Prick Dickens and the Little Old Ernie Ball Shop

At the end of my last visit to Fresno, last October, Rick had just opened his guitar shop---the East India Guitar Co.---in a rented room in the house at 548 E. Olive, where Echo makes a jog on either side of Olive. 

The shop logo, designed by Marie

The location put it right at the west end of the thick of the Tower District---Fresno's little bit of an attempt at urban nightlife and charm, as much as it can be called charming. The district takes its name from the Tower Theatre (officially the Tower Theatre for the Performing Arts), a tall landmark in historic movie theater visible for many blocks around. Musical acts play there on a regular basis. 
Within several blocks of the theater are an assortment of businesses one might expect in a urban nightlife area---several evening restaurants, two stage theaters, an old vinyl record store, a tea shop, and a deli, etc.

There was even, nestled between a couple grungy sports bars, a little Starbucks, although it was one in which I had not been able to bring myself to do regular work. The one time I had tried to do that, a homeless man in a wheelchair, sitting outside beside the front door, had opened it for me as I walked up to it, as a doorman would.  I couldn't even bring myself to go all the way in, and on the spot, I had made-up excuse to turn away and find a different location for the day's work, most likely a few miles north up in the Fig Garden Village, a "nice" California lifestyle center in the nicer area of Fresno.

Fresno being what it is, at the present moment, neither the Tower Theatre, nor even the Tower District itself, merited its own Wikipedia article, as might be have happened for another metropolis. Instead the district had to settle for a section within the greater Fresno article itself.

Given these limitations, we both agreed that the exact locale where Rick set up his shop, within walking distance of the theater and the restaurants nearby, was rather ideal. It was a big part of his strategy to get the place noticed.

It should be noted, however, that the house on Olive was pretty much the extremum of the walkable area around the Tower Theatre. From there onward, away from the theater, the sidewalk narrowed abruptly, and thus the character of the neighborhood became less amenable to leisurely urban strolls, even in the daytime. When going past any person on the sidewalk there, one would have had to squeeze by them in close proximity, a feature which not surprisingly limited the type of foot traffic on that stretch of Olive.

Rick had taken the room as a sublease from an older white lady who had rented the entire house in order to operate her "eclectic" second-hand boutique, one with a nostalgic bent. Her daughter was the manager.  She also rented out a back area of the house to a female massage therapist, whose sign hung across the driveway.

With the exception of the sign for the massage therapist, the entire front of the house along Olive, and the little fenced yard, were thickly crowded with a heterogeneous postmodern assortment of junk from the inventory of the second-hand boutique---old pieces of furniture, chalkboards upon which were written promos in colored chalk. Across the entrance front porch was a funky old surfboard. The most prominent piece was right the walkway from the sidewalk---a little old wooden lemonade stand.

Rick detested the exterior design, but there was little he could do about, other than assert his right to put out his own signs for his shop. It was simply an obstacle to be overcome.

As a consolation, he had complete control over his one little room, and by the time I left last time, he had decorated it with the most splendidly little dozy guitar-store feel.  It had the feel of a tiny little pawnshop.

Along along the walls were hung neatly his own assortment of string from Ernie Ball, Fender, and other manufacturers, as well as capos, sliders, tuners. Much of the walls were covered with guitar straps of varying design and color, hung at regular intervals like a curtain. He had even hung them like this across the front windows, which opened outward onto the porch, creating and interesting guitar-strap curtain visible from the street. 

Along the back of the room he had configured a velvet curtain with gold tassels to make a showroom-like display, partly to showcase his best instruments, and also to conceal the workspace storage items in back.

In all of this creation, he was aided greatly by the assistance of Marie, the 15-year-old daughter of his girlfriend.

From the start, Rick had corrected anticipated that, given the situation with the exterior of the house, getting his shop noticed from the outside would be a struggle.

To make matters even worse, the boutique owner, as part of the musical ambiance of her shop, had placed a speaker on the porch, directly under the window of Rick's sole room, and used it to broadcast played her own classic rock favorites at a loud volume to those approaching her shop from the sidewalk. Whenever he had a student come in for lessons, Rick would have to go into the boutique and ask the woman to turn the music down. 

Yet already by the time I left, the shop was off to good start. Multiple times while I was there, various men, either on their own or accompanying their wives to the boutique half of the house, had ducked into his shop door and marveled at the tidy museum-like feel of the store, as well as its funky little inventory.

A lot of the foot traffic you would expect in this type of shop comes from guys who want to sit around and talk about music. Rick is pretty much a walking encyclopedia of rock and roll history, and the history of the electric guitar, so the guys who dropped by to chat usually left with a good impression of the place. They don't always buy many instruments or string, but at least the traffic can be useful to create a buzz.

Ed.: the style of this post was inspired by its human subject, whose literary talent at a young age once led him to be dubbed by the nickname in the title.

Back in the Big F

On Friday I checked out of the Governors Inn in Sacramento and caught a Greyhound bus to Fresno.

The Sacramento bus station is no longer where it was in 1984, when I first came through here. Instead it has been moved up to Richards, on the north edge of the city, just a few blocks from the hotel where I was staying, and also right next to the new police station.

The bus station is shiny and new, with a pleasant waiting area and a decent snackbar and grill. I'd bought my ticket the night before on the web, and used the machine inside the station to print out my ticket, and well as a luggage tag for my backpack.

My bus was an express with only one stop, in Stockton. In 2014, the wifi is pretty good on Greyhound, and there was even a power outlet.

I can't imagine going a long distance on a bus like this, but for a few hours, I could even sink into work, despite the jostling of the highway.

I didn't even mind when, after our sole stop in Stockton, we ran into abysmal traffic on California State Highway 99. The section around Modesto is probably among the most miserable driving experiences in the nation right now. After crawling past Manteca, the driver announced on the intercom that we would be detouring all the way to I-5.

The scenery over on that side of the valley is more dramatic. The coastal hills are golden and nearly featureless, in a very appealing way.

