Los Angeles, Occupied

As a general rule I avoid driving after dark. My general policy while on the road is to be in my motel room or in camp by nightfall. I break this rule only when necessity demands it.

After my day in Oxnard, I had thought of staying there, but the ineffable signs seemed to indicate that I should go ahead with my plans.

So after about a half hour on 101 in the dark, I came down into the expanse of the San Fernando Valley on the edge of the contiguous metropolis of Los Angeles.

I had booked two nights at the Motel 6 in Canoga Park, a neighborhood "town" of L.A. that was about as far out in the Valley as one could get.

The motel was at the corner of DeSoto and Sherman and had good review online.

But a wrong turn just after the exit sent me in the wrong direction several miles down Ventura Avenue through Woodland Park. Then even after finding my error, I couldn't find the motel.

This was entirely due to my bad habit of not double checking the directions and exact location of my destination, and instead relying on the vague map in my memory from when I first made the reservation.

Thus it took me almost an hour of navigating the grid like thoroughfares of the west end of the Valley to find my lodgings.

But I didn't mind very much. It was still early in the evening, and it gave me a nice introduction to the Valley.

The Motel 6 in Canoga Park turned out to be a decent place, but nothing like its marvelous corporate cousin in Santa Barbara, which had all new rooms and a flat screen t.v.

I could tell the one in Canoga Park had not been a Motel 6 originally, but had been reflagged, probably from a Days Inn or a Super 8, or something similar.

I wound up parking right next to a mid-Sixties era Volkswagen bus.

After checking in and schlepping my stuff up to the room, I was ready for dinner. I decided to forgo the Indian restaurant next door that was probably owned and operated by the same family running the motel.

Instead I wandered up and down Sherman Boulevard looking for some cheap fare.

It was a disheartening experience. At the corner of DeSoto was the busiest and brightest establishment in the entire district---a 99 cents store crammed with shoppers. Out front were small crowds of teenagers in gangster-like hoodies and poses waiting for the bus, and along the front windows were a row of homeless people sleeping with blankets heaped on them. My smartphone told me there was a frost warning for the Valley that night.

Down a few of the side streets I could see clumps of tents set up right on the sidewalk, forcing any pedestrians to walk out into the street.

I guess Occupy Los Angeles is still going on, I thought to myself, remembering my experience with the Occupy camp in Boulder last New Year's Eve, and how it had simply become a homeless camp.

All I could find were fast food, pizza delivery places, and many small Mexican restaurants, crammed amidst other businesses with signs that were mostly in Spanish.

I decided to try the Mexican places, but each time I went inside one, I was repulsed by the pungent greasy smell, and quickly retreated outside.

Finally I wound up ordering tamales at the A-frame Der Weinerschnitzel, where I was surprised to find other Anglo people waiting in line in front of me.

I texted a friend of mine that L.A. felt like "a combination of Tijuana and Blade Runner."

But how I could complain after those two weeks in Santa Barbara?

After all, I did want to experience the variety of the Golden State, after all, didn't I?

I slept well that night. The room was comfortable and clean, and well heated.

The temperature reached thirty three degrees, almost to freezing. I was grateful to be indoors, and moreover to have the means to know that I would be indoors the next night, and the one after, and so on.

It doesn't take much to feel rich in L.A., it seems.

Breakdown in Oxnard

During these last couple months, I cannot say that I haven't experienced a wide variety of what California has to offer. I keep bouncing from one time of extreme, intense experience to another.

Leaving Santa Barbara on Thursday, on a beautiful sunny morning, I headed down the coast on 101 through Ventura again. 

I got off the freeway in Oxnard with the intention of making my way down Highway 1 along the coast towards Malibu.

All was going well until about the third or fourth stoplight in Oxnard when I noticed the car was behaving strangely at idle, as if it were having electrical problems.

I revved the engine and it was sputtering noticeably. Something was wrong.

So I looked for a convenient place to pull over and park, next to a gas station on a side street. 

I turned off the engine, then immediately tried to start it again. The  engine didn't turn over at all.

A bunch of thoughts went through my mind. Since I'd just bought a brand new battery in Santa Barbara, it was obvious something was more seriously wrong.

I walked around the surrounding blocks looking for a prospective mechanic. It was about noon. I might be able to squeeze something in today. 

Thankfully it wasn't a Friday, as it was in New Jersey when my radiator failed.

I realized the best thing to do was to break down and call AAA. The representative in Colorado put me through to the Southern California chapter and within a few minutes I was receiving text updates telling me a service vehicle had been dispatched for me.

The responder, Manuel, hooked up probes to the battery in the trunk and found the charging system was shot. I would need a new alternator.

He suggested a mechanic he knew. He called them and they said they could probably get it done today, for a price that was less than I expected. I gave him the green light.

It was with a little bit of wistfulness that I watched him hook his tow truck up my car. For the first time in almost five years of owning this vehicle, and having driven it over seventy thousand miles through forty-five states, I was having it towed.

Up until now, I had always been able to get it to a mechanic under its own power, even when I thought it was done for. The perfect record was shot.

During the short trip Manuel asked me what I was doing in Oxnard. I tried to explain to him my lifestyle, that I travel around working from the road, doing what I please.

He could barely wrap his mind around it. 

"What are you, a scientist?" he asked me.

"Well, actually I am a scientist, or I used to be," I said, "but that's not how I earn my living right now."

I went on to explain to him the kind of technical work I do, in a matter-of-fact way. It was as if I'd opened up a whole new world to him. I felt like an evangelist for the new American Dream.

The garage was in a line of similar independent auto shops only about a half mile away. I thanked Manuel. He asked me to give him a good evaluation in the AAA questionnaire that I would receive later. I said I certainly would.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in a nearby Starbucks doing some work, and then waiting in the garage as the mechanic finished up the repair work.

The new alternator turned out to be the easy part, but at their recommendation I also authorized them to replace the belts, as I knew they were old.

But finding the right size belts turned out to be a challenge. The mechanic kept having to send for new belts from a nearby auto parts store. Each time he flirted a bit with the delivery girl who arrived with the new belt.

The sun went down and after dark it started to get cold. I waited in the garage at the crowded messy office desk listening to Christian music in Spanish. The mechanic flamboyantly sang "Noche de Paz" at the top of his voice as he tried to get the last belt in place.

Finally I was getting nervous that I might have to cancel my hotel reservation. I started hovering around him, eager to get back on the road.

I turned out the sticking point was the air conditioning belt. I laughed because my air conditioning has never worked in the whole time I've owned the car. It's not that it's broken---it's just that I never bothered to charge it up. 

When I told him as much, he finally gave up and reinstalled the old belt, which was in decent condition. I paid the bill and was back on the road again.

It was too late for Malibu, so I got back on 101 and plowed south in the dark, very happy to be one set of headlights in a long procession of commuter pilgrims that snaked up into the hills towards Los Angeles.

Let There Be Dolphins

My visit to Santa Barbara was extraordinary. As was the case in Ventura, I had planned to stay only one night, but the excellent of the motel, in price, quality, and location, caused me to extend my visit to a week and half.

As if to reward me, yesterday afternoon was perfectly clear over the ocean.

I walked down the beach about a mile and sat on some rocks, watching dolphins play in the waves in front of me until the orb of the sun went down.

From where I sat, a lone sailboat was positioned on the edge of the horizon in front of the solar disk as it touched the waterline.

In the last light of the sun, the brilliance of the sun completely surrounded the hull of the sailboat, making glow orange as it were magically on fire without being consumed.

Outside of the time I've spent with friends, new and old, the image of the boat, and the waves and dolphins will remain in my mind as one of the quintessential experiences during this "long trip" to California.

Well, that and the General Sherman Tree, and the Sierra over Bishop, and view from hot tub in Berkeley and...

Born Free in Volkswagens

This interesting VW specimen was parked on the side street next to my motel all the time I was in Ventura. Seeing it each morning as I walked for coffee always brought a smile to my face. 

Sunday found me attempting to take a full day of complete rest, but with the on-and-off-again rains having returned to the coast around Santa Barbara, I found myself straying into work activity, with the excuse that I could get a jump on the week ahead.

As I usually do this time of year, I let the NFL games play on the television as I worked.

