize now how easily it can happen.  What I'm about to tell you is the sort of story about a Mother-son bond that Rod Serling might have used for his weekly TV show.

I have the pathetic middle aged fat guy malay known as bad snoring or to be medically correct, sleep apnea. It's a potentially serious sleep disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts - hey, it has been known to cause death.  Especially if you live alone and don't wake up in time to take that breath.  I sleep hard and sometime dream but always forget the dreams the next day.    But this one night two weeks ago; I didn't forget.

I'm swimming with my recently deceased 86 year old mother.  Mom appears to be swimming ahead of me in the ocean off Santa Monica Beach.  Its an over cast day but we're swimming parallel to the beach front together anyway.  Mom's ahead of me

in the water doing a side stroke.  (Not clear if we were both swimming naked or not; but that seems a  minor point in light of what happens next.)

So Mom starts yelling back at me to turn around and go back. I can make out her strong command over the calm ocean.  I ignore her (like I always did when she yelled at me for smoking, drinking or womanizing) but then I heard her serious voice and saw she was pointing at me to swim back - no, demanding that I swim back.

She repeatedly said in a very calm voice,    "Turn around now Bernie, you need to go back immediately.  Do not follow me."  I kept thinking how she was nutty as always but after three stiff warnings.  I reluctantly obeyed.

As soon as I turned about in the water I immediately  awoke from my sleep in a complete terror, unable to breathe. The dream ended, I sprang up on my feet, opened the door to the garden and started to breathe in the night air.  It was 4 am and I realized that I might not be breathing if I hadn't turned back.

Now when I related this dream to my older brother, he seemed most weirded out regarding the naked part of the dream - and I will say that necrophilia is perhaps a little more unusual than say, cross-dressing.  But, I can certainly let that part go in light of the 'supernatural' side of this whole story.  The whole issue of being rescued by your deceased Mother dredges up much larger fears in my mind; like a  'parallel universe' and lots of Twilight Zone music in the background every time I think about it.

So I don't scoff at my ex-wife's story about Jackie Kennedy anymore.  I think Moms continue to watch over you one way or the other for a very long time.  Someone said that God couldn't be everywhere so he invented Mothers.  That feels real true.   I'm just grateful that Mom hasn't abandon her post yet.           

Laughter that Can't be Captured in DNA

So my older (like way older) brother Martin, calls me up to say that he sent a DNA sample swab away for testing and he knows for certain that 'our' father Jack, was really NOT his father.  Now that piece of 67 year old news has many, many heavy family consequences OR would have if it were not for the following facts:

• Father Jack was a terrible example as a parent.   He abandon our Mom with 3 small kids, never paid child support, although he did always make a good living as a Jeweler.  All of us are doting parents and kinda feel sorry for the guy - now that he's dead anyway.
• We have all lived much of our lives successfully, to one degree or another, with adult children of our own who share that success, to one degree or another, and all doing pretty well.
• Our poor Mom is kinda played out in a nursing home with many of her facilities gone and she clings to dear life without really being aware of it.  News of her supposed youthful 'infidelities' would not send her into any sort of indignation, as life has already handed her much more serious indignities to cope with. 
• My 'baby' sister Sue (two year's younger) and I look a lot like our father Jack, so we saved on DBA swabs and postage.  Ancestry genetics just don't hold the fascination they do for our older brother. (What difference does it make if you gotta make the best of what you got?)  And besides, we can't stop howling long enough to do anything.  After all these years, to find out it really WAS the milkman (as my brother now believes) well, there are no words to describe it.  

But the consequences of this are exceedingly grave indeed, as brother Martin points out.  Something about tracing your roots back to pre-historic man and Neanderthal like characteristics.  Well clearly, my big brother always did have the jump on me intellectually (I was more the brutish type) and now I know why. 

There are lots more consequences that can be read into this with more research*and I'm sure the analysis is of some limited historic value.  I don't see it, but gauging from the growth of the genetic information industry, I'm in a minority.  

What fascinates me about the whole business is the potential material this creates for movie script, stand up comedy and 'reality' TV is enormous.   Like playing back a particularly lurid episode from the Jerry Springer Show only you're in the guest seat - kinda after the fact.  (In our case it would be more like the Morey Povich Show, 'cause after all, Morey IS from South Philly.) I've got to find me a video camera that captures the past before I can catch that episode!

 *But while the proportion of one’s inheritance from parents is fixed by exact necessity, the fraction from grandparents is governed by chance. For each of the chromosomes you inherit from a given parent, you have a 50 percent chance of gaining a copy from your grandfather and a 50 percent chance of gaining a copy from your grandmother.

San Pedro on a Bike: Disney World for Broke Folk

Now that a day trip to Disney in Anaheim can cost a family of 4 over $ 125 dollars, you might want to plan a bike visit to LA's port town, San Pedro where everything is free or less than 5 bucks.  Here is a trip into LA's past that no-one but the locals know about.  San Pedro reminds me of San Francisco in the 70's before it got yuppified.  One bed-room rents are still less than $ 750 close to the water and the neon signs are from the 50's when folks didn't know images of an American Indian with exaggerated features just aren't P.C.