The driver got lost a little in the valley, taking the wrong exit off I-5 near Los Banos. I could tell he was making a mistake while it was happening, and wondered why he was taking the road he did. Turns out he didn't know either, and he got back on I-5 until the next exit.

We finally got to Fresno about a half hour late. The bus station there is the same one from the 1980s.

It was still daylight. I walked out of the station with my backpack. I'd researched the local bus line that I was going to take, to get up to the Tower District.

I walked half a block in the sun, on the way to the bus stop in downtown Fresno. Then I said screw it and walked back partway to the bus station and went up to a cab.

Driver was a Mexican guy, middle age---longtime resident.

"You free?" He was.

I got in the cab.

"I'm going to Olive Street," I said. "Corner of Echo..."

Sacramento, Face Down in a Plate of Pancakes

The Governors Inn on Richards is a nice place, all in all. It is located north of downtown, just off the interstate just before it crosses the river. The neighborhood is a typical mid-to-upscale interstate exit, at first glance an apparently nice bit of contemporary California road culture. There are five or six discount and mid-range hotels. with a pleasant gas station convenience store as well as a Denny's, all of recent vintage.

There are also many, many homeless people---mostly men, mostly middle age or older, of all races. The few women are usually with a man, in a pair or larger group. There are sometimes younger folk, and sometimes an apparent family.

One sees them on the sidewalks all around the exit, and also in the lush park down at the confluence of the American and the Sacramento rivers---homeless men in groups fishing as the Mexicans go by on the river in pleasure crafts, blasting thumping accordion music.

You can get to the park from the motels via the old truss bridge across the American, closed off to all but park-bound traffic and pedestrians.. It is quite pleasant and bucolic on a weekend afternoon. The solitary homeless men are the dominant population there, but you only notice after being there a while.

They meander in isolation by the Mexican families out for a weekend picnic, and the retired folk who come over from the motel cluster, in pairs and large groups, and the yuppie joggers. They sit on the banks and stare out into the river, just like yours truly.

At sundown this time of year it is indeed a splendid view from the confluence. From the pointed bluff where the rivers meet, one can see down the  thick forested banks of the  Sacramento towards the petite modern skyline of downtown.

If one is to be homeless, then short of being on the coast itself,  Sacramento is a very good place. It has a good climate for being outdoors much of the year---mild in both the winter and summer.

Moreover it an abundance of trees along big wide rivers, perfect for clandestine camping.

Moreover is the capital of California. Apparent the social services network gives out transit passes to let folks ride for free.  One guy with a massively long beard got on the tram when I was coming from the capitol. He sat across from in an otherwise empty train car. When he started coughing, I felt obliged to move to another car.

From the Governors Inn, simply to cross the boulevard to get to the Denny's, one inevitably passes perhaps half a dozen homeless folk on the sidewalk, some waiting for the bus, others begging for change at the stoplight by the convenience store.

From a car's perspective they are mostly invisible, except when they are begging. But on foot they are quite noticeable as being ubiquitous.

On my second night there, as I walk to Denny's, I struggled in a resolve to treat each person as individual human being, worthy of that kind of respect.

Inside Denny's the crowd is thin but it takes a long time before I am seated. The lone waitress is very busy and backed-up.

I sit in almost the same booth as I did the first night, and  order the same omelette as well. After my dinner arrives, and I'm half way through the meal, I see over by the cash register, a young homeless man who has come into the restaurant.

He is short, of slight build, and is dressed in dirty street clothes, wearing a dirty green jacket and a green winter hat.. He is toting an enormous black duffel backpack, which seems as large as his entire torso.

His eyes are seemingly closed. He is weaving back and forth, in a slow staggering rhythm. He totters as if he is about to top over, then staggers back the other direction.

He is also holding a printed ticket for a to-go order that he has evidently already paid for.

He staggers in and out of my view this way. After a few minutes the waitress gives his order in a to-go box. When he gets it, he carries it over to a booth along the same window as me, a few booths away. After he sits down I can't see him anymore.

Later as I am finishing my meal, when the waitress brings the check, I notice that at another booth, at the far end of the row along the window, near when the homeless guy had gone, there is another man---middle aged, wearing a v-neck sweater and nice black leather jacket, as well as a gold chain.

He is leaning over the back of his booth, facing towards me. His holding up a cell phone and taking a picture into the booth right next to him.

He is grinning as he does this. A woman's voice from the booth is laughing and telling him half-heartedly to sit back down. He disappears for a while, then pops back up again to take more photos.

At that point, I get up to leave with my check. As I walk up to the counter, I can see the homeless guy in a right by the register booth, He is hunched forward, unconcious, with his face smashed into the meal he has ordered. His nose is pressed right into the short stack.

I stop and watch him until I can tell that he is still breathing. By this time the waitress has taken notice. She is on the house phone, calmly punching the buttons of a telephone number.

The guy in the leather jacket and his girlfriend are in the booth right next to him. As I'm standing there, they also get up to pay their check as well. They stagger in their own giggling way, from all the fun they are having. The guy in the leather jacket looks at me, grinning.

For an instant, our eyes meet and I can read his thought. He wants me to give him the high sign of approval, a confirmation of his interpretation of the situation, to say back to him isn't this such a riot?

But I begin hoping hard that he doesn't say anything to me, because if does, I'm going to look right back into his eyes and say with my gunfighter voice, as far as I can see, there's only one freak show here tonight, and I'm looking right at them.

But the truth is that I too wanted to take a picture of the homeless man with my cellphone. But I didn't. Instead I wrote a blog post about it.

And seeing him reminded me that I too was carrying an over-laden backpack on my own travels. Gotta watch that shoulder.

Watch that heavy load, y'all.

A Marble Temple for a Golden State

The Sacramento airport was beautiful and ultra-new, pristine in the fields northwest of the city, with nothing else around. One rides a small tram to the main terminal.

I caught a cab into town---a ten minute ride on the Interstate past green fields of grass. The Indian subcontinent driver, a grey-haired grandfather who had lived many years in Sacramento by now, told me in his still thick accent that the green grass beside the road was very new. Until a week before, everything had been parched because of the long drought. But a round of rain had brought the land back to life.