But the bylaws of broadcast contracts dictated that the local CBS affiliate had to forgo airing the competitive match-up that most of the nation was watching.

Instead it had to air the game between the pathetic Oakland Raiders and the even-more-pathetic Kansas City Chiefs.

After a quarter and half, when the score was 6-0, I couldn't take anymore of it even as background noise.

So I flipped over to TCM just in time to catch the beginning of Born Free (1966), a movie that came out back when a game between the Raiders and the Chiefs was actually worth watching.

Born Free is also one of the movies, the mention of which, brings me immediately back to the glowing twilight of my early childhood memories

Back then it was an extremely popular movie. Everyone seemingly knew the melody of the theme song and could sing along to parts of it.

If I recall, the first and last time I saw the movie was when I clipped out a discount coupon from the local daily newspaper as part of the summer kid's matinee series.

Watching it this afternoon I got a big smile from one of the early scenes. In the background of one of the shots was a Volkswagen bus from that era, looking all shiny and brand new in the dusty golden landscape of east Africa.

One reason for my smile was because I practically grew up in Volkswagen buses. When I was a kid, My dad was a VW enthusiast, for the primary reason (as he himself told me) that they were cheap and that he could actually work on them by himself.

Found this photo of '66 model with CA plates on the Internet.

We went through a series of such vehicles from about the time I was four until I was in high school. I remember shivering in them in the Iowa winters due to the lack of traditional heaters in them. In 1978 we emigrated out to Colorado in one.

That bus was the first car I ever drove after I got my learner's permit. My dad taught me how to use the stick shift on a gravel road outside Fort Collins.

More than a few times over the last couple years, when I've expressed to friends my ongoing desire for an RV, they have suggested that I purchase a VW camper van.

For most people in my life situation, it would be a splendid idea, but for me it would feel as I were covering the same ground that my father did.

Besides, there is no shortage of other folks willing to keep these machines on the road.

As anyone who has ever been to this area knows, the southern California coast is more or less VW heaven.

One can hardly walk down the street around here, especially in Ventura, without seeing a VW bus from one of the years during the long epoch during which they were manufactured.

Although some show their age, most of the ones I've seen are in quite nice condition, well-kept in appearance and moving through traffic easily in the flow of the late model hybrids and SUVs around them.

Some have been modded up into interesting configurations, but there are others that look like they just rolled off the assembly line at the factory.

Just yesterday I saw a baby blue one in almost mint-looking condition that for all the world could have time traveled right from the scene in Born Free.

I wish my dad could come out here and see them. He'd get a kick out of it. But he's never been much of the travel-for-travel's-sake type, unlike his parents and his son.

I guess that kind of wanderlust skips generations in our family.

Born free, and life is worth living
But only worth living
'Cause you're born free

Santa Barbara Claus Comes to Town

Having wrapped up such an intense phase of work on Friday afternoon, Saturday found me almost disoriented by the fact that I could put the project behind me and out of my mind. I could actually devote my time to other things, for the first time in nearly a week.

It was a brilliant sunny day. The chilly rain from yesterday evening had cleared up completely. I mused that I might actually just have fun and relax today, but then I remembered that it was long past the time to do laundry. I had been down to my last clean t-shirt, and had just spilled sesame seed oil over the front while rinsing my gums that morning. Laundry went straight to the top of my agenda.

My smartphone mapping app told me that there was a coin laundry just up Milpas Street from the waterfront. I pumped coffee into my leftover fast food cup in the lobby (where the television was still showing reports from the massacre). Then wearing a brand new pair of Columbia pants from REI, and the well wrinkled white dress shirt that Okki had given me at Burning Man, I stuffed my very full laundry sack into the trunk of my car and headed up Milpas in my car.

On the other side of 101, I saw up ahead that the street was blocked off. From the way that the barricades were set up, I inferred that it was either a street festival or a parade. It turned out to be the latter. For the second time this year on my travels, I have found up driving right into a parade (the first was last July in Minot, North Dakota, where I nearly became an entrant into the parade for the North Dakota State Fair).

The detour was forcing all the traffic onto side streets. Santa Barbara is a nightmare to navigate under normal circumstances, but now it was three times as bad. As I seem to do every time I venture out it, I wound up going down a dead end street that was blocked by the serpentine 101 that cuts the street grid in awkward unpredictable ways.

After a couple forced turns, I had lost track of where I needed to, to reach the laundromat on Milpas. I pulled over next to park to check my smartphone map. I was still about five blocks away.

When I turned the key to crank the engine, the battery was dead. I wasn't really surprised. The battery was old, and it had failed as I left Burning Man (what a story that was). It had conked out completely in Bakersfield in September when I left the lights on overnight at the Super 8. The AAA responder had verified that my alternator was OK, and that I simply needed a new battery. I had put it off, and now the day of reckoning had arrived.

Fortunately I was parked in a convenient location. Google maps told me there was an AutoZone only siz blocks away.

I decided to tackle laundry first. I schlepped my large laundry bag out of the trunk and started toting it across the park towards the direction of the laundromat. It was heavy and the string from the bag cut into my hand.

It was a relief to finally reach Milpas. I passed by the area where the various parade participants were waiting for their turn. A Santa Barbara trolley was parked along the side street, the open windows filled with children with balloons.

With my bag over my shoulder, I thought I must have looked like a  homeless person, but that is not how the children saw me.

I had forgotten that it was December. When they saw me pass by, they started yelling "It's Santa Claus!" If only they had seen me before I lost twenty pounds, shaved off my beard, and cleared up my rosacea!

The laundry was on the far side of the street. I crossed during a break in the parade. After putting my clothes in the washers and feeding in thirteen quarters for each load, I went back out to the street to watch the parade, sitting on a concrete ledge next to a line of newspaper racks. Around my feet were scattered folios of free community newspapers. From one of them, I learned that I was watching the Milpas Holiday Parade. The theme for 2012 was "A better, brighter youth."

As I sat watching the parade, a woman approached the racks and looked briefly at them before moving on, muttering, "I just can't stand to look at the news today."

As it happened, I was just in time to catch the very end, which was a Santa Barbara Fire Department engine loaded with children and with Santa Claus, the real deal this time, wearing sunglasses and waving right back at me.

After my laundry was dried, I walked back to the car, hurriedly with the load on my shoulder. By this time the battery had recovered a little charge and the car started. A lucky break. I hadn't been looking forward to toting the old battery to the AutoZone. 

By this time the side streets were mercifully clear. I drove to the AutoZone, where I swapped it out for a brand new one, for a mere one hundred and forty bucks.

Well that's why I work, isn't it? So I pay for these little expenses of life without batting an eye.

Santa Barbara, Heaven and Hell

I wake up in paradise, a view of the ocean and palm trees from my room. The sky and the scenery speak of summer, but the air is chilly. It was a cold night.

In the lobby getting coffee, I see a television screen with a news report about twenty murdered children.

This is a place that brings out the opposites, or contrasts perhaps that are never opposites, not just the good and bad, but every kind of juxtaposition.

Steep mountains rise right next to the sea. Wide flowing freeways exit onto to tangled impossible-to-navigate downtown streets. Along the row of luxury beach hotels, homeless men shuffle the sidewalk with shopping carts and dirty bedrolls. Fancy restaurants line State Street in downtown, but one has to drive ten miles to find a Walgreens.

I spend the entire day holed up my room working, finally finishing a project that had taken me three weeks when I thought it would take three days. I can see my New York-based coworkers are on Skype all day, but I don't from anyone. It's a day of silence there.

For dinner I fantasize about a big thick steak meal, at one of the fancy restaurants on State Street. Like almost every time, I slum it and go to I-Hop for steak and eggs. The I-Hop is large and sprawling, and for once at an I-Hop, I am not shunted into one of the tiny one-person tables. Inside around me is mostly a Mexican clientele and Mexican staff.

As I cut into my dinner with my knife, a homeless woman approaches my table and asks me, "Did they ask you if you had to pay for your meal in advance?" She asks this at several tables. "It's illegal!" she says over and over to staff.

I feel like J.P. Morgan, brushing her off. Had she asked to share my meal, I would have given it to her. But she didn't ask that. Instead she is yelling something about the "District Attorney" and refusing to leave.

