Audrey Ohley's Open Salon Blog

Los Angeles Man Has No Car - On Purpose

Fri, 28 May 2010 11:05:44 -0400

How far would you go?

Residents of Los Angeles don’t know quite what to make of 28-year-old Jeremy Michaels -- it’s been eight months since the native Rhode Islander moved into a Redondo Beach condo, and he still doesn’t have a car.

“I don’t need one,” says Jeremy, shouldering a heavy knapsack as he starts his daily commute. “My two feet and a Metro pass will carry me everywhere I need to go.”

Jeremy works in a virtual office in Pasadena, buying and selling used plasma TV’s on eBay. Roughly 35 miles away, his commute would take less than an hour in a car, but using public transit the trip takes him about two and a half hours, each way.

“I never needed a car in Rhode Island,” Jeremy says, “and I don’t need one here. People just need to change their perceptions.”

Jeremy’s day starts at 5:30 am with a half-an-hour walk to the nearest bus stop, then a 45-minute bus ride to another bus that takes him, finally, to the train. Once he gets off the train in Pasadena, another 15-minute walk gets him to the office.

“I try to get there by 9:30, but it doesn’t always happen. Luckily, I don’t have a boss, so if I’m late, it’s no big deal,” Jeremy says, straightening his tie.

Friends and neighbors are at loss to explain his bizarre behavior.

“You have to have a car in L.A.,” says Martin Clarke, 31, one of Jeremy’s roommates. “I've never heard of anyone without a car. Even winos have wheels." Martin takes a sip from his super-sized Red Bull.

"One time I gave Jeremy a ride to Inglewood where you can get any kind of car for $500, and he said he didn’t have any money. But then later he showed me a CD player he got at Bang & Olufsen for at least $1000.”

Martin shakes his head. “The dude just doesn’t want a car.”

Jeremy defends his purchase of the $1400 CD player. “The BeoSound 1? It’s amazing. Music gives you something back every day. A car? It’s just tomorrow’s recycling bin. Literally.”

“At first I thought Jeremy was just broke,” says Jonathon Gold, 39, speaking to us outside the Redondo Beach condo he shares with Martin and Jeremy. “I know a lot of people from back East don’t have much money, so I thought he was just saving up. But when he didn't buy something after a couple of months, I knew he was weird.”

Jonathan, a professional valet and surfer, is a native of nearby Manhattan Beach, and never remembers a time when he didn’t have a car. “I got my first car when I was three – a 1974 Jaguar XKE convertible that my dad bought me to use as playhouse. In fact, I still have it. It's a collectible." Jonathon points to dusty car parked on the curb. Two tires are flat, and weeds have grown up through the bumpers.

"I offered to sell it to Jeremy for $12,000, but he said no. I don’t drive the Jag much anymore, not since I got the Carrera.” Jonathon glances at a car under a car-cover in the garage and pats it on the hood like a dog. “I can’t imagine life without a car. Not here. Not anywhere.”

“At first I thought Jeremy was one of those 'trying to save the Earth' people,” says Jeremy’s ex-girlfriend, Rhalanda Jones, 19. “I liked him. He was different and cool. But he wasn't Vegan or anything and he didn’t even want to ride in my car, a Prius!"

Rhalanda finds a picture of Jeremy on her phone. The photo shows a dimly parking lot and a lone figure walking away, bent under a large backpack -- like Frodo climbing to Mt. Doom. ‘No cars’ he said. ‘No cars.’”

“Jeremy was always proud,” says Jeremy’s father, Daniel Micheals, 52. “Too proud. Wouldn’t take piano lessons because it bothered him that he didn’t already know how to play. Tried to change his own diapers. The truth is, he can’t drive, and he’s too stubborn to learn how.”

Jeremy denies that he actually doesn’t know how to drive. “I can breathe, can’t I? No one taught me how to do that,” he says. “Of course I can drive. I just don’t want to.”