My hotel---the Governors Inn---was on the north edge of town, off the Interstate.  Inside the lobby was a cage containing two parakeets named Ronald and Nancy. I laughed at the joke. The guy at the reception was a German. He chided me for not using the free hotel shuttle from the airport. "And why didn't you call us?" he asked me in his own accent.

"C'est la vie," I told him. He repeated it back to me, as a means of saying "alas."


Sacramento has some poignant personal memories for me. I came through here thirty years ago on my first vagabonding road trip, on my way to see. It had been so cold in Colorado and coming across the Great Basin. I woke up in Sacramento as we came into the station around dawn and felt myself warm for the first time in months. I felt like I was really in California, and free, for the moment at least.

Also my grandparents were married here, during World War II, even though neither of them lived here at the time. I didn't even get the whole story about that until a couple years ago from a relative I visited back in Indiana.

In the morning I walked on the path along the Sacramento River into downtown, meandering through Old Sacramento, which is a living history district meant to recreate the days of the building of the Central Pacific Railroad. It was bustling with tourists on a week day, some of them snapping selfies with the bust of Theodore Judah.

Then after working for a while at a Starbucks in the downtown  outdoor mall on K Street, I treated myself to something that had been on my list for a long time, during my travels around the state---a visit to the California State Capitol.

It seemed like the fitting thing to do, since I had covered nearly every corner of the state in the last few years, and had amassed some amazing experiences and met some extremely interesting people.

I've toured many state capitols around the country over the last ten years, and so I think of myself as a capitol connoisseur. In that spirit I lingered for a while in the rotunda absorbing the intricacies of the interior of the dome, and meandered past as many governor's portraits as possible.

I particularly enjoyed the 1950's era addition, and its row of period showcases, one for each county in the state, decorated in a unique way as a diorama to reflect the county itself. California has a lot of counties, so the display cases lined much of the hallway in the addition.

In front of the governor's office, a state trooper stood guard behind a giant bear statue and a velvet rope.

The highlight of the tour was a visit to the third floor gallery of the California State Senate, where I took a seat and kibitzed on a tour that entered right after me. The tour guide castigated a young man on the tour for jumping over a railing in the gallery. "This building deserves more respect," she told him.

I agree. It goes without saying, that in these buildings, I tend to be on my best tourist/vagabond behavior of course, no matter what I may think of what goes inside them.

It's important to remember, I tell myself, that the building, and the government it houses, is not California per se, but simply an institution that represents official functions, all by the consent of the governed.  Without that consent, the institution has no meaning, and espite our secular populist religion that asserts "the government is just us, the people, doing things to ourselves," there is nothing mystical about this building that makes it any more "California" that any other edifice in the state.

California is not an official institution and its architecture. It exists independent of that, and of any beautiful palatial building to brimming with pomp and glory.

Of course this is one way in which California is not special at all, since the same is true of any State of the Union, and also America as a whole.

California Has It All

The hotel in Santa Ana was mostly occupied by families visiting Disenyland. It didn't occur to me that this would true, until I had gone to breakfast---omelettes and other breakfast items were made to order, with breakfast coupons given out at check-in. I could overhear many day plans being made at tables next to me, and recollections of visits that had just occurred.

The flight out of Orange County (SNA) was majestic. It was a bright sunny afternoon. The plane was full, but I had bought business select on Southwest and thus snagged a window seat on the left side with a clear view.

We took off  to the south and climbed steeply as we passed over the estuary and the marina of Newport Beach, out over the Pacific. Then after a sharp curve over the ocean we passed right over a couple the large islands---San Clemente and Santa Catalina, the latter laced by roads.

We made landfall again over Santa Monica, with its distinct grid embedded in L.A.  Then we passed over Simi Valley, where one could see out to the old Reagan ranch, and follow the highway to Thousand Oaks and Ventura. The plane passed right over the infamous Spahn Ranch, then, following the "Grapevine" of I-5, passed over the Santa Susana Mountains into the Central Valley.

We followed the valley northwest, past Bakersfield, along the course of the San Joaquin River and State Highway 99. The earth of the valley was brown and dusty, except for where it was explicitly cultivated, such as around the old lake bed. I tried to keep track of the cities below---Taft, Hanford, Madera, Merced,  based on the size and highway patterns. I recognized some of them my memory, but is was difficult without a map.

From time to time, I caught a glimpse out the windows on the other side. One could see the Sierra topped in snow. But I was glad I was on the side of the plane I was. Today I wanted to see the valley and the coast ranges, and follow the course of the rivers in it.

Near Modesto, after about ninety minutes of flight, the terrain below had undergone a change. It was no longer brown and dusty but green and lush, somewhat like Oregon.

Around Stockton I could see all the way across the delta to Suisun Bay, and the mountains around the GoldenGate. Around Lodi we began to descend, and we did, the rolling green ground got closer. As we came into Sacramento International (SMF), it looked lush and fertile, like the Midwest, complete with a barn right next to the runway.

eden ahbez suggestion courtesy of Coop. 

A Quiet Man Slinks Through Los Angeles

I love Hollywood, but one night there was enough for me.

My room at the Roosevelt was cozy and nice---although I banged my shin on the wooden bed frame.

The window looked out over the back of Hollywood High School, with a a great view of the giant mural of the mascot, the Sheik. Behind it was the skyline of downtown L.A.

After freshening up, I went back down to the lobby where I got to be an audience extra during the taping of a segment for the film festival.  Robert Osborne interviewed Maureen O'Hara.  The great actress was carried out in her wheel chair by her grandson. She spoke at length about her favorite soccer team in Ireland, and her admiration for Charles Laughton, who had signed her to an early contract. Several people called out "John Wayne" from the audience, and with that prompting she waxed about Wayne as well.

But she intimated that among the many leading men she'd had, she did not always enjoy kissing all of them.


