lornamatic

remember how precious and delicate life suddenly became?

people were so open. dreams of fear and hope were shared openly with strangers in the checkout line of the hardware store.

flags appeared everywhere, overnight, like that first day in summer when the dandelions cover the lawn.

and for a while, it was pure. an honest expression of solidarity and hope.

and maybe you couldn’t do anything about the inevitable military action, but something changed in you, a resolve, as you watched those people fall from the towers, those people who started that tuesday just like any other day.

you received a kind of wisdom that day. you vowed to live differently. you vowed to live every moment and follow your dreams. not to waste a single moment. to know the difference between what’s important, and the small stuff. you promised yourself you’d always tell the people who matter most to you how important they truly are.

you resolved to be the person you know you should be.

the person you truly are.

because those people who died that day, they were just like anyone. just like you. it could have been anyone. it could have been you.

it could have been you, but it wasn’t.

how have you spent the last five years?

how did you use that wisdom?

did you keep your promises?

People dislike this city for a lot of reasons. I don’t mind the fake boobs, shallow friendships, or even the traffic usually, but if there is one reason I don’t belong in Los Angeles, it is this: I have bad automotive hygiene.

I drive a dirty green BMW.

I drive the only dirty green BMW in the city of Los Angeles.

But it’s all okay because real hackers don’t wash their cars. That’s what my friend Dan said, and he knows a lot about these things, so it must be true.

So I’m lazy about taking it to the carwash. This is a only problem because it Never Rains In Southern California.

Here is a secret: sometimes, I actually dust off my windows, with a rag, just to buy myself a few more days. But then, a couple weeks back, Mike and I were heading to Laguna for the weekend. On the way, we saw an OC soccer mom driving her filthed-out minivan, which sported the single best piece of fingerscribbled graffiti I’ve ever seen:

“I WISH MY WIFE WERE THIS DIRTY!”

That was it for me. The day we got back, my little car went to the carwash. It totally looks new now, which is great, because now sometimes people actually let me through in traffic. But back when it was the color of a Salton Sea backyard, people would sometimes get offended, and in the most amusing ways.

Scene: Two weeks ago, rush hour, while driving home from Westwood.

Windshield partially opaque.

Spray a little wiper fluid on the windshield.

Totally opaque.

Spray lots of wiper fluid on the windshield.

LOTS.

Transparent again!

Then: Someone screaming. It sounds like a lady channeling the entire audience, all at once, from the Jerry Springer show.

Looking around, I see nothing. It’s just traffic everywhere. The light changes. My game of SpotTheCrazyHomelessLady will have to wait another day.

More wiper fluid!

And then the screaming starts up again. Cursing screaming. Flailing screaming. Angry screaming.

And honking! The honking is coming from the car behind me!

And that’s when I break the #1 road rage rule: Never make eye contact with someone crazier than you.

I had to look. The screaming was coming from an enraged and gigantic lady. Both of her pudgy french-manicured and gold-jewelry bedangled middle fingers waving at me. The entire cabin of the car filled between her afro-ed hair and corpulent torso, she is honking and screaming as loudly as she could. Screaming and honking at me!

And at that moment, I burst into laughter.

It crosses my mind that I should have felt some change in my central nervous system, the kind of thing that’s evolved to move you out of danger and keep you alive: an adrenal response. Increased pulse. Something. Even sympathy for the wrenching suffering of my fellow human in that other car. But I can’t stop laughing, because behind me, there’s this enormous angry lady flipping me off and all I can think is it looks like a mall jewelry cart exploded in the nail salon. On the Jerry Springer set.

What did I do to cause this outburst? There were no lane changes, no one got cut off, nobody was really even moving. I never figured it out, but I still laugh when I think about how worked up she got that day. I mean, really? Chill. When you get that upset, the only person you’re hurting is yourself. Because everyone else is laughing at you.

So you know the drill: rush hour, driving home from Westwood. Mercury Cougar tailgaiting me. I mean, if you’re so close I can’t even see the front of your car in my rearview mirror? In stop and go traffic? That’s just uncool.

But wait. It gets better. The driver looks about 18, and she is yacking away on her handheld portable electronic communication device. At least she is not texting, I think, but nevertheless, my brakes are better than hers and today I am not in the mood to be rear-ended by a tamagotchi-mommy.

There’s that uncomfortable heightened awareness you can feel, when your personal space is violated, or your safety compromised. And if you’re in front of a dimwit in stop and go traffic, you’re pretty much stuck until there is an accident, or one of you turns off.