On the way home in the rain I get caught up in a DUI checkpoint. A young female Santa Barbara cop asks for my driver's license and  if I have had any alcohol. I am rude to her. "No," is all I say, with an attitude of "kiss my ass" and she waves me through.

I watch several old movies on TCM, but halfway through The Student Prince of Old Heidelberg, which I've seen before, I realize I don't to see the sad ending again. I normally relish silent movies, but this time I leave at the midpoint, when the lovers are happy, and walk out into the darkness of the night, carrying postcards for my nieces, looking for a mailbox in which to drop them.

I walk past the Fess Parker, where there is a large party celebrating around the outdoor patio fires. In solitude I walk out to the end of the long pier, past the sea food restaurants, which are mostly closed for the night, including the Moby Dick, a New England reference on the California coast.

The Christmas decorations on the pier are beautiful on the rooftops of the wooden buildings of the pier. A Christmas tree stands tall above the distant dark outline of the mountains along the coast. Out on the pitch dark ocean, the oil drilling platforms are it up like sailing ships at a festival.

Past midnight I come back to my room. The silent movie is over and TCM is showing vampire movies. I watch one, about a girl terrorized by a female vampire of a vampire cult, while reading articles about dental health on my laptop.

I can't read any news sites today. Tomorrow maybe things will begin to smooth out.

Pilgrimage to Santa Barbara

My plan had been to stay in Ventura for just one night, but that turned into fifteen, because the motel was good. I was somewhat sad when I finally handed in my key (yes, an actually key instead of a card) and hit the road.

When I got on 101, I followed my plan to backtrack north along the coast up to Santa Barbara. In my mind, it was a big journey, but it was actually only twenty five miles. It was a gorgeous day, the sun shimmering on the ocean. Once the BMW warms up, it feels like a magic carpet on the highway, and those twenty five miles flew by too fast, so I just kept going past Santa Barbara for the time being, continuing up 101 for about another thirty miles until the point where it turns inland.

I was well rewarded, since that area north of Santa Barbara is one of the most beautiful stretches of coast I've ever traveled---rolling green ranches that tumble down from the coastal ranges to the sea.

After stopping to absorb the warm breeze off the water, I turned the car around and headed south again to my destination. I had important things to do. I had come to Santa Barbara for a reason. I was there to see some specific sights, having to do with my recent growing fascination for the American hospitality industry, and its glorious history.

One of my first stops on the way into town was in the suburb of Goleta, where I stopped to see the Holiday Inn. Yes, that's right, the Holiday Inn.

But it wasn't just any Holiday Inn. The one in Goleta happens to be one of the few remaining Holiday Inn motels (that is, a true motor-hotel), a relic from the days from Holiday Inn ruled the American motel industry (see this 1972 Time cover). Most Holiday Inns now are traditional hotels.

The Holiday Inn in Goleta was interesting to see, but somewhat underwhelming. Yes it was a true motel, of the old style, but there was nothing particularly interesting about it. The sign and the decor were exactly what one would see in any of the modern hotels of that flag. I knew that in advance, so I wasn't disappointed. I already knew that if you want to see one of the old "green arrow" signs from the classic era, you have to go to a museum. There are only a few examples left out of the many thousands that once existed across the country, and none are used by any existing motel.

But I knew I had to visit Goleta anyway. I got to cross it off my list and proceed to my next destination. I didn't check in and stay the night.  Maybe next time I'm in town.

Instead I headed for my real destination, the true reason I had insisted on coming to Santa Barbara, even though it was  a bit out of my way.

I followed 101 south towards downtown Santa Barbara, and exited on Milpas Street. I followed it south towards the waterfront, where I saw the ocean through the palm trees. I turned on Cabrillo Boulevard which follows the water, passing a row of nice fancy beach motels, including the gigantic Fess Parker, run by the Hilton chain.

But that's not where I was going either. I followed Cabrillo one block until I got to Corona Del Mar and turned left, away from the water. I could see my destination on the first corner, sitting there unobtrusively in view of the beach.

I pulled into the parking lot of the two story motel, next to the swimming pool. I walked into the office, and as I always do, I pulled out my drivers license and placed it on the counter in front of the clerk, stating "I have a reservation under this name."

The woman there looked up my name.

"First floor or second floor?" she asked. "Second floor," I said.

"You want the front or the back?" she asked, with a tone that indicated that she already knew the answer.

"Front," I said. Of course I wanted to see the ocean from my room.

I swiped my debit card and the paid for one night. It came to sixty-nine bucks plus tax, as well as the extra three buck charge for wi-fi.

As I waited for her to print out my receipt and give me my card key, I perused the rack on the wall. In one of the slots of the rack was a stack of large-size postcards that showed the exact motel I was currently in, but with an antiquated sign from yesteryear. There was a small plaque next to the brochures. On the plaque were the words that indicated I had come to the right place: established June 25, 1962. The fiftieth anniversary had just passed, a fact reflected in the little booklets printed by the corporation that listed all their properties.

Then just to make conversation, I asked the woman behind the counter a question to which I already knew the answer very well.

So this was really the first ever Motel 6?

Mel Gibson Goes to Ventura

"Mr. Mel Gibson! Hey, Mr. Mel Gibson!"

I pretended not to hear him at first, while standing this morning at the counter of the Jack in the Box on East Thompson Avenue. But finally I turned around to look at the homeless guy with the West African accent calling out to me from a table nearby. I'd seen him there before, always combing over all his personal papers on the same table by the door.

I smiled and nodded at him, then turned to order my coffee and egg burrito. When I sat down to eat, he came over to my table and chatted me up while I sat, still a bit groggy on an early Sunday morning, wearing my dark sunglasses. He dumped the story of his life to me in thirty seconds. I pretended to follow him, but it was impossible. Something about a church in Thousand Oaks. Finally having had his say, he went back to his papers.

I'd driven down here from Bakersfield to Ventura two weeks ago, rugged through the mountains of the Dick Smith Wilderness, having reluctantly given up TCM at the Super 8.  But I'd already booked a night at the Viking Motel here, an independent place that had very good reviews online. By the time I decided I wanted to stay in Bakersfield longer, it was too late to cancel the reservation.

After checking in, I was glad I had come. For fifty-one bucks a night, I get a huge suite with a kitchenette, a comfortable king-sized bed, and a huge flat-screen television. If only it had TCM it would be perfect. All of this just ten minutes walk from the beach. It was very easy to turn my one-night stay into a two-week sabbatical from the road. It's the longest I've been in one place since June.

As I recently wrote to a friend, the incident in the Jack-in-the-Box wasn't the first time I'd been treated as a celebrity in Ventura, a charming and inexpensive little unpretentious town on the northern edge of the Greater L.A. area, where all the pawn shops have a collection of surf boards in the window.

On my first full day here I went walking along the waterfront downtown by the Crowne Plaza Hotel, the city's only tall building. I was dressed in black Kuhl jeans and a black t-shirt, which has become my default urban California attire, and over that my lime-green Patagonia Houdini (it turns out Patagonia is headquartered here).

Out by Surfer's Point, the waves were coming in rather strong and the surfers were out in force. At least two dozen of them bobbed in the water on the boards, waiting for their turn. I noticed that they were all clad in black body suits, since the water is cold this time of year. I felt right at home, the way I was dressed.

As I stood by the railing watching them, I became fascinated by their activity. I've never surfed in my life, but all at once I took on the challenge of trying to figure out the rules of surfing just by observing them. I watched them in turn, as they peeled off from the group, turning to paddle as a wave came over them, then standing on the board at the moment that the wave began to swell under them.

In my reverie of observation, my mind kicked into physicist mode, and took in what I was seeing with the joy of pure rationality. I began to meditate on the equations of fluid mechanics and buoyancy, and started to formulate an equation that would generate the perfect angle of the board in relation to the curve of the wave form underneath.

As the mathematical symbols danced in my head, I was interrupted  by a voice in a foreign accent. I turned to see a pair of Japanese tourists, a young couple. The man was talking to me and waving a camera at me. His rather attractive wife or girlfriend was standing next to him smiling.

Are you a model? he was asking me.  I looked at him confused, with my sunglasses on, he probably only saw my smile.

At first I assumed that because he was waving a camera, that he wanted me to take a picture of him with his girlfriend. But I could tell that was not what he was asking.