That evening, feeling restless and aventurous, I went out walking east along nearby Sunset, which runs parallel to Hollywood Boulevard. I got caught up in a conversation with a gentle schizophrenic homeless person until politely excusing myself and leaving a dollar coin for his trouble. In one storefront window there was a portrait of the late Mickey Rooney, who had just passed away. His movies were on TCM all day that day. When I had left the room, Boys Town had been playing.

In the perfect evening light, I followed Sunset past Gower Gulch and several studio complexes, then across the freeway into Little Armenia. Then I walked up Western to Hollywood Boulevard again, and started back west towards my hotel as the sun sank behind the hills.

As it got fully dark, a half block from the hotel, I lingered a few moments at the corner of Highland,  thick with tourists, just people watching off to the side, while leaning against the wall of the Ripley's Museum.

I was rewarded in my leisure by a sighting of Ben Mankiewicz. He was waiting to cross the stoplight, looking around into traffic. I took the opportunity to introduce myself just long enough to thank for his work with TCM.  After a pleasant brief conversation at the light, he went off across Hollywood Boulevard looking for some other location, or for his car. Good guy, Ben Mankiewicz. He's a big fan of Bullit.

When I got back to the hotel I went to the bar and ordered an old fashion as a nightcap. The waiter asked how it was. I let the waves of flavor roll over my tongue before answering that it was quite a nice concotion on his part.

In the morning I checked out, took the subway back downtown, then caught the Metrolink out to Orange County. I got off at Santa Ana station and caught a local bus a couple miles south, then got off a block away from the Quality Suites, where I'd made a reservation. It was the Quality Suites John Wayne Airport, doncha know?

A Bum Comes Back to Hollywood

Late Saturday afternoon. I come up the escalator of the subway on Hollywood Boulevard, at the corner of Highland.

Last time here there was no station. It was under construction. Hollywood was mostly a dirty pit back then. Just souvenir shops and a few tourists around the must see places.

Now it is much more crowded, especially around the theater where they have the Oscars. Moreover there is a film festival going on. It feels like a block of the Vegas strip.

To get down the street now you have to negotiate around many famous costumed characters, who hawk photos for money.

Tour guides stand on the stars of the walk of fame handing out brochures for star tours. Many foreign accents are heard---Europeans and Japanese. The souvenir shops are more numerous, and are now interlaced with multiple marijuana-themed pipe shops.


The tourists pose with some of the famous stars on the Walk of Fame. They make a hazard to walk in the crowd. But most of the rolling list of stars on the sidewalk are trod under without a second thought, including the greatest film comedienne of all time. Behold the nature of earthly fame.

Across the street from the Chinese Theater, in front of the entrance to the Roosevelt Hotel, I pause and look at the star for Errol Flynn. They had just shown Adventures of Robin Hood the night before on TCM. They show it frequently.

Inside the old hotel, in the corridor leading to the lobby, are several men wearing dark slacks and blazers. I walk past up the carpet and nod.

The lobby is lit with bright lights and banners for the film festival. The festival uses images to evoke the theme of classic Hollywood. The large room, with a second story portico, is crowded with people standing and sitting on the leather sofas. At the far end of the room the small. bar is packed with people as well.

I approach one of the men in suits.

"Excuse me, could you tell me where reception is?" I ask him.

It's downstairs. Turns out that the cabs come to the back of the hotel. The Hollywood Boulevard entrance is too chaotic for them.

I check in at reception and get a key card. Then I use to access the elevator to get to the sixth floor.

Inside the room, the television is already on. It's on TCM, of course!

Three Days a Physicist at Caltech

When I finally got to Pasadena, I stepped off the bus with my backpack on Del Mar just across the street from the campus of the California Institute of Technology. I was wearing my hiking slacks, a long sleave outdoor shirt, and my new hiking hat---from head-to-toe in REI-bought clothes. Never in my life did I look more like a physicist. But that was more than fine by me.

After checking into the Vagabond Inn, I texted Peter, my contact on Caltech who had invited me, telling him that I had arrived.

"I've been invited to Caltech," I'd told my uncle in Tucson. He was an electrical engineer, so he understood.

"Of course the person who invited me is a freshman physics major," I added. "But I'm fine with that. You gotta start somewhere."

Indeed. Peter was the son of an old classmate of mine at Willamette, one who now lives in Forest Grove outside Portland.  Peter is high-achieving and highly intelligent, and had even done lab work at Portland State while in high school. It was no surprise that he'd been admitted to Caltech. When his father, my classmate, mentioned that Peter was expecting me to visit him sometime during his freshman year, I immediately replied that it was an absolute certainty that I would take him up on the offer.

The Millikan Library

For a physicist, Caltech is one of those "mystically awesome' places---at least as much as that phrase has meaning in science. Of course, the laws of physics are location independent. Tbere is nothing "more important" about any place on the earth, simply due to its history. A facility---a univeristy, lab, or otherwise---is important inasmuch as it is being used for ongoing significant research.

Yet few physicists could resist the allure of getting a personal tour of place where, among many other things, Robert Millikan performed the famous oil drop experiment that first measured the charge of the electron. The tallest building on campus---the library---is named for him.

The list of famous physicists who have worked here throughout the last century is staggering. Among the most famous, of course, was Richard Feynman, one of 32 Nobel laureates that this place has produced (not that the Nobel Prize is always the best indicator of scientific significance).

Feynman drove to campus in an old van covered with the diagrams that he had invented after World War II to model quantum particle interactions. His significance transcends his work in physics, to the point that he has become a folk hero. Tributes to him are all over campus. Peter said the local Ross clothing outlet has a mural about him inside the store.

Richard Feynman

All that was certainly fun to contemplate during the days I spent on campus. But like I said, in science it's the present that counts, not the past. The greater significance for yours truly was simply to once again be in environment of highly creative and talented people doing physics. It had been a long time since I felt that.

As I explained to Peter, it was one of the snobbish reasons that I had left physics after finishing my post doc in Austin in 1999---I had grown accustomed to being around such awesome minds---geniuses in the office right next door---and I had come to depend upon that kind of environment to inspire me..

