Californy Bound
Uncle Andrew
Due to a series of events of the SNAFUesque variety with our upcoming fall catalog, I will be spending three glorious days and two nights in an industrial suburb of beautiful Los Angeles, starting next Monday.
This is a real yawner of a news flash for many of my readers; trips to various parts of the country—or world—are standard fare for a great number of you. But for myself, a person who considers it a serious adventure to hop in the car and drive three hours straight down Interstate 5 to Portland, this is a trek tantamount to leading an expedition canoeing down the Congo River in search of diamond deposits. I know jack-over-shit about LA, having gleaned the entirety of my lore from episodes of The Shield and from playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. So based on that, I imagine that I can reasonably expect to be shot to death by an insane crackhead during a botched carjacking while trying to stop a corrupt cop from beating a prostitute to death—or something like that.
On the other hand, if common lore is to be believed, top-grade sushi just rains down from the sky every afternoon around three in the City of Angels. And if at all possible I’m dying to go to Pink’s. Maybe I’ll see Harlan Ellison there, discussing Dostoyevsky with the grill man (don’t bother trying to understand the reference; you’ve either read “Prince Myshkin, And Hold The Relish” or you haven’t).
In reality, I’m not at all worried about going to SoCal; just irritated. This is going to take a sizable bite out of my work time, which I really can’t afford right now. Not only do I need to get everything in the new catalog ready to be rolled out on our Web site, but I also have to establish a support infrastructure for our new server environment at work. There are also print advertisements to be created, instruction booklets to update, and the whole upcoming Xmas season to start girding ourselves for. Oh, and an armpit-high stack of images that I need to convert to PowerPoint slides for the boss. Really, I need the distraction of a business trip like I need….well, like I need to spend five collective hours crammed in a metal cigar tube full of recycled air in the company of a hundred other business commuters with a bad case of the Mondays.
Hurricane Ike is the reason for my trip. We have our catalog printed by a company called Northwest Web. They’re a pretty big operation, with presses up and down the coast. Our catalog normally gets printed in Eugene, Oregon, and I go down there for the press check (see my previous report on the thriving fleabag hotel industry in Eugene). This year’s press check was going to be even closer to home: Forest Grove, Oregon, only a bit south of Portland. Then Ike took a big ol’ gusty shit on the greater Texas coastline. Our load of custom-ordered, 100% recycled, 85% post-consumer-waste, FSC-certified paper from Germany got stalled in a 30-barge backup at the port of Houston, and it only got off the boat about two days ago, some three days after we planned to have the first of the catalogs already out the door and clogging people’s mailboxes.
As weather-related human tragedies go, this ain’t one, to be sure. But it certainly put a hitch in our getalong.
Our contact at Northwest Web had a—well, what’s the opposite of a brain fart? Brain sonnet? Brain potpourri? Brain coquettishly-covered sneeze? One of those, anyway—and had the truck dump our paper at a subsidiary of theirs in Los Angeles instead of hoofing it all the way up to Oregon. They then offered to pay my air fare and hotel to come down and do the press check there. Mighty clever of them, I have to say, and quite civil as well.
If only it didn’t require me to get up at four in the morning to make a 6am flight, brave a total four trips through a post-9/11 airport security system, two two-and-a-half-hour sojourns via a mode of conveyance whose reputation for customer service has come to be synonymous with that of a Khmer Rouge reeducation camp, and the serious likelihood of navigating an unfamiliar vehicle on the streets of a wholly alien city, surrounded by drivers whose aggression and maniacal predilections are legion the nation over.
No, really, I’ll be fine. I’ll buck up and hold my head high. Travel helps to round out the individual, and adventure is where you make it. There are new sights to see, people to meet, and (hopefully) hot dogs to chew. So I will greet this little side-trip with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.