Instead it turned out that his girlfriend wanted to have her picture taken with me. He was asking if that was OK. Sure, I said, nonchalantly. She sidled up next to me and I put my arm around her, giving her a big squeeze. She seemed delighted as he snapped a picture of us, and then they both thanked me profusely and went on their way down to the walkway.

The ego boost of this incident was quite fun, and lingered in me for the rest of the afternoon like a sugar high.

But actually I was not surprised at all. As my aforementioned friend can testify, this kind of thing invariably tends to happen to me every time I come to Los Angeles. 

I seem to get treated like a rock star here, when I'm just going about my everyday business. People step out of the way for me on the sidewalk, like I'm somebody famous. Women approach me and flirt with me (and more).

I have no idea why this happens. You would think that in a metropolis full of famous people that a schmuck like me would just blend in as a nobody, but just the opposite seems to happen here.

I could contrast this with New York, where I feel a beautiful warm anonymity. I don't feel like a nobody there, but an ordinary person just like everyone else there, because New York is too much for anyone person to dominate. Everybody there is ordinary in one way or another, and it feels fantastic to experience that great leveling.

But in L.A., I'm somebody, I guess. Or at least I feel that way. It makes me wonder what it would be like to live here for any length of time. I probably won't get the chance to, by choice. But I somehow don't mind the amusing ego boosts that seem to flow towards me here.

Besides if I ever really want to feel like a worthless waste-of-space nobody, I can always go back to Washington, D.C.

"The Louvre of Underground Art"

The title is a from a quote in this half-hour video report from Russia Today about this year's Burning Man. It's definitely the best video I've seen about the event this year. It was a nice coincidence seeing it my Youtube feed this morning, as I spent last night out in the motel parking lot scrubbing some of the remaining playa dust from the door frame of my car.

Just watching it brought back some powerful flashbacks---especially when I saw the Central Camp building with the flags on top, where we would go every morning for coffee and ice (the only things that money will actually buy when you are there).

A couple points:

• I passed right by the Light-up Coats shop in Mendocino County recently. I wish I would have known it was there. If I go back, I definitely want to be more appropriately attired.
• The art installations were definitely my favorite part in the end. It's the number one reason I would go back.
• The segment about the Temple was quite powerful. Seeing the Temple at night, both outside and inside, was overwhelming. The report gives you and idea of what struck me as the spiritual aspect of the Temple, in that although BM is supposed to all-inclusive and non-judgmental, it seemed clear that all faiths or lack-of-faiths were tolerated except (traditional) Christianity. The only truly negative note I heard during the entire week when when people booed and cat-called when a group started singing "Ave Maria" during the Temple burn. 
• I chuckled when one of the guys in the video said he was at the "outermost" streets of the ring at G or H. Our camp was on 7:00 & I street (which this year was called "Iris", as the alphabetic ring streets all had flower names due to the theme of Fertility 2.0).
• There is a scene of the rarely mentioned Black Rock City airport in the video. It is just on the outskirts of the city and functions as a real airport. There were at least a hundred small planes there from people who had flown in. I got to visit it during my time there, as one of the Glorious Aspenites I was with had brought his ultralight aircraft in a trailer and was giving rides. The twenty minutes I spent as his passenger flying around the desert on the outskirts of the city (flying directly over is prohibited) were one of the highlights of the week (Thank you again, Tommy). Of course it was rather terrifying as well, since there is hardly anything below you, as you look down from your seat. 

Super Thankful for Bakersfield

After a couple weeks of motel hopping in Fresno, it was almost Thanksgiving time. My friend there had plans out of town, and although I could have scrounged up a local invite, I decided to treat myself by booking the entire weekend at the Super 8 in Bakersfield on Real Road just off Route 99.

This may not sound like anybody else's idea of a vacation, but I had been looking forward to it for quite a while, for one simple fact: it the only motel I had found in California west of the Sierra that carried my favorite cable tv channel.

Anybody who has read my blog for a while, especially in the posts from a few years back when I was primarily writing movie reviews, probably knows which channel I am talking about---Turner Classic Movies, or TCM for short.

I've written about my love for TCM in the past, so I won't rehash it. Suffice it to say for now that whenever I check into a motel, one of the first things I do is flip on the television and check to see if they have TCM. It's always a nice buzz when I find out that they carry it.

In traveling across the country, I'd come to expect to find TCM on the channel menu roughly fifty percent of the time. I often remember a place by the particular movie I watched on TCM there. For example, the Twin Owls Motel in Estes Park, Colorado is linked in my mind with the Hepburn version of Little Women (too bad the wi-fi at the Twin Owls was unacceptably poor, available only in the lobby!).

But in California, I've hit an extreme dry spell, as far as TCM goes. After Burning Man, I had TCM in the Days Inn in Reno, but not in the Cal-Neva or the Three Peaks Lodge in Lake Tahoe. Then I had it again in Bishop, California at the Mountain View Motel, but not of course at the Motel 6 in Ridgecrest. I say "of course" because Motel 6 has a standardized basic cable package nationwide that never includes TCM.

Then I stayed at the aforementioned Super 8 in Bakersfield, but after that---zilch. None of the places I have stayed in the rest of my stay since then carried it. It hasn't mattered what cable package they have, whether something local, Direct TV, or Dish Network.

This includes the thirteen different motels in Fresno where I stayed, constantly changing and hoping for better luck.  So on that score, I've yet to find my perfect Fresno motel.

It also includes all the motels in the Bay Area, Sonoma County, the North Coast, Modesto, Stockton, etc. When I splurged for a night at the Hampton Inn in Visalia, I was sure that they would have TCM, since the Hilton chain advertises an expanded cable lineup. They had over a hundred channels on their Dish Network package---but no TCM. After a while, I just gave up looking for it. And it certainly made me less likely to ever shell out for a Hilton again, if I'm going to wind up watching reruns of NCIS just like I do in a Motel 6.

But I knew I could always go back to Super 8 in Bakersfield if I wanted.

Or so I hoped. One never knows. I used to have the Super 8 in Westminster, Colorado as my standard overnight for the north Denver area, but upon my last stay, I found they had unsubscribed from TCM, despite the fact that the channel guide in the room still listed it, and the woman at the front desk swore that they still carried it. It seems that Comcast had switched TCM to a premium tier nationwide in all its cities, and so anyone carrying the basic package lost TCM.

The fact that the woman at the desk believed they still carried it is why one can't just call up and ask, most of the time. The front desk is often clueless and reports erroneous results. Most of them have never watched it, so they don't really know without actually turning on the television. Is that a sports network?

Fortunately when I checked back in for my second stay in Bakersfield, on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, I found that my favorite channel was still on the menu. I wound up sitting down and relaxing on my bed just in time to catch the beginning of their airing of Gone With the Wind, which I hadn't watched in its entirety in many years. I sat glued watching the tv for the next four hours, leaving only during the intermission break that TCM carries, just like you would have in a real theater.

O.K., I suppose that far as life complaints go, the fact that I was so thankful to have TCM over Thanksgiving is a true First World Problem, as they say on the Internet. The fact that I can afford to obsess about this truly shows just how good my life is.

And that is something to be thankful about, isn't it?

Golden State is Golden

In the last couple posts, I mentioned some of the things make California feel really screwed up right now.

Yet, as I've told my California friends repeatedly, there is something about this place that remains ineffably awesome underneath it all.

Maybe it's that "spitball throwing in the back of the room" thing. Maybe it's the incredible variety of natural beauty that lurks at every turn in the road. Whatever it is, when I'm here I have a sense that everything is possible, that I can turn a new chapter in my life that is greater and more magic than anything before.

It's a feeling of buoyancy, of floating slightly higher than where gravity would place you if you were elsewhere. It's a glowing sheen over the ups and downs of everydayness as unmistakable as the orange sunset over the ocean.

Above all it's a sense that one's past doesn't matter here, that life can generate a constant blank slate everyday upon which one can write, if one has the gumption and the desire to so.

This last part is the major reason I made California a centerpiece of my wanderings this year. Perhaps it was the line from that old Billy Joel song from my youth, that I kept repeating to myself over the last year

Said he couldn't go the American way...

I kept thinking to myself, "I think I know exactly what he's talking about."

Whatever the reason, or how it came about, it has felt like a rousing success.