I've learned I tend to work best when being challenged that way, even if it's something sort of phony. Even back in high school, it was that way---"Home of the Champions" with a glass case filled with long tarnished trophies over the decades. I suppose that's a classic example of foma, as Vonnegut would say (in a novel that was ostensibly about a fictionalized version of Feynman himself), but as I've said before, I'll take and use that leverage for my own purposes.

But like I said too, Caltech ain't foma at all. It's real, just like the electron-positron scattering depicted n the Feynman diagram below, and for three beautiful days last week fate allowed me to wallow in it.

Achtung Metrolink

After my night in the Wigwam Motel, I checked out and caught the bus into downtown San Bernardino. It was hard not to feel pity for this place. You'd hardly know it was one of the largest cities in California. The edge of downtown felt more like one was coming into a grimy town in the Nevada desert.

The downtown of course had plenty of old buildings that were shuttered. I walked past an old dark department store, marked by a historic plague. The old grand entrance was sealed with an iron gate, behind which were recent yellow page phone books that had been thrown over the fence in plastic bags, oblivious to the obvious fate of the store. It seemed a perfect image for the city.

Nevertheless there was a Starbucks in the vicinity, which I located using my smartphone. I whiled away a couple hours working there in the middle of the day. It felt as if everyone else there was preparing resumes. It was hard to imagine that we were so close to Los Angeles. It felt like a thousand miles a way.

In the mid afternoon, I folded up my laptop and hoofed it with my backpack under the freeway to what I thought was the Metrolink station, since I planned on taking the commuter train back westward towards L.A.

Unfortunately I hadn't quite done my trip research thoroughly enough. The station was not the Metrolink station but rather the old Santa Fe depot, now the Amtrak station. The Metrolink station was next door, a couple hundred yards away, and I arrived at the Amtrak station just in time to see the Metrolink train pull away into the distance.

At that moment I had one of the moments of scolding myself. It's exactly the kind of lesson one learns from traveling---never assume anything. In this case, I had simply looked at the map and figured the station served both Amtrak and Metrolink. In fact they were separate stations. As I've traveled the world over the years, I've been stung by this kind of mistake repeatedly. It seems to never fail---when you assume, you get burned.

But there's another travel lesson I've learned, which is just to go with the flow. There was no point in fretting. I've waited for days on end at the most godforsaken stations behind the Iron Curtain in this way, so I knew I could take it. In this case, it was only an hour to the next train after all. It gave me a chance to go inside the Amtrak station and sit at the ancient classic lunch counter, where I had a cup of coffee and used the free wi-fi to continue the day's work. From time to time, I turned around at the counter to admire the waiting hall, wondering what souls had come through the station over the years.

The hour went by very quickly, as it always does when I sink into work, and all in all I was glad that I'd missed the earlier train.

But this was San Bernardino, after all, so I didn't get off that easy. Unfortunately there was another lesson to be learned. When at last I walked over to the Metrolink station and stood in line to buy a ticket at the only working machine, the process consumed all the remaining time until the train arrived. At one point I thought I might miss this train as well.

It seemed as if every person needed to press at least twenty buttons to buy a ticket, each press marked by a loud beep. It was probably the most cumbersome mechanical ticket-buying experience I'd ever experienced.

Then all us were made to file single-file onto the platform, showing our tickets to a scowling security agent as we did. Finally to board the train we were made to walk past a county sheriff deputy wearing dark sunglasses and holding a panting German Shepherd on a leash. It felt as if we were convicts on our way to prison.

I hadn't learned that kind of travel lesson in a long, long time. Not since I was in Eastern Europe before the fall of Communism, I think.

A Paleface in San Bernardino

Ontario was a good place to start the work week, since there wasn't much else to do there. In the morning I checked out of the Ontario Grand and hiked through another district of wide boulevards, sculpted hedges, and office buildings on my way to Starbucks. The sun was beating down fiercely.

Every once in a while a car passed by me on the street, but other than that, there was little sign that the buildings around me were probably teeming with people at work in cubicles. It was as if the zombie apocalypse had already hit, leaving the perfect suburbs devoid of people.

Fortunately the Starbucks was nearby, in swanky Rancho Cucamonga, which is about as "nice" as it gets in the Inland Empire. It felt like an oasis of moneyed folks and businesses that cater to them, amidst an otherwise low-income area of California.  All it all, it was like a giant modern lifestyle center. But for my work, that's pretty much the best thing. I spent much of the middle of the day there at my laptop in air conditioned splendor.

When I left, I decided I needed a new sun hat. As it happened, there was an REI nearby, up on old Route 66 as it passes through town. I think it's the only REI in the county. That should probably tell you what you need to know about Rancho Cucamonga.

I much prefer the old sign and name of the Wigwam Motel, which has been replaced by inferior versions of both

From there, I caught two different buses until I found myself on the edge of the city of San Bernardino proper. My destination was a classic Route 66 lodging---the Wigwam Motel (built in 1946 and originally called the Cozy Cone, judging by the above photo).

As the bus progressed down the road, the surroundings got progressively poorer and more decrepit---the houses and trailers looked like decaying hovels, and the businesses were more often liquor stores. It made Fresno look like Beverly Hills.

This wasn't just the "crappy" California I was used to. Even in Fresno, Blackstone Avenue looks normal and prosperous in the daylight from a car sometimes. You don't notice how bad it has gotten until you walk along the sidewalk and find yourself the only non-homeless person. But San Bernardino was a downright semi-rural slum.

The old motels along the road there looked as if they should be demolished. No way would I have stayed in any of them. Fortunately I knew the Wigwam would be better, given the reviews on Booking.com. And thankfully it was. The little cottage that served as the office was a Route 66 museum and gift shop all its own.  The Indian-American proprietor (as in the Indian subcontinent) handed me an old-style registration form, in both Spanish and English, with the Spanish printed in larger bold type than the English.

I got teepee number 17 for the night. It was clean and comfortable. Both the air conditioning and the wi-fi worked well. So did the television, although I was startled to find that they offered a free hard core porn chanel, in the line-up right next to the regular network stations. That's only happened to me a couple times in the last few years (in Yonkers, N.Y., the porn came on the t.v. right as I turned it on).