Jeremy admits that he could probably do his job from home, and not commute anywhere at all but he says he likes the structure his commute provides. “I came out here to write a book, and I'm doing it. I’m writing a book of exercises that people can do while they’re sitting -- isometric crunches, deep breathing, that kind of stuff. It's going to help a lot of people.”

“That time on the bus is my time, my time to meditate, my time to think,” he says, boarding the Gold Line to Pasadena. “Plus, I get away from Jon and Martin. I wouldn’t trade that for any car in the world. "

What Ever Happened to Car Names?

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:04:25 -0400

Why are all the cars named after something stupid?

“ When did we run out of good names for cars? I remember when cars were named after real things, things you could see, like animals: The Mustang, the Cougar, the Barracuda, the Pinto . . . well, I’m not so sure about the Pinto -- could’ve been the horse, could’ve been the bean.”

You know, I live in Los Angeles, and so, of course, I get stuck in traffic all the time, like every day, like every five minutes. And the most irritating thing about it is that it is always my fault. Always. After six years, I really should know better by now. The problem is -- I never leave the house early enough.

Like today, I should have known that if I didn’t want to get stuck in traffic, I needed to leave in the Spring of ‘75. I was just having a little trouble with my car, you know? The time machine button on the DeLorean wasn’t working right.

And today, the whole time I’m stuck in traffic, I’m stuck behind this Chevy Avalanche. An Avalanche. What a terrible name for a car! An “avalanche” is a bad thing, isn't it? As in, “Run for your lives, here comes an avalanche!”

Who wants to drive an Avalanche anyway? Who does this rolling disaster appeal to? And how do you test drive this thing -- take it up to the top of a mountain, put in a neutral and just let ‘er rip? (“Ok, kids, buckle up! We’re gonna to see what this avalanche can do! I think we can take out the whole village!”)

I hope they don’t come up with any more disaster names for cars like the Kia Cholera, or the Chrysler Chapter 11. Or the Toyota Toyota.

I mean, what ever happened to car names? When did we run out of good names for cars? I remember when cars were named after real things, things you could see, like animals: The Mustang, the Cougar, the Barracuda, the Pinto . . . well, I’m not so sure about the Pinto -- could’ve been the horse, could’ve been the bean.

But now, cars are named after things that don’t even exist, things you
can’t even see, like moods and emotions, like the Esteem or the
Aspire. (“Gee, I really hope I can be your car someday!”)

Or the Mirage. You go out in the parking lot and you’re like, “Hey, is that my car over there . . .no, it’s over there now. . . come on kids, bring the water!”

What are they going to think of next, the new “Honda Ambivalent?” (“Uh, I don’t really know if I want this car”) Or maybe the “Ford Melancholy?” (“It’s kinda blue!”)

But the worst name of all time has to be the Sportage. What does Sportage mean anyway.. is that a noun or a verb or what? I think it’s just a word that some advertising executive made up because that’s the way he talks: "Hey dude, wanna shoot some hoopage, go to the barrage, pick up some babebage, if she’s got baggage it will fit in the Sportage with the Luggage!"

Rhode Island Closes Borders to Immigrants - from Connecticut

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 14:04:32 -0400

Thousands Stranded as Rhode Island Enacts Tough Immigration Laws

In a surprise move that shocked the White House, the state of Rhode Island passed the toughest immigration laws in the nation late Thursday night. Not only has Rhode Island made it a felony under state law to be in the United States illegally, but the Ocean State has also decided to crack down on United States citizens from other states as well.

“We are tired of being ignored, overlooked, and overshadowed by bigger states that hog the spotlight -- states like Arizona, Alaska, Texas, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware . . . well, all the other states actually,” said Rhode Island Governor Don Carcieri, in a speech announcing the new laws."So they can keep the spotlight, and we'll keep Rhode Island."

DHS immigration officials estimate the Rhode Island has approximately 67 illegal immigrants in the state, but the majority of these undocumented people seem to be on day trips from New York City.