It is not as if I walk around feeling manic and giddy, whether navigating through the homeless on the sidewalks or hiking in the Sequoias. But certainly I've come to feel as if I can finally dump in the trash so much of the anxiety-provoking mental traps, including dysfunctional relationships and friendships, that had made feel me as if life was no longer about making personal advancements towards happiness but simply coping with the fallout of my total life choices up until then.

Yes, goodbye trash.

OK, it's partly an illusion, this feeling of newness. But so is the milieu that one experiences anywhere one goes. As far internal states of mind go, what is real, anyway, if one feels it?

The Hookers of Blackstone Avenue

Another symptom of the advanced societal rot of California really smacked me in the face (figuratively, thankfully) while I was in Fresno, after I returned from my trip along the North Coast, after I checked into the Rodeway Inn in the cluster of discount motels along Route 99.

Within a few minutes of checking in, I noticed the parade along the dark sidewalk along the frontage road beside the highway---young women in short skirts, walking by themselves alone or usually in pairs. Later that evening I walked down to the convenience store for a burrito and passed several clumps of them along the way.

In all of my travels I've rarely been in situations where I've witnessed the classic "streetwalkers" like you see in movies. But this was certainly the case.  I left my motel room door open for a while just to watch the sporadic parade.

Then a few days later when I decamped and motel hopped to another cluster of discount motels near the corner of Ashlan and Blackstone, I saw even more of them.

In the week or so that I was there, whenever I would go out past a certain hour of the afternoon, I would see them, often hanging out in the dark areas in front of the shuttered Mervyn's next to where I was staying.

They were quite aggressive. It's an inversion of the classic "male cat-calling the female" scenario. They demanded my attention as I walked by them, in an obnoxious an forceful manner (there was an even a classic pimp once, who screamed at me "YOU FOLLOWING MY WOMAN?").

It wasn't even a "bad" neighborhood by appearances, nor was the stretch along Highway 99. It had the appearance of being a normal commercial thoroughfare.

At the otherwise decent Motel 6 where I spent five days, there was an enormous parking lot, rarely filled with cars, that abutted a quiet side street leading from Blackstone to a nearby neighborhood of apartment buildings. The young women came up and down the dark street and night almost constantly.

One evening I was restless and went out to pace around the parking lot while looking at the brilliant full moon over the palm trees. It was a clear chilly November evening. Several times I was solicited by women walking along the side street on the other side of the fence. They made noises as if calling a little dog.

I ignored them for a while, but then finally decided I would chat with them just for fun. So when the next pair came by, and when I was about twenty feet from the fence, I turned to answer their bidding, in the manner that I would respond to anyone in an innocent manner. I knew it wouldn't matter because there was a chain link fence between us, and the only gate was padlocked.

"Brrr-rrrr-rrrr," one of them said, in a rather theatrical way. "Wish I was inside right now."

I remained silent and waited for her to go on. "You gotta room here?" she asked me.

I shrugged my shoulders, playing coy.

"Well DO YOU?" she said, getting impatient.

I immediately changed tone, and looked at her with a stern frown. "Of course I do," I said, in a cold businesslike manner.

"What you doing out here?" she asked me. "You looking for ME?"

I waited a second before responding. "Naw, I'm just here looking the moon," I said, as if telling the punch line of joke.

"Gaaaahhh!!!" she replied, recoiling away from me as I were a vampire. I'd grabbed a few moments of her time for "free" and she detested me for it. Within seconds they were fifty feet from me, heading towards an apartment complex down the street.

The prostitutes were so numerous in this area along Blackstone that I came to the opinion that every young woman below a certain age was a part-time hooker, that soliciting clients was something they did whenever they were walking to and from the bus stop, that it was just something they all did a sideline to whatever other ways they earned money.

The California Zombpacalypse

One of the biggest reasons California feels broken is the unmistakable explosion in the homeless population. It is breathtaking. Everywhere I have been west of the Sierra, in any town or city above the smallest size burg, feels as if it is overrun by the homeless.

One need only walk down the street almost anywhere to see this.  It's not just big cities. In Rohnert Park, a small college town, a quick peek over the fence by my motel revealed two homeless camps in plain view.

In Eureka, the ubiquity of the homeless was reflected in the fact that every single business downtown, and I mean every one, had a sign stating something along the lines of "No public restrooms. NO EXCEPTIONS!"

In Redding, an otherwise charming little city, just walking the few blocks between my motel and the Der Weinerschnitzel where I ate that evening, I passed half a dozen people with dirty backpacks and sleeping rolls, looking like troopers in a vagrant army.

Where I am right now in Ventura, which is a nice city on the coast,  anytime I walk down the street I encounter a homeless person.

One can spot them far off by the way they walk---unmistakably slow and shuffling, uncannily like the zombies in so many of the television shows and movies of late.

In the Eighties when I first came to Berkeley, one could see homeless people on the streets. It felt like a novelty. Back then "helping the homeless" was one of those feel-good liberal things that college kids liked to talk about, alongside "no nukes" and "divest from apartheid." Everyone seems to blame the Reagan Administration for shutting down the mental hospitals. I still here people using this excuse, amazingly.

But where one might have seen a few homeless in large cities back then, one now sees dozens and hundreds. In Fresno, a medium-sized city, they outnumber the non-homeless on the sidewalks in many parts of town, it seems.

In Fresno, moreover, I was panhandled aggressively inside a fast-food restaurant. This also happened to a friend there, as he was standing in line. The employees don't seem to care, but then again, they don't seem to care about anything. A lot of them don't even speak English very well.

In Bakersfield, where I was staying a couple weeks ago, I could look out from my motel at the McDonalds across the street and invariably see a homeless person stationed right at the side entrance door, panhandling everyone who walked in or out from the parking lot.

I once watched as one homeless person walked around to check out the spot, and then shuffled off when he saw that someone was already there with a sign soliciting money. In downtown there I got solicited within five seconds of parking my car. A guy just came up and tapped on my window while the engine was barely off.  He seemed to sense my reluctance, and insisted he only wanted food, not money, so  I happily unloaded some of the excess Del Monte fruit cups I had left over from Burning Man.

Mind you this was not in a bad neighborhood, but in a cluster of motels and restaurants right off Highway 99, a block from a Barnes and Noble. Homeless people are just now part of the ubiquitous scenery.

Berkeley is a good example for how things have changed. Back in 1984, Berkeley's downtown, only a few blocks off campus, was rather scummy and dirty. Now like most downtowns of college towns, it is spruced up and very nice, as I learned thanks to my friend David, who took me there on a day when the streets were blocked off for a huge street festival.

But there are most homeless than in 1984, unmistakably so. That's California, as I've observed. More beautiful on the surface, but more ugly underneath.

I try to concentrate on the beauty most of the time.

California is Broken

When I first arrived in Fresno a couple months ago, after having been away for a year, I told my friends there (both of whom are natives) about my impressions of the state upon my return.

"It feels like everything is falling apart here," I said. "Everything feels dysfunctional."

"Every interaction I've had here with people in public seems somehow off. It's as if miscommunication is built into every exchange between strangers here."

They knew what I was talking about.  In a way it is the opposite of New York City. Years ago when I was living there, I wrote a blog post (on a now-defunct blog) about how New York reminded me of the Bob Dylan song "Everything is Broken."

By that I meant to imply that the physical structure of New York, and the systems of the real, physical world, seemed to antiquated, half-functioning, and falling apart. Yet society still continued to operate. The subways kept running. The cars kept moving on the highways. And moreover, the social fabric of New York seemed remarkably intact despite all this.

In California, it feels like just the opposite. On the surface, the physical systems seem just fine. The cities look very nice, much better than even a couple decades ago, and the suburbs are miraculous. Yet the social fabric seemed to be in advanced decay.

In New York, there was a feeling of social cohesion, that "we are all in this together." In California, despite the surface beauty,  I can't escape a feeling that everyone here knows that it is dog-eat-dog, that it is everyone for himself or herself.

Part of it is is perhaps that this is the West Coast, and everyone here is "experimenting on themselves," as a friend of mine said who once lived in Los Angeles.

Or as my friend in Fresno said, who grew up on the East Coast, "It's like the establishment in New York and Washington D.C. is so far away and don't care about us. We're sitting in the back of the class throwing spit balls at each other."