Until in a totally inspired moment, you remember the last time someone was tailgaiting you, on this exact same road.

That person was honking and screaming, not giggling and chatting on a cellphone, but… suddenly it is all totally clear to you.

And even though the beautiful clean green car doesn’t need it, you hit the windshield wiper.

Wiper fluid. LOTS of wiper fluid.

So much wiper fluid.

More.

Suddenly that crummy old car isn’t tailgaiting.

And once again I can’t stop laughing, because I finally realized what a powerful weapon I posess: A bent wiper fluid hose.

Perfectly calibrated – for the windshield of the car behind me.

How To Hack A Diebold Voting Machine.

One of the funniest things about watching babies grow is the squash / stretch effect. Suddenly the baby starts looking REALLY pudgy, and you know it’ll only be a few more days before the next growth spurt. Round and fat gives way to tall and thin, and before you know it, you’ve reached another milestone. And then it happens all over again. It’s all a big growth curve.

One of the most painful things about making art is the squash / stretch effect. You’re working along, doing fine, and all of a sudden your work starts looking, well, kind of pudgy. Squat and flat, metaphorically speaking. And you hope it will only be a few more weeks before the next growth spurt, where squat and flat gives way to long and lean, and before you know it, you’ve had a breakthrough. And if you’re lucky, and you keep at it, one day, eventually, it might happen all over again. It’s all a big learning curve.

Another way to look at this is rise over run. Remember algebra? Graphing was always my favorite. One step over, two steps up.

You’re speeding along in your world, having a grand time of it, and suddenly you’re face first with a big wall. All you can do is scale the wall. But sometimes, it’s too high, there’s no end in sight, you haven’t got the right tools, or maybe you’re just tired, so you just stay put, for a while.

Oh, the nice graphing programs anti-alias it, so you’ve got a lovely ramp to stroll along. But, usually the real world isn’t quite so polished, and you’re stuck. Rise or run.

Art and algebra, same thing. In my curve, improvement in skill is the rise, and emotional context is the run. If things start to stall, that means it’s time to get to work.

Back to basics.

Rise.

Chip away at what’s wrong, improve those skills, refine that technique. Then run with it, as far as you can.

And if you work hard, and if you’re really lucky, maybe the whole thing might happen all over again.

So recently we’ve been getting a spate of scam calls. I just took the third one in two weeks, and this time they hung up on me.

I think that’s an improvement.

The caller always has a heavy Indian-sounding accent. They want to let us know that we’ve paid our taxes on time, so we’re eligible to receive free grants. See, they’re calling from the Government of the USA.

So the first time it was kind of funny. We went around in circles for a long time, and I kept telling the guy I wasn’t interested. I finally raised the tone of my voice to kill, and he got the message.

“You are not interesting, then” he said.

“That’s right,” I said. “I am not interesting, at all.”

They’ve called twice more, and this time it was a very pushy lady who insisted she was calling from Virginia. Rather than harass her by telling her some story about being from Virginia too, and going on and on asking if she always shops at some imaginary made up store too, I just said, “Great -what’s your website?”

“I’m calling from the USA government.”

“OK, right – so what’s your web address there?”

“It’s for a grant, because you have paid your taxes.”

“Ah, yes, of course. So your homepage address, what is that?”

silence for a moment… “I’m with the government. You won a grant because you paid your taxes.”

“Right, that’s wonderful. So how can I see your website? it’s w,w,w, dot, what?”

“Double-you, double-you, double-you, dot, *mumble mumble mumble* dot, com”

“Ooh, I’m SORRY! I didn’t quite get that. Could you say just the middle part again?”

Super fast:“WWWDOTGRANTUSADOTCOM”

“Hmmmmm! www.grantusa.com is a distillery! They make liquour! Are you calling me from a distillery? Did I win some liquour?”

Emphatic: “I am calling from VIRGINIA!”

“There are distilleries in VIRGINIA?”

silence… CLICK

I am disappointed – she seemed like a nice lady, and we didn’t get to discuss Hendricks’ Gin or anything. I guess I’ll just have to wait until they call again. Maybe next time I’ll make her send me a friend request on Myspace.

Meanwhile, it should be obvious but, beware people calling you with free grant money. Here’s the story on Snopes.

Normally I’d say, beware people who show up uninvited at your front door and try to give you a medical exam, too, but it seems like that’s all the rage in some places. What could possibly go wrong with that one?