“Oh, no, I would never live here,” says Esmerelda Fausto, 54, an undocumented laundry worker from Guatemala. “I just wanted to come out to Newport and see the mansions. That Vanderbilt house is fantastic.” Esmerelda lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. “One of my cousins tried to live in Rhode Island, but it was too boring. There’s a reason we left Guatemala, you know.”

“We don’t want these people here,” says Ron McInerny, the spokesman for Rhode Islanders For Rights And Freedom (RIF-RAF). “These people, whether they’re from Mexico, the Ukraine, or Kentucky– they just don’t appreciate Rhode Island, they make fun of Warwick, they erode our highways, use our water, pollute our air – and in an hour and a half, they’re gone – and spending money in Fallbrook or Mystic.”

Under the new laws, the strictest in the nation, only existing legal residents of Rhode Island can live, work, shop or study in Rhode Island, and no new residents, or tourists, will be admitted.

In a move that surprised many residents of nearby Massachusetts and Connecticut, a 20-foot-high steel wall was erected overnight around the entire state, with Interstate I-95 being the only remaining legal border crossing. Temporary two-hour transit visas are being issued to allow travelers on I-95 to traverse the state, but no stopping is allowed, and the price is steep, $1500 per person.

President Obama, speaking from the Presidential limo in line at the I-95 border checkpoint near Pawtucket, Rhode Island, said only that he was “Disappointed that we can’t all work together to solve our problems” and also that he thinks the $1500 per person is too expensive. “We’ve got to work to bring these cost on things we shouldn’t have to pay for down,” he said, while playing NCAA Basketball ’09 on the presidential Xbox.

Singing the state song, “Rhode Island, It’s for Me” Rhode Island immigration officials today began a door-to-door status check of all one million Rhode Island residents – and those with out-of-state drivers' licenses, green cards, or even just a “sarcastic look on their faces” are being taken to Block Island for eventual deportation.

The state has already sent 37 people to the tiny island, where The 1661 Inn & Hotel Manisses has been converted into a detention center. Deportees can enjoy a free breakfast and a relaxing soak in the whirlpool tub while awaiting flights to Boston or New Haven.

“It’s actually pretty cool, getting deported,” says Dominic Testa, 22, a University of Rhode Island student from New Bedford, Massachusetts, who was picked up outside of the Pizza Pie-er in Providence, RI. “I’ve got finals coming up, and this is the excuse I was looking for. Maybe now I can just drop out altogether.”

Eventually, Governor Carcieri says he plans to completely close the borders. “We hope that travelers will just learn to go around. Frankly, highway maintenance is a big chore.” When asked if he would allow current Rhode Island residents to leave the state if they wished, the governor replied, “Well, maybe, I’ll think about it. I mean, we’re not the Soviet Union here after all. I think.”

Rhode Island is also looking to crack down on other groups it sees as causing problems in the state: namely women and the elderly. “For one thing, we have too many women here already – 52% of the population is women,” said Gov. Carcieri. “They’re taking all the jobs, they work for less wages – Rhode Island needs them out of here.”

Old people are also on the governor’s short list, “Frankly, old people are just boring and I don’t like them. That’s all I have to say about that.”

High Fiber Friday -- Now with Extra Fiber!

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:04:41 -0400

A Little Stroll Down Memory Lane -- Watch Your Step!

"What better way to gain the respect of your peers than to dry your own waste, grate it with a cheese grater and carry it around it in a sandwich bag!"

I woke up this morning and reached for my favorite brand of high fiber cereal, “Nature’s Crunchy Birds' Nests," (made with Real Sticks and Twigs!) and while choking that down, I for some reason starting thinking about that guy I heard about awhile ago who was caught sprinkling his own fecal matter on the donuts at a grocery store in Texas.

I was thinking that there is so much fiber in this cereal, that if you were the kind of person that wanted to sprinkle your own dried feces on the donuts at Mr. Muffins, you might be sort of disappointed with the quality of the feces produced by "Nature’s Crunchy Birds' Nests." It might not give you the sort of practical jokester thrill you were looking for when people don’t even notice you’ve covered their donut with poop: "Mom, why are there feathers on my donut?"