Besides, rumor has it that Angelinos can smell fear. 😯
14 Responses to “Californy Bound”
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October 7th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
now come on now roo i was only there 30 years and look how good i turned out 🙂 we were just in holly wood over the weekend getting part of the enormous tattoo on the back of my rh leg done still have about 2-3 more sessions and the will be no
white skin left and we will go back to the left and get going on it will send pics 🙂 for your veiwing pleasure any ways have fun if you see any bald mexician guys giving u stink eye stay clear it may be 1 of my homies from days gone past.
orale vato
October 7th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Hey Dave! I wish I knew where the hell I was going to actually be working; then I’d ask you what’s fun to do in the area. 😐 Maybe I’ll get in touch with you after I get more info.
October 7th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Hey Roo,
You know fisherbear and I survived 4 years in the LA basin, and my brother currently lives in Huntingdon Beach. If you need info and/or handholding, we might be able to help. Just sayin’. 😉
(And yes, Angelinos can smell fear, particularly if you’re driving.)
October 7th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Oh, wow, I’d totally forgotten that, O Mighty Sage Hens! 😀
Once I figger out just where this press actually is, I’ll probably take you up on that. I need to find some places to spend my hard-earned business lunch allowance….
October 7th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Help me with the ecological math on this one. You went to the trouble to get tree-hugger approved paper, then shipped it half way around the world by ship and truck. I’m guessing you’re a little in debt on that one, environmentally speaking. 😉
When/where will you be in LA? Maybe I can get away from work for a while.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:02 am
That assumes that a) the various cargo conveyances upon which the paper shipped were making a special trip just for us, with no other cargo aboard and that b) there is some sort of equivocal link between fossil fuel consumption and the use of trees as paper, where if you refrain from burning x gallons of diesel fuel you are cleared to cut down y hectares of Old Growth forest.
That would be great! I know the when (this upcoming Monday morning through Wednesday afternoon) but not yet the where. I think this might be the place (Google Map). Basically, I am on call every eight to twelve hours over those three days as the signatures come off the press.
You’re working in the LA area now? Whatcha doing?
October 8th, 2008 at 9:26 am
If that’s the place, Disneyland is just a short hop down interstate 5. As long as someone is paying for your vacation, you might as well have fun right?
I’m still working in San Diego, for Sony Online Entertainment. I’m doing some of the behind the scenes work on Station.com.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Disneyland? I suppose that if it really is that close I might have to, but….Disneyland? 😯
Heck, if you’re available to hang out I’m up for pretty much anything. But you gotta take me to Pink’s.
Let’s hash this out further. I’ll try to get more details out of my contact for this little SoCal adventure.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Ryan Finholm says hi. He’ll be in Santa Fe, otherwise he’d love to see you.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
LA is big. There is no getting around that fact and the printing shop looks like it’s as far from the tourist attractions as anywhere in the valley. My suggestion, hop the Santa Monica freeway out to Venice Blvd and spend an afternoon strolling the Strand people watching.
Now that Summer is over the sun bathers and swimmers have gone home and the area has been given over to its native hippie and surfer population. I used to also like visiting the Olvera Street, it is like an old Mexican version of Main St., but I hear that part of town is gang central so that is probably not your thing.
Oh, and if you are staying anywhere near LAX talk to Trish. The beach towns south of the airport were her stomping grounds in her post elementary school years. No visit to her parents is complete unless we stop at hangouts like the Kettle Restaurant at Manhattan Beach.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Good ol’ Finhork! Give him my best. 🙂
Joe: thanks for the tips! I’m going to be really restricted in how far I can get from industrial Los Angeles (the press checks will take place every x hours, with some variation depending on the number of pages in each signature), so local hangouts would seem to be the way to go. And of course I’m always up on a meal or three. The Kettle sounds interesting. I’ve also been eyeing The Apple Pan.
October 13th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
have fun with the brush fires and devil winds while you are there
October 13th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Ya know, we practically flew in through a giant cloud of smoke from one of those fires. Scared the piss out of me. 😯
October 16th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
that is one thing i will never miss santa anna winds and the fire season that seems to roar in and cause devastation every year now i live in santa anna winds all the time just without the fires there dosent seem to be any thing to burn in kingman 🙂