But that doesn't explain it all. In the almost thirty years that I've been coming year, it feels as if this trend has been accelerating.

The Long Trip to California

Today marks exactly three months that I have been in California. My journeys here have taken me over much of the state, from Lake  Tahoe and along the east side of the Sierra, to the high desert, the Central Valley, the Bay Area, the Central Coast, the North Coast, and now to where I am, along the beach just north of Los Angeles (more on that in another post).

It's by far the longest amount of time I've ever spent in this state, and (excepting Colorado) the longest continuous stretch outside any state since the half year I spent in Massachusetts in 2008-2009 (and even then I made regular trips to New Hampshire).

I would claim that I've begun to feel like a resident here, but I don't feel that way at all, mainly because I've been on the move the entire time, and have stayed in one place no longer than 9-10 days at a time (which is actually how long I've been in my current locale).

I've come to call this phase of my travels "The Long Trip to California" as per title. It goes with "The Loop" that I made earlier this year through through the eastern and central parts of the U.S.A.

The last three months here have been among the most interesting, inspiring, invigorating, and downright fun experiences of my entire life. I've been extremely fortunate during almost every phase of this, especially in the people I've met, both old dear friends and brand new ones.

It is probably the biggest reason that I travel---to meet people, to force myself to meet people perhaps, and I have not been let down at all. I am extremely grateful for this, most especially to those who have hosted in me in various places along the way, in particular Fresno, Arroyo Grande, Oakland, and Berkeley.

I suppose it is worth recording some of my overall impressions of the state at this point. But I'll probably do that in the next post.

For now I'm just going to relax in this very comfortable motel bed and watch some old television episodes on Netflix. I've just started watching The Rockford Files, starting with the pilot episode from 1974. Maybe that gives you a clue about where I am right now.

Getting My Way Like a Pro

After a spending a pleasant night in Redding, I sprinted south on I-5, barely stopping on my way south until I was in Fresno again. By this time, Fresno had begun to feel like my real "home base" in California. 

Once there I resumed my habit of motel-hopping, in search of the perfect moderately-priced motel that has my favorite cable tv channel. Alas I kept striking out in the last area. So far I've come up completely goose eggs on that score in the Big F.

I decided to explore the discount motels that were situated along Highway 99 at the west end of Olive Avenue, which affords easy access to the nearby Tower District, which is where most of Frenso's hip nightlife happens, and where I spent many evenings last fall watching my friend on stage in an amateur production Stalag 17.

I first stayed a night there at the Rodeway Inn (a Choice Hotels flag), and then hopped across Route 99 to stay a night at the Knights Inn (a Wyndham flag). 

Both rooms were passable and comfortable for the discount price. I had little complaint about, other than the fact that Wi-Fi was inaccessible in my room at the Knights Inn. Ironically I could pick up the wi-fi signals from the motels across Highway 99, including the Rodeway Inn where I had just stayed (unfortunately my access had expired).

I found this out within thirty seconds of checking into my room and immediately took my laptop outside into the parking lot, looking for a signal. Another guest walked by me, and upon seeing this said nonchalantly, "yeah, you have to be in the lobby to get the signal."

The way he said this had the tone of "you just have to accept this."

Well, I don't "just have to accept this." In fact this is completely unacceptable. Within twenty seconds I was back in the lobby raising a big stink about this, and frightening the young woman behind the desk with my threats to demand a refund.

"I'm a business traveler," I told her. "I work from the road and depend on having wi-fi in my room. It's as important to me as having hot running water."

My forceful complains provoked her to act. She suggested that the room on the second floor right next to the lobby might have a good signal. She reswiped my card key. I told her I would have to go check it out before I agreed to the room. 

Fortunately the signal in the new room was fine. The young woman at the desk was quite relieved when I returned with a smile and said "so far, so good." The rest of my stay there passed without incident.

After this, however, I decided to add a new question when I'm checking in. How's your wi-fi signal? If they say it's OK, then I have extra authority in case it turns out I can't get a signal. I asked, after all? 

Fortunately this has been the exception rather than the rule. Usually I have no problem with the wi-fi signal wherever I've stayed.

On this score, I can particularly recommend Motel 6. Perhaps because they are all corporate-owned and standardized, the wi-fi at Motel 6s has been quite reliable (even in Eureka, where I couldn't get NBC on the tube). It reminds me of Starbucks, which as incredibly reliable wi-fi across the country.

This makes paying the three bucks extra per night for wi-fi at Motel 6 quite acceptable. It's something I don't want to have to worry about. I just need it to work. And it does.

Thunderbird Lodge, Redding

The drive up to the coast to Eureka had been utterly spectacular. It was late October, and I knew I was pushing my luck for the weather, but I got lucky that weekend. Most of the daylight hours were sunny and bright. It afforded me some incredible views standing not the cliffs and looking out to see around Mendocino and Point Arenas.

Along the way, I began to wonder what I would after Eureka. I really didn't have any set plans after that. It occurred to me that if I wanted to, I could just keep driving up the west coast all the way to the Olympic Peninsula of Washington, something I've never done.

The more I thought about it, the more it appealed to me, although part of me kept saying to myself that this wasn't the right time to do that, and that I really wanted to stay longer in California before leaving.

As it happened, opportunity conspired to help me make up my mind, as it often does, in some beautiful way of coincidence.

In Eureka, my friend in Fresno texted me that he had been invited to spend a long weekend in Berkeley with someone that we had both met the month before in Arroyo Grande. Was I interested? Could I give him a ride?

It took me about ten seconds to decide, partly because I've learned that "surfing the opportunity" like this usually leads to good things happening.

So after Eureka, I ditched the "follow the coast" idea and headed inland, taking a long afternoon to wind through the rugged mountains to Redding, where I had booked a night at the Thunderbird Lodge in downtown.

Redding is a town I like. I have pleasant memories of being there, from the old days of college, and also from the year before, when I landed my current job over the phone while walking around the parking lot of the downtown Starbucks there.

The Thunderbird Lodge is an independent motel--no "flag" (i.e. brand), as they say in the hospitality industry.

As this guy might say, I don't always stay in independent motels, but when I do, it is almost always because it has exceptionally good reviews online at Booking.com or some other site.

The Thunderbird Lodge didn't disappoint me. The rooms were very nice---roomy, modern, clean, and comfortable. All of this and very affordable as well. It's a very well run place. I recommend it if you ever find yourself in Redding and in need of lodging.

Of course, it still didn't have my favorite cable tv channel. But that's for a different post.

Eureka!

One of my favorite hobbies while traveling around the country is to visit various college towns, and take walking tour of college campuses, an atmosphere an environment where I feel quite at home. There are so many reasons for this, I'll have to write about it sometime, but for now we can just say that pretty girls make for a quite pleasant afternoon.

Last month when I was in Sonoma County, I naturally spent an afternoon walking around the campus of Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park. One of the things I noticed was that the dorm buildings were named after varieties of wine grown in the area. Zinfandel Hall, for example, was one of the names I saw, I think. It was so funny to see this that I had to text a friend of mine about it on the spot. I seriously doubt that they would name a dorm building after anything alcoholic these days.

A few days later, after I'd driven up the coast and was in Eureka, I texted to the same friend that I was going to tour Humboldt State University in nearby Arcata. Anyone in California knows that Humboldt County is the marijuana-growing capital of California, and possibly the entire world. I joked in the text that I expected to dorm buildings named after varieties of pot: Sativa Hall, anyone?

Turns out I wasn't too far off the mark. Right after the election, after Colorado and Washington had fully legalized marijuana, I noticed this article about how Humboldt State was opening an institute for the study of marijuana cultivation.

I had also joked via text, as I arriving in Eureka, that I expected to see pot smoke billowing from the motel room doors as I walked. As it happened, this exactly what I experienced at the Motel 6 I mentioned in the last post.

But the Giants had just won the World Series. I guess that makes it cool.

The Downside of Motel 6

In my last post, gushing about Motel 6, I mentioned that there was a downside to the budget chain.

Perhaps you're going to expect me to say that it is the small size of the rooms in the typical Motel 6 (newer ones have much larger rooms), and that moreover one's bed is right up near the front window so that you can pretty much hear everything that is going on in the parking lot right outside.