I always wondered about this guy, Behrouz Nahidmobarekeh, and what drove him to such an act. He says he was offended by the way people treated him in the world, and he felt like he never got enough respect, especially from the people at the Fiesta Mart, apparently.

Of course! What better way to gain the respect of your peers than to dry your own poop, grate it with a cheese grater and carry it around it in a sandwich bag!

I guess he probably didn’t really have a lot of friends coming over to his house either:

“Hey, Pal! What’s with all the poop on the floor?”

“ Oh, nothing, just a little project I’m working on.”

“What kind of project?”

“You know, like terrorism, but really lame."

“Ah, well, it’s was nice chatting with you! I’d better get going!”

It turns out, that a few years before the donut sprinkling incident, he was caught smearing feces on the library books at the local library! It seems he especially hated the Reference section. Now, I’m quite familiar with the phenomenon of farting in the library – people always fart in Military History. (Do these farters think that boringness actually blocks farts? Well, it doesn’t. Just so you know.) But this smearing stuff really takes it a step further.

I bet if they hadn't caught him "adding the special sauce to the donuts," he would have eventually just started dropping his pants whenever he felt a little "hot under the collar." "Twelve items or less my ass! How dare you disrespect me!"

For those of you who want to know more about this fascinating incident, here are two wonderful links:

This is a great post from the actual Foreman (score!) from Behrouz ‘s Jury Trial:

http://iwanttokeepanon.blogspot.com/2005/10/state-vs-behrouz-nahidmobarekeh.html

And for more about the wonderful library incident and a photo of the perp, this article from The Dallas Observer:

http://www.dallasobserver.com/2006-01-05/news/the-poop/

From Food to Fire in 5 Minutes: Why I Hate Microwave Ovens!

Fri, 9 Apr 2010 14:04:09 -0400

After 63 years, they still suck.

Today I put a piece of chicken in the microwave for like three minutes and I swear to God, when I took it out the plastic lid was melting, ok? Melting! I practically got 3rd degree burns getting the bowl out of there -- I had to put wear huge oven mitts as if I was handling spent plutonium fuel rods, and the lid was melted, and the smoke detector had gone off, but when I finally tried to eat this frickin’ piece of chicken, it was cold! Cold! COLD!

And last week I put a bowl of frozen shrimp in the microwave for forty-five seconds and when I took them out -- still iced over. I added another 30 seconds, took them out again, and all I had left was a bowl of tiny, pink, erasers. From shrimp to school supply in 30 seconds.

It’s entirely unpredictable what is going to happen in a microwave -- it’s like pulling the handle on slot machine. Like when you go to a new job, and you want to heat up a cup of coffee, and they have a different microwave than your old job -- you can’t just go up and start using the new microwave, right? No, you have go around the office and ask people -- “Hey, I’m new here, how long should I heat up this coffee up for?” Sure, with the old microwave, three minutes was perfect, but now, you don’t know, with this one, three minutes could melt the cup.

My mother never wanted to get a new microwave oven -- she used one of the first microwave ovens ever, the “Radar Range.” A Radar Range! In your house! It was so old that you practically had to wear safety goggles to use it -- it was like taking an x-ray --- you wore a lead vest and a welder’s mask, pushed start, and ran away. My mom hid in the other room until the bell rang, and if she ever caught me looking at it while it was cooking she would go nuts and pull the frickin’ fuses out of the wall to turn it off before I went blind or grew a twin sister out of my ass.

Here’s something she would know -- how long do you cook three frozen corn dogs in the microwave? Five minutes? Eight? The package says “cook two to eight minutes for each dog.” Two to eight minutes! So for three corn dogs, I need to cook them anywhere between six minutes and twenty-four minutes?! Anybody got a 24-sided dice?