Every time I flipped by that channel, it seemed the actors were in the same position, performing the same repetitive motions. The only different was that the skin color and hair color of the actors kept changing. I couldn't help feel like a visitor from another planet: here are the mating behaviors of humans.  I don't think they bother much with narrative anymore.

Aside for that, the place wasn't bad. Of course when I got hungry that evening I had to walk half mile down the road, past two liquor stores, a seedy dive bar, and a huge county health services facility, until I found a burger joint--one of the many Baker's in the area.

It was a quaint experience, staying in the Wigwam Motel. I was glad I made the effort to get there using the local bus system. Somehow going to places like San Bernardino, and seeing this aspect of California, lets me give myself permission to enjoy the nicer parts of the state. But one night there was about all I could take. The weight of sheer hopelessness seems to press down upon everything there, right down to the grimy floors of the donut shop next to the motel. Ironically it felt in no small way like being on an Indian reservation. I felt immensely privileged that I was merely passing through.

Sadly it's probable that within a few years the Wigwam Motel will be razed on the grounds that it is culturally offensive and appropriates the design of Native America lodging. As we speak, somewhere in the wealthier suburbs of L.A. or Orange County, is an angry junior high school student with a Tumblr blog and a hacktivist Twitter account who, a few years from now when he/she/xe is attending CSUSB, will lead the hashtag protest that will shut down the last functioning motel along this stretch of the highway. At last the local PoC of this area will be spared the disgusting sight of this nostalgic abomination.

But being the hyper-privileged oppressive shitlord that I am, that's exactly what one would expect I'd say.

Into the Dark Continent of the Inland Empire

My path from the oasis-like luxury of Scottsdale to the grimy sidewalks of Pasadena was rather a convoluted but fun experience.

On Sunday, Red and I went back to the Phoenix airport, where she was scheduled to take a flight back to Portland. But I didn't go back with her. Instead I got on a short Southwest flight headed westward into Southern California.

It was an awesome flight experiences. I snagged a window seat on the left side of the plane and used my maps to identify the mountain ranges, valleys, and washes as we crossed the Sonoran Desert. When we flew over the Colorado River, one could see its twists and bends all the way south into Mexico.

Then we flew right over Palm Springs where I recognized many streets from my visit last year, and then just past the top of the snowy peaks that tower over the west side of the valley. One could well have waved to someone standing at the top. I love these "real life Google Earth" experiences (always bring a map on the plane!).

After an hour in the the air we came down into the urbanized valley east of Los Angeles---the Inland Empire, and landed at Ontario Airport.

The Ontario Airport was small and cozy. It was just a short walk to leave the secure area of the terminal and find myself outside the front doors.

The Inland Empire was one of the areas of the state I had neglected on my "long trip to California" last year, so I wanted to get to know it a little bit. Given the reputation of the Inland Empire as a cultural wasteland, this probably would sound nuts to a lot of people. But I like to see everything, I guess. 

I could have taken a cab to my hotel, but it was less than a mile away, and I knew the route from my detailed trip-planning maps.  So I strapped on my gold Golite Jam backpack and, dressed in long khaki slacks and a matching long-sleeve shirt like a safari trekker, sauntered out into the afternoon sun, picking my way over the railroad tracks to make a shortcut past an old Catholic church. The late Sunday mass was being broadcast (in English) on outdoor speakers to the courtyard.

Across the street from the church was a small post office housed inside a mobile home trailer, the kind one sees frequently in rural America. A sign identified it as Guasti, California. Nearby a historic plaque informed me that it was the site of a defunct historic California vineyard.

Then I wound through some deserted office park areas, having to cross several times where the sidewalk abruptly stopped. I crossed over I-10 and quickly found my hotel, the Ontario Grand Inn and Suites, which turned out to be a nice little boutique hotel with comfortable and clean rooms.

The only drawback to staying there was the sterile office park feeling of the entire area, nicely landscaped but seemingly devoid of any kind of life. The nearby boulevard was wider than most of the highways in the Portland, yet absurdly quiet on a Sunday evening.

For dinner, there was nothing in the area that wouldn't have required me to cross such wide boulevards and pick my through hedges, so I took the suggestion of the menu on the desk in my room and ordered delivery from a sports bar a couple miles a way.

I ate the delicious burger and fries while watching Mogambo (1953) and  Red Dust (1932) on TCM. The former is a remake of the latter, both starring Clark Gable and involving a love triangle set in the jungle, but with different leading actresses. TCM was showing both as a compare and contrast.

"I'm watching a Clark Gable movie," I texted Red, during Mogambo, which takes place in East Africa. "He just shot a gorilla."

Later on the phone I explained that he didn't want to shoot it. It had charged him and caught him off guard. He was pissed about having to kill it, in order to save someone else's life.

That's the way it goes. Sometimes it turns out you have shoot the gorilla.

Happy Pasadena Clap-a-long

Just past nine o'clock in the evening, with the sky fully dark, I finally schlep out of my room at the Vagabond Inn on Colorado Boulevard and walk along the empty wide sidewalk a couple blocks to the well-lit Jack in the Box at the corner of Hill.

It's the third night in a row I've find myself grabbing a late cheap meal like this, and the second time at the Jack in the Box. I keep telling myself I'll go out early for a proper dinner, but the Vagabond Inn---a fairly nice but well-worn motor hotel just east of downtown Pasadena, has Turner Classic Movies on its cable system. For three nights in a row the selections have kept me indoors until I was too hungry to wait any longer.

Tonight the movie that kept me inside until after dark was A Man Called Adam (1966), an amazing forgotten black and white gem starring Sammy Davis Jr. as a highly troubled jazz trumpeter.  It was the first time they had shown it on TCM. The cast is incredible---includes Louis Armstrong and Mel Tormé, among others.

My favorite line is one by Louis Armstrong---"I'm Mister Get-the-Hell-Outtta-Here!"