I mean to say that San Pedro still hasn't been 'done' -  re-invented, revitalized or gentrified.  Its like it always was ONLY now you can bike it with ease because they built a bike path that goes from the Cruise Ship port at the base of the City all the way around to Cabrillo Beach.  Here's a map that shows what all you can see in a one day visit complements of www.sanpedro.com



The bike path is clear and new and has some terrific views of the entire port.

.  There are lots of stops along the way and you can get off the bike path to explore parts of the port that have been abandoned - things like Warehouse No.1 that just beg to be converted to into artists lofts with waterfront views.

And of course there's just the enjoyment of being on the water and taking it in:

If you have kids, all the better.  Here's a place you can take them for the day that's very cheap.  Ride the working trolley car, jump in the Universal City-style water fountain or go to the City of LA run kids aquarium where they can actually touch a starfish in the water.    

Let's hope this stays this way and doesn't go too commercial.  I probably shouldn't even be writing about this one quiet, undervalued place left in LA.  Few people knowing about it means its easy to park for free at the Port of Call for the day and easy to get around once you're there.  It can't last like that.  Most of the restaurants don't have names that end with words "trattoria," "bistro," "ristorante," or  "cucina," - lets just hope it stays that way.  Let's hope it stays that way and only those hip enough to know about Pedro go there

Ally Cat-ing Late-night LA on a Bike

Ally-Cat-ing Late-night LA on a Bike

        by Bernie Dubinsky

             

These mean LA streets are very real to us the late night cycle freaks.  I mean I don't give a hang about rap music, getting some booty or 'throw'en down' in a street altercation with some fellow gang member.  (Christ, don't even know when     I 'm wearing gang colors or flashing gang signs.)       I mean, I'm actually clueless and really from another planet to many of my crew members in the Midnight Ridazz bike hikes I take on 'Taco Tuesday'.  But dig it, I'm into the LA late night street scene.  I'm completly there and present when it comes to GREAT Taco Truck Food, wild dancing in the street to salsa rythems and capturing those wonderful romantic deep-throat kissing scenes that take place along parked cars up and down LA's late nite boulevards. 

The sights and sounds of LA after dark on a bike are more exciting than a spill over a river rapid.  And its free and fairly safe.  You need some street smarts but, speed and agility on a bike can mostly keep you out of trouble.

Street biking changed forever when the subway came in.  Cause LA is so vast, you can’t be a biking purest to really explore it – you have to alternate between a bike and the train to see it all.  Known as ‘alley cat-ing’ to bike messengers  its just makes sense to use the train where possible and jump on a bike when you want to or need to. 

LA's street biking is more thrilling than walking around New York's hip little areas like SoHo.  New York has late nite areas that maybe go for 10 blocks but LA stretches forever into the night.    There are these wonderful flights across rivers and freeways and stuff that would be an insurmountable barrier in any other sane city that wasn't designed for the car.  As LA’s urban infill occurs  - everything from DTLA to S & M feels like the Isle of Manhattan only more exciting 'cause you're going at 30 miles an hour - and not 8.  You glide on flat terrain with bright city lights and streets emptied of auto traffic.    Even without drugs you feel like a junkie roaring into that angry night for a fix.  A fix of LA sights, sounds  and smells on a bike after 9 pm can be very intoxicating. 

Now that the subway actually goes into neighborhoods, I am forever exploring parts of LA that were not easily accessible before.  Boyle Heights for example was over the water and up a big hill.  Skip that hill and pop the Gold Line to Mariachi Plaza and you are instantly transformed to a Plaza Centro that could be found in any Mexican pueblo, but you its in the middle of Los Angeles.  Street food, old musicians in traditional garb all surrounded by young guys hanging out in baggy cargo shorts and wonderfully exotic Latina women covered in tats with lots painted black fingernails.  Don’t forget those unbelievable piercings and round ear lobe expanders that every taco truck stevedore seems to have.  And you’re there in an instant ‘cause of the subway.  This is a great starting point for an urban bike hike.

So I head out 1^st  street to find my favorite food, el pastor tacos at King Tacos – a local LA chain that offers tacos on those smaller tortillas that serious aficionados look for; fried just right in grill grease to just about crispy and covered with the best salsa with flavored pinto bean on the side. Before eating I swing by the East Los Angeles County Park at the Civic Center that’s  3 minutes away to feed the ducks.   Its  mid-night when I pull in and the 24 hour King Taco on East 3^rd Street just on the other side of the 710 Freeway.  The place  is rocking with all sort of hungry people looking for late nite nourishment.   I’m starved from the 5 mile bike ride – all paralleling  the train – and order up one of everything.   Folks are friendly and I’ve talked to 6 or 7 different families, couples, truckers and people curious about some old white guy on a bike covered with decals.

Time to go home to West LA.  Hop the train at the Maravilla Station across the street and figure I’ll nap on the way to Union Station ( securing my bike first, of course).  The Expo Line drops me off just in time to witness the dating scene in upscale Culver City as the bars start to close.  Lots of gussied up millennials dowsed in liquor and dressed up for Saturday night.  

Heading west on the Venice Blvd. bikeway and thinking of greeting the dawn at Santa Monica – way different world in the same city.  And that’s what LA’s late night scene is all about – lots of contrast and different realities but all under the same cool evening breezes on empty, flat streets that stretch east from the ocean.  The train will eventually go to the ocean, but on a bike, late at night, you wanna ride and experience it.