And then, to top it off, the instructions on every package say, “Cooking times may vary depending on your microwave.” What?!?! More variation? How much variation should I add? I don’t know. They already told me to cook that frozen donut anytime between 30 seconds and 3 minutes, and now even those instructions were too specific? So what do I do now? Just pick any number between 10 seconds and 18 minutes?

Maybe they just say this on the package: “Instructions: Cook from o to 999 minutes. Or not. You decide.”

How long have we had microwave ovens now, 50 or 60 years? Why haven’t they figured out some standards yet? Why haven’t they just come up with some kind of probe that lets the computer cook the burrito for you and ring a bell when it’s done?

It’s 2010! They can transplant a pig’s ass onto your face, film it with an iPhone and have it on You Tube in 67 seconds, but they still can’t make a microwave that cooks a burrito you can eat instead of a bean-scented stick of potpourri.

And here’s another thing – why does the microwave have all those buttons? I’m not launching the fricking space shuttle, here -- I’m just trying to cook a Hot Pocket! I never ever use any of those buttons except the numbers, and the one that says “Start.” It’s not a nuclear submarine! Do the other buttons even work? I pushed the one that said “pizza” -- I didn’t get a pizza. All they do is beep.

There should only be one frickin’ button: “Cook!”

Let us not forget the fact that the food has to be cooked right? It has to be hot – all the way through! You can’t eat it cold right? Your mom always told you not to eat it even a little bit cold, because if you eat it cold, you will die! You will die because of all the frickin’ germs! The germs! The bacteria! It’s all over your food!

-- That eight pounds of salmon that your mother-in-law cooked and brought over because Costco was having a sale and so she bought five packages and you haven’t even touched it for three days – Salmonella City!

-- That leftover scallop linguini that sat out on the table for six and half hours while you watched The Return of the King Special Edition Director’s Cut with 187 minutes of never-before-seen footage -- riddled with E. Coli!

-- That giant 23-pound turkey that you tried to cook in your tiny apartment-sized oven despite the fact that the turkey was so hormonally enlarged that the oven door wouldn’t even come close to closing and instead of giving up, as you should have, you turned the oven up to 500 degrees and draped a piece of aluminum foil over the gap, and of course after seven-and-a-half hours, it was still a white and purple deathtrap, and so now it sits in your refrigerator silently leaking bacteria ridden fluids all over your Cole slaw . . it’s opening ceremonies at the Germ fricking' Olympics!

I know what you’re thinking -- no problem! I’ll just microwave it. Everyone knows that microwaves kill like 99.9% of all bacteria, so what’s the problem right?

Here’s the problem – food manufacturers know that we microwave all our food, right? So I think that they are no longer trying to kill the bacteria in the factory! That’s why there are so many food recalls! They’re thinking, “The microwave kills the germs, right? So we’ll tell them to microwave it, and we’re covered!” It’s cheaper that way! Antibacterial soap for Mike and Margo and Manny and Maria and Ming and Mei-Lei is just too expensive! That’s why you get food that says “For Best Results -- Microwave.” Because they leave the germs in the food!

In fact, I think that a lot of these cheap microwave dinners are probably made up of nothing but germs! It’s not macaroni and cheese – it’s macaroni and germs! It’s spaghetti and germballs! Salisbury steak with germ gravy and red potgermoes!

But what really worries me is that they say that cooking something in the microwave for two minutes will kill 99.9% of all germs. But what about that 0.1% of germs that the microwave experience doesn’t kill? Shouldn’t we be concerned about that? There is something right now in your house, that 2 minutes in the microwave can’t kill? Holy Smoke!! What the hell is it made out of? Liberal optimism?

So we have food made up almost entirely of germs, and microwave ovens that we can’t figure out how to use … what are we suppose to do?

Well, I know what I’m going to do. I’m never eating anything that says, “For Best Results (i.e. Maximum Germ Killing) Microwave” and I’m installing a ceramic kiln in the basement to cremate everything else. Sure, it’ll be a little dry, but at least it’ll be germ free. I hope.