Having been to Pasadena several times before, I usually considered it a "nice" city, and certainly there are parts like that, but this stretch of Colorado between downtown and Pasadena City College is not among them. The biggest building between here and the Jack in the Box is an ancient shuttered car dealership with broken windows.

The Jack in the Box, which is open all night, is a collection of the local "interesting people" including the homeless man with the metal cart, who tonight was in exactly the same spot as my first visit, next to the napkin dispensary by the self-serve soda machine. Two nights ago he answered a cell-phone call while I was there waiting for order. Tonight I knew beforehand to hold my breath while I reached for the napkins lest I gag from his body odor.

California is like that---heaven and hell. There is the "nice" California and the "crappy" California. In some places, like San Francisco, they seem to overlap in the same block. But mostly it is neighborhood-by-neighborhood, city-by-city.

This part of Pasadena, to my surprise, was not among the nice parts of the state. Instead, like much of Fresno, it is among the places of the state that are evocative of a complete breakdown of society in progress. In such areas the management of fast food places usually doesn't even bother to try to evict the homeless who sometimes even panhandle right inside the restaurant.

Two nights ago, walking back form the restaurant, I saw a different homeless man screaming at a Pasadena city cop. The roles seemed reversed from the stereotype. The tall homeless man was yelling in a loud authoritarian tone, "Sir, are you asking for my ID? SIR, ARE YOU ASKING FOR MY ID!!?".

Meanwhile the cop was backing away and repeating meekly "Please don't touch me."

As I ate my cheeseburger this evening inside the restaurant (well away from the soda dispenser), I indulged in the usual people-watching out of the corner of my eye while the music played on the ceiling speakers. A couple young men next to me, perhaps City College Students, horsed around with their smartphones while commenting on tweets from friends.

"Can you believe she spent all her food stamp money already?" one exclaims. "She's only got eighteen bucks left!"

They both laugh about it, as if it's typical of their friend (the Jack in the Box takes EBT, of course---most fast food places in California do).

At that point the speakers in the restaurant begin playing what is surely the Song of 2014. It's a favorite of Red's---she likes to dance to it in the warming to warm up.

One of the young men starts singing along with the lyrics. It's a catchy tune, after all.

The song even resonates in my head as I walk back to the Vagabond Inn.

Yup. The song of the year.

Edit: Just after posting this, I looked out my third floor motel window down into the beautiful angular LA-type swimming pool and the parking lot. A man wearing an enormous decorated Mexico sombrero was limping through the parking lot, with a trumpet around his neck on a string like a necklace. Of course...

Influential in Scottsdale

The Scottsdale portion of our visit was just as nice as the Tucson part, albeit in a different way. As everyone knows who has been to Arizona, the Phoenix and Tucson metro areas are very different in character. My aunt and uncle's place in west Tucson was practically a desert museum all its own. In contrast, Scottsdale felt almost like Miami, given all the water and greenness we saw.

We stayed two nights at the La Quinta, but on the afternoon of the wedding, we relocoated to downtown Scottsdale to the Saguaro, a boutique resort hotel that was literally within yards of where the wedding took place, which was in an outdoor plaza in the main public park near downtown. It was obviously an older motel hotel that had been renovated with bright southwest colors and hip decor. It reminded us both of the Jupiter Hotel in Portland.

The lovely ceremony was followed by a reception at the nearby AZ88 Bar, an elegant lively place which seemed the spot to be in Scottsdale on a Saturday night, given the groups of young women in short skirts that came in as we dined on the outdoor patio. One group looked like they had just come from a prom, although there were unescorted by dates. I made Red laugh by mimicking the way that each young woman seemed to adjust her short skirt as we walked up to the entrance in heels.

As we sat out our table, drinking cocktails and looking out at the public commons, I asked Red, "so did all this happen because of that night we went out walking here?"

"Pretty much," she said. She knew I was referring to the time a few months ago, when we were both down here in Scottsdale just after the new year, staying with her friends---the couple who had just been married. On the last evening we were here, when all four of us were in the car, I spontaneously asked our hosts if we might visit downtown Scottsdale.

At the time I felt a bit as if I were imposing on them, especially since it was late on a winter's evening, and it turned out to be quite a drive on the freeway from where we were at the time. But our hosts complied with my whim. After window shopping along the art galleries, I had spontaneously wandered off into the public commons, with Red trailing behind me. Our hosts had followed us and waited by a fountain while we walked around in the dark.

Later, according to Red, they decided to have their ceremony right beside that fountain where they had waited for us, and which was in view of the patio of the AZ88.

It occurred to me that the particular sequence events of the wedding and the reception were seemingly a consequence of my whim that evening. I had almost kept my mouth shut.

Frankly I'm not used to having such influence over other people's lives. Whenever I try to do so, it usually doesn't work out very well. But it seemed to work out this time because it was completely unintentional. I felt like a cog in a big cosmic machine, one that played a role without even being aware of it.

That's the kind of influence I can live with.

Unscathed in Tucson.

Had a very nice visit to Arizona, all in all. Red and I flew down to Phoenix together during middle of last week, and then we drove a rental car down to Tucson, where we stayed a couple nights at my aunt and uncle's place. It was a year ago that I was there on my own, during the remarkable month I spent in this state.

It seems like much longer. The chapters and transitions of my life seem to flip by much faster.

It was so nice to see both of them again, and to make good on my vow not to let too much time go by, before I was back in Tucson. Their house is filled with knickknacks from grandparents' place back in Iowa, and more than once I was filled with a wave of nostalgia for my childhood.

In the year since I saw them Uncle Bruce---my dad's brother---has since retired from his job. He's transitioned from biking to both biking and hiking, now that he has more leisure time. But like all retirees I know, he still works a little at his old occupation. I was pleased to give him advice on trekking poles.

At his suggestion we went out to the Desert Museum---a desert zoo, if you will, just west of the city. I was last there in May 1989, when I was on my way to my undergraduate commencement ceremony in Salem. That was half my life ago.