This last fact in particular makes me feel like I'm roughing it when I stay at a Motel 6, that I'm not really "staying there" so much as "taking a break from the road," like I might be at a typical roadside campground in a national forest.

But as it happens I'm perfectly fine with both of these, as well as other disadvantages (having to pay three bucks a day for Wi-Fi, for example) because Motel 6 is often so cheap compared to other motels in any given city. The warm feeling I get from paying, say, fifty bucks a night instead of ninety, often serves as a nice balm that allows me to put up with a lot of "hardship," provided of course that the place has a clean bathroom, clean linens, working heat/ac, a working television, working door locks,  and is free of any infestations (most important of all).

So far my experience with Motel 6 has been pretty good on all of these counts. I've gone from spurning Motel 6 as inferior to embracing it as a regular part of my lodging choices, one I happily call upon in major metropolitan areas where the hotel prices are higher than average.

So why don't I stay at Motel 6es all the time? First off, the small size of the rooms and the proximity to the outside really does begin to wear upon one after a while. It begins to feel like a small college dorm room, albeit a nice one with its own bathroom and cable television.

Motel 6 serves poorly as a retreat from the world, where I can relax and be in my own space for a couple days on end, which is exactly what I want some time.

More importantly, however, there is the concept of consistency of quality. Many Motel 6es are quite nice, especially the latest round of them, which have hardwood floors and large rooms and large showers.

The problem is that you can't count on this, unless you've already stayed there and know the place. Even then you might wind up with a bad room, bad television, noisy neighbors, etc.

For example, I was recently in Eureka, California after driving up the California coast from Sonoma County, and had just finishing camping near Mendocino. I wanted simply to relax inside my room, so as I was driving in Eureka, I used the excellent Motel 6 Android app to book a room in the Motel 6 on the south edge of town. It took only about thirty seconds. I barely had to break stride.

When I got into town and saw the Motel 6, I realized that the Motel 6 was not among the best of the chain's installation. It felt rather shabby and a bit decrepit. The front desk manager seemed rather listless and clueless.

In my room, one of the standard Motel 6 chairs was so wobbly that I thought it would break when I sat down on it.

It was a Sunday night, and I wanted to watch the football game on NBC.  When I tried to turn on the television with the basic remote nothing happened (a common issue in budget motels). I pushed the button on the tv and it came to life, but the remote still didn't do anything. I checked inside: no batteries. I knew I could complain, but I figured it would be easier just to use my own batteries from my camping stash.

Then when I turned to the NBC channel, I was greeted by a message saying the channel was temporarily unavailable due to a satellite error (all Motel 6es use a common cable package).

I called the front desk and asked about this. The receptionist said they were unaware of this problem but would check with maintenance. They called back after ten minutes and told me that the channel had been offline at the motel "for a while."

I asked: "Does that mean it's been off for a couple hours or for a couple weeks?"

The answer: "several months."

I didn't even make a pretense of complaining. What could it possibly accomplish? The woman at the front desk hadn't even been aware of the problem! It was as if I were the first person to complain about it.

Moreover, I was only going to be there one night. By the morning I would be on the road again.

Thankfully it was the fourth game of the World Series that evening, so I cheerfully watched the working Fox channel and stood outside the room when the Giants finally won, so I could hear the cheers and whelps of joy coming from the other rooms.

Keep in mind that this experience is not typical of Motel 6 experience. But it illustrates that such situations are possible. You can simply chalk it up to that motel being a "bad example" of Motel 6. Yet the sheets were still clean and the bathroom was still quite acceptable. I slept well and was rested in the morning to continue driving.

But I would have been really disappointed if I had booked that room and expected to stay several nights in relaxing fashion. I would have been quite miserable if that had been the case.

That's why in October, when I decided to take a pleasure trip up the Sierras for my birthday, I booked the first night (the eve of my birthday) at a Hampton Inn in Visalia. It's not such much that I wanted all the amenities of a Hampton Inn (which sometimes make me feel like I'm overpaying for the basics), but rather that I wanted to have "no issues" that evening. I wanted to relax.

I know that at a Hampton Inn, they will make sure the channels are working on the television. If the remote doesn't have batteries, they will replace it right away with great apologies.  I can count on these things, and if I don't get them, then it is a really big deal.

That's why I pay 110 bucks a night instead of 45. For that knowledge and assurance. Sometimes it's worth it.

In Praise of Motel 6

The other day I was standing at the counter at the Tone Shop shooting the breeze with a few folks. The subject wandered onto motels, and I diverted for a moment into a spiel of why I like Motel 6.

The first thing people always bring up as "we'll leave the lights on for you" series of radio advertisements featuring Tom Bodette. It makes me laugh because as I tell them, after you've stayed a few times at a Motel 6, the persona reflected in those "lights on for you" commercials begins to dissolve into the reality of what Motel 6 actually is.

That is not to say that Motel 6 is bad. It's just that it's different than those commercials. But in a way they are accurate. They do indeed leave the lights on, in the reception area. There is someone on duty there 24 hours a day.

The key to understanding this feature of Motel 6, and the other features that make it such a good thing, is that Motel 6 has come the best of all the discount hotel chains at perfecting the hotel room as a commodity.

I compare Motel 6 corporation to another corporation I like: Starbucks. Everywhere I go around the country, each Starbucks is different yet they all share certain basic features, within a subset of variations. I can depend on these features being present whether I'm in Minot, N.D., or in Eureka, California, or in Corpus Christi, Texas (all places where I have actually worked in a Starbucks in the past half year).

Plus at a Starbucks it is easy to buy things. You just stand in line, give your order and swipe your card. It's the same everywhere.

Likewise at Motel 6, each reception is nearly identical  The check-in procedure is simplified and standardized. One fills out the same basic form in whatever scrawl you feel like using. One shows an id. One pays by cash or by swiping a card at a terminal with a punch pad.

They hand you a key card in a paper envelope. You have to buy wi-fi, but it is cheap and it always seems to work (just like in Starbucks, by the way). They won't announce your room number outloud in the reception if there are other guests waiting behind you. They say, "the number is on the envelope" and point to it.

You get a standardized room. The furniture is the same everywhere. It is almost always clean to the standards that in raw material terms one is better off than 95% of the people of Africa. There are people in New Jersey who would love to be in a Motel 6 room right now, with hot running water and clean sheets.

Also they post their current basic rate (the real rate, not teasers) on the sign outside. And their Android app rocks.

All the Motel 6es, with a few exceptions, are owned by the Motel 6 corporation. This is why they are so standardized. The employees here and around the country are like Target or Starbucks employees in a way---they all work for the same corporation.

All this being said, there are drawbacks, of course. But I'll talk about them in another post. For now I'm going to finish watching the 49ers-Bears game on this television, under this pale lamp on the wall, and think of Africa.

See ya!

At the Fresno Inn

The Fresno Inn was a nice place to spend election night. I knew it was over quickly, once it was evidence that Obama was ahead in early counting in Florida, and texted a few of my friends saying that Romney was fizzling early. It reminded me of Dukakis in '88.

I went out a couple times, to my car in the parking lot, and at least once after the election results were announced. To get into my trunk I have to unmount the bicycle rack and the bike. When I went in for the night, I decided to leave the bike in its harness alongside the car. In the morning I noticed it was gone. I texted a friend that my bike had been looted.

But I should have expected it. Like many hotels in Fresno, and in much of California, there are clumps of homeless people visible at any time nearby. I wished the appropriator of my property goodwill in my mind, and hoped the bike was being put to good use by its new possessor.

The bed at the Fresno Inn was extraordinary---this is a hallmark of Best Western as a whole, I've noticed. I felt like I was getting a calf massage as I slept. There were five ample pillows fluffed like clouds each afternoon after I came back inside.

Eggs at breakfast---that's probably one of the reasons it's a Best Western Plus..

A great location too. It's along a major thoroughfare between campus and the freeway.

No complaints. But in a way it felt too much like an apartment, like I wanted to settle in and not leave. It made me thirst for the road experience again.

At the Tone Shop

Jennifer with entourage. N. Blackstone Ave. Tue 6 Nov 2012.

Raisins or Wine?