That day in '89 I left my Renault Fuego out in the sun while I was in the museum, and when I came back the black interior and steering wheel was far too hot to touch. With no air conditioning in my car, I was stuck. At the time I thought I was going to have to wait until the sun went down, but I managed to rig a way to steer without burning my palms.

It's funny how those kinds of distinct physical sensations---the pain of the too-hot steering wheel---burn events into your memory (pardon the expression). As Red and I left the zoo last week, I could almost point out the exact spot where I parked back then.

On our way out of town, while going back up to Scottsdale for the wedding we had come to attend, I gave Red a tour of Tucson based on my memories from my long visit last year. As we drove down Grant Avenue, I pointed out the spot where the Bimmer got slammed from behind. It was quite easy to identify.

This visit, however, we left Tucson without any significant automobile-related incidents. But then again, I wasn't driving this time.

Cheap Arizona Sunglasses

A blazing sun in a cloudless blue sky radiated an intense bath of photons down on me as I left the La Quinta Inn in Scottsdale this morning.

Wearing the five-dollar shades I bought in Fred Meyer in Portland, and with my small office backpack slung over my shoulder, I strolled down the spotless sidewalk along the four-lane divided boulevard. Cars whizzed by in either direction.

As I learned long ago in Texas, in a sunny car-oriented place like this, dark sunglasses are de rigeur, not only for sun protection, but to cultivate a feeling a anonymity as a pedestrian walking beside busy traffic. Without them, one's eyes and gaze are exposed to passing motorists in a way that feels as if one is on display. With sunglasses, one blends in, almost as if one is an automobile.

With Red off clothes shopping with her friend, the bride-to-be, I was on my own for the rest of the day. No Starbucks were nearby, at least none that weren't inside grocery stores. For work today, I settled for the Barnes and Noble cafe in the shopping center across the boulevard from the hotel. 

I grabbed something eat at a beautiful recent-vintage convenience store, then waited at the stoplight to cross the wide boulevard. On the other side I picked my way through the crowded parking lot towards the bookstore, past rows of luxury cars. The clean asphalt gathered up in the suns rays and absorbed in a giant heat reservoir below my feet.

All of this, and it was not even eighty degrees. Next week it's supposed to be ninety-five. Thankfully the cheap shades I bought in Portland are as dark as they get.

Oaklandishness

I'm taking partial credit for inspiring this.

Visit Oakland’s research has shown that leisure travelers from up north like to roadtrip California, including San Francisco, Napa, and Los Angeles. But, they rarely stay in Oakland.

But as I've told Coop, one reason for the above situation is not only Oakland's reputation, deserved or not, but the very real lack of good quality hotels in that fine city.

My suggestion, if they want to appeal to Portlanders: "Come to Oakland---We have Uber!"

Noah

For a blog that began as a way for me to write movie reviews, it has been a long time since I posted anything resembling a film write-up. For the last couple years, I don't think I've posted a single straight movie review at all. Instead I wandered off into talking about my travels, my job, my lodgings, cities, etc.

Maybe it would have stayed that way, and I could have kept going along as I have been (e.g. here I am in some tropical paradise working form the beach, blah, blah, blah).  But that was before I saw Noah.

It was a pure whim to go into the theater yesterday. I was down in Tualatin, working at the Starbucks in my favorite lifestyle center off I-5. It was mid afternoon and I had some time to kill. A random impulse had me walking over to the multiplex and getting that tingly feeling of spontaneously buying a movie ticket for the first time in a while.

Every once in a blue moon a movie comes out that seems to completely change the way I look at the world. I didn't realize it would be this one. Darren Aronofsky is a genius director, to be sure. Of course I loved The Wrestler, one of the best movies I saw during my run of movie watching 2008-2010 (seen in Waltham, Massachusetts, if I recall). But it didn't completely overhaul my soul like Noah. All of his previous work pales in importance to this one, in my opinion. It's the film of 2014.

Why? Because Noah points out the life and death struggle that is facing all of us---whether civilization and humanity will continue. In that way, it's no holds barred, as Coop says.

Maybe it was the timing---the movie has come out right at the same time as the latest IPCC report from the United Nations on global climate change, as well as the report from NASA about the future of the planet. Computer models don't lie, people.  Neither does the UN!

And neither does Neil DeGrasse Tyson (would someone please give that man a Nobel Prize already! He deserves it just on his creativity in rebooting Sagan after so many years).  Tyson's rough-and-tumble, never back-down-from a challenge debates against the so-called "deniers" is the very spirit of scientific inquiry and should be mandatory viewing for anyone who can't see straight on this issue.

Watching Noah, something became very clear to me as scientist. After many years of trying to wrap my mind around the Gaia hypothesis, which forms the basis of modern climate science, I was able to see that it is no longer a hypothesis as such should be regarded as a full-fledged fact as solid as Newton's laws (more so, in many ways). Simply put, it is irrefutable that we are maggots on the face of Mother Earth and she is about to shake us off like the parasites that we are.

This is essentially the message of Noah. It's exactly the same message that President Obama tried to convey is his State-of-the-Union. CLIMATE CHANGE IS A FACT!!!!

Sure, Obama is not a scientist per se, but I have literally never in my life seen a physicist speak with such absolute certainly of an opinion as Obama did in front of Congress and the nation that evening. If there is one thing that I could say about his presidency, it is that the scientific community could learn a whole lot by how he expressed himself on this issue.

As Galileo once said, as I used to tell my students in Austin, the most fundamental principle in science is respect for authority.

I would write more on this issue but frankly I've begun to wonder about my carbon footprint from this blog. At the very least I'm probably going to go dark like Blackle. O.K., that's probably a bit much I realize, and I don't really know if it will do any good at this point. In the postmodern era, as we all know, science serves social goals, not some phallocentric concept of masculinist and biased "objective truth" that is basically a gang rape of Mother Earth. At the end of the day, the most important thing is that we make a statement.

As my friend Okki says, and as these courageous scientific heroes would surely agree, "Somebody call someone...about something!!!"

Aronofsky's Noah would understand perfectly...