Olive Rd., W. of Fresno. 11/1/12

New Course - Fluids Art Exploration

University of the Pacific, Stockton, California, 10/10/12

Marvelous Trip Through the East Bay

After I left Oakland, I went up to Berkeley and checked into the Rodeway Inn on University Avenue, which had really good reviews online, and was a good price. The rooms were renovated and the parking lot was a nice enclosed courtyard that was like a little oasis along that stretch of University.

Overall I was surprised at how much Berkeley seemed more prosperous than it had when I first saw it.

After a couple nights there, I decided to push my luck, and stay in Berkeley a third night. I booked what I thought was another nice hotel near campus, but later realized the one I booked was a different hotel with a similar name down on San Pablo, in lower Berkeley. When I drove by the hotel, I realized it wasn't my type of place, so I canceled the reservation online and hastily booked a replacement at the Super 8 in El Cerrito.

I drove up San Pablo through plain vanilla Albany, and then checked into the Super 8, which was right by the freeway. In the morning I drove up through Richmond, and to the splendid little town of Port Richmond. I fulfilled my trip  goal of seeing the great Standard Oil refinery there.

Berkeley from Dwight Way

11/2/12. A great place to get to stay for a couple days.

8 Flavors Cafe

Along Van Ness Ave, north of Geary Street, San Francisco. 11/2/12. We parked and looked for the site of the guitar store that had been owned and operated by Rick's grandmother in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  My eye was caught by the sign of this old brakery, now shuttered. The next time I'm back here, the sign may well be gone.

The Native Returns

Outside Children's Hospital, at Cherry and California Streets, San Francisco, 11/2/12

To Kelle Re: Don't Go

Well I did ask, didn't? But you knew I probably had already made up my mind. I guess I just wanted to say thanks again for this year's Omaha Peak Experience.

So what should I have expected except those bikini-clad women in the sandstorm screaming at me? Sometimes I like to go with the flow. Sometimes I like to defy the scary skulls planted along the roadside, telling me turn back, traveler, herein your doom. Doom, schmoom. It will get to all of us in the end.

Thought of you vividly at one moment, of great reward, on the last night I was there. After the fabulous Aspenites had trickled mostly away, leaving a rump camp, and the raves had died down, and the both the man and the temple had been burned, I took the opportunity to politely ditch my friends and headed out onto the "deep playa" on the other side of the temple.

The pure dark of the night was cut by the full moon over the barren mountains. I had no problem navigating on my bike across the flat playa, out into the darkness, towards the distant lights of the art exhibits that been erected out there, and the floating headlamps of the other riders in group or solitary.

It was like going from planet to planet, a galactic explorer, into the deep of both space and the mind at once.

I picked my way more deeply onto the playa. At the third exhibit, I think, I came upon a startling piece, my favorite of the show.

It was the Sephirot, standing about twelve feet high, held by wires anchored in the desert floor. It must have been painted in colors, perhaps, but in the starkness of the full moon, it was bleached black, white and gray in the stark shadows that the moon cast. It was otherwordly, as if I could not have distinguished between the reality and a DiChirico painting right in front of my me. All around was the dark flatness of the empty playa.

I lingered for a while, soaking it all up. Two or three other people came and went while I was there, then biked away into the darkness. Otherwise it was just me and the sculpture.

There were more fun things, out deeper in the playa. If I go back, I plan to spend a lot more time out there, right from the first day.

You should go, by the way.

R.I.P. Ken

Rohnert Park, Ca., 10/26/12

I think I finally got it, sitting on the beach at Point Reyes, the way to do zazen probably, on your knees. You have to be strong and straight in your torso, and in your feet. You have to bounce on your toes a bit for balance. At least that's what I discovered in the sand there. Can't believe you're gone.

Ukulele Night, Sebastapol

The Grateful Bagel, S. Main Street. 10/22/12

Benicia

Along 1st Street near the waterfront, 10/20/12

At the Carquinez Strait

Crockett, California. 10/20/12

Point Reyes National Seashore 10/21

A wooden sculpture.

California is a beautiful place. I've had the great fortune to have had my eyes opened to that, by locals here---Californios, to borrow an ancient phrase.

Along Tomales Bay, outside the oyster houses, cars were parked thickly, dozens side-by-side.

In Inverness I stopped for coffee mostly to take a peak inside the grocery. Then I drove up to the trailhead at Estero, figuring to finally sea that interesting body of water, but wound up approaching it instead from the trailhead at Bull Point, which leads right down to Creamery Bay---cow heaven. I crouched on a grassy clump of dry ground, almost at the waterline, and when I stood up a large flocks of birds took off from the water nearby.

In mid afternoon, I found North Beach, where the above picture was taken, as I walked along the shore, for over an hour. The only person I saw was right near the parking lot. Otherwise I was by myself the whole way below the small cliff.

After about a quarter of mile, one sees the first wooden sculpture. There were a few more as well. I fantasized that they might be continuously curated by anyone who passes by, and and who has the courage to alter the sculpture in some way. I thought about what I might add, then decided it was not any true artistic impulse, so I left the sculpture as it was.

The Road to Burning Man MMXII (Part Four)

At the gate, and the dust still raging, I rolled down my window just long enough to the ticket Okki had given me in Boulder. The ticket itself ornate graphic with this year's theme: "Fertility 2.0."

The guy at the gate said you had to drive down another mile or so to the "Welcome Center" where I'd be given additional materials directed onward. I told him about my car, and if it be ok to pull over. He wasn't enthusiastic about it, but told me if I had to, it would ok.

The whole way down to the second gate, my eyes were half-glued on the temperature gauge and half looking all around me in the dust to make sure I wasn't about to hit anything, or that anything wasn't about to hit me. I had to pull over twice, off onto the playa, when I thought it might boil over again.

In the welcome gate, the wind was raging harder than ever. There were two women standing in my lane to greet me. They were wearing skimpy bikini outfits, with their faces covered with scarves and big yellow ski goggles. They looked like Venusian Amazon warriors.

Okki had said that "virgins" like me were supposed to get out at the gate, ring the bell next to it and scream "I AM NO LONGER A VIRGIN!!" I really wasn't looking forward to it, and fortunately in the raging storm, no such demand was presented to me by the women there.

Instead, after a few minutes, I was directed forward by one of the women, who motioned with her hand as she looked away from me. I started the car and moved forward through the gate and into the plaza. Just as I began moving, she turned to me and started screaming at me angrily at the top of her lungs, that I was moving too fast, and didn't I see that car in the plaza in front of me in the dust!?

This is going to be a long week, I thought to myself.

California Cornucopia

My new friends at the Great Armenian Festival today in downtown Fresno.

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The Road to Burning Man MMXII (Part Three)

The event had opened on Sunday night. Okki had dropped strong indications that it was good to arrive early in the week, to enjoy as much of the event as possible. I wanted to do it right.

On my relaxed pace, I arrived on Tuesday afternoon. It was in the midst of what would turn out to be the fiercest windstorm of the week. Driving on the playa, the dust was so thick that I could not see farther than one or two car length in front and behind of me, and hardly into the neighboring lanes of the dozen or so that snaked in parallel fashion towards the ticket booth, something out there in the thick of the brown swirling fog.

Fortunately there weren't many of us trying to get in at that unfortunate hour. I got within sighting distance of the entrance booths before I noticed immediately the strong smell of coolant. I looked down at my temperature gauge and saw it was pegged into the red.

There was no one behind me in my lane, so I cut the engine and just waited.

In the dust I couldn't see whether there was steam coming out of the hood of the car---indicating a boilover of the radiator.

There was nothing to do but let it cool down. At worst, I could nurse the car through the gates and towards the compound. I wouldn't be using it for a week in any case.

The Road to Burning Man MMXII (Part Two)

Burning Man itself was an extraordinary experience. I was, of course, a "virgin," to use the parlance. But a couple month's solid of camping and road-tripping meant I was already half-prepared on three-day's notice.

Nevertheless I was obsessed that I would fail to bring something very obvious and necessary. On the way west on I-80, I stopped half a dozen times, at several Wal-Marts in Wyoming and Utah, as well as the REI in Salt Lake City, to cross items off my list.

Chief among my worries was water. I had left without filling up my six gallon jug that I keep usually filled. I found up filling it from the sink of the motel room where I stayed in Elko.