So Cal, So Strange To Visitor

As lifelong residents of Southern California, my wife and I have had our share of out-of-town guests who come to visit, see the sights, warm themselves in our year-round sunshine and immerse themselves in the renowned “Southern California experience”, whatever that is. Like most people, I would think, who have lived in the same community seemingly forever, we love experiencing all-too-familiar sights through the eyes of another.

While it’s always a kick to show these guests around and visit the usual destinations like Disneyland, Sea World, Knott’s and other must-see-but-only-visit-when-company-is-in-town spots, I had a realization this past week that most, if not all of our guests over the years have been So Cal transplants who once lived here but eventually escaped to someplace with more seasons and less traffic. In other words, most of our guests are already quite familiar with all of our usual attractions, crowds, shirt-sleeve weather, etc. Their biggest “surprises” during a visit typically involve what buildings or businesses are gone, or – impossible as it seems – how our roads have become even more congested and how much longer it takes to get from point Azusa to point Burbank and beyond.

A couple of weeks ago, however, our Montana-transplanted son returned briefly for a delayed holiday visit home. He brought along, “Kris” (who arrived as his girlfriend and left as his fiancé, but that’s another column for another time). Having been born and raised amidst the soggy, but beautifully green environs of the Pacific Northwest, Kris had somehow managed to live to young adulthood without ever visiting any part of California farther south than San Francisco. No Disneyland. No Hollywood and Vine. No Venice Beach. Talk about your underprivileged childhood, right?

Kris arrived in Southern California with firm expectations of what she’d see – gleaned from watching countless movies and television shows supposedly set here.

During their visit, our son was eager to show off his home-town “highlights.” Over the course of nearly a week, by car and Metro line (again, another column for another time!) they managed to explore downtown Los Angeles, Union Station, Olvera Street, the Rose Bowl and Rose Parade Route, the Griffith Observatory, Old Town Pasadena, the Santa Monica Pier, Hollyweird and the Hollywood Sign (yawn!) along with various other points of interest, spectacle, shock, awe and enlightenment.

Kris’s first and overwhelming reaction to seeing our immense county up close and personal was to marvel at how far apart everything is here. Upon returning to our home after yet another day of sightseeing and traffic dodging, she commented repeatedly that the media “lie” about everything being nearby. She had no idea that “the beach” is nowhere near a majority of local Southern California communities. Work your way from Knott’s in Buena Park to Six Flags in Valencia? Sure, if you’ve got a few extra days to kill. “TV makes it look like you leave downtown L.A., go a couple of blocks and you’re in the middle of Hollywood!” she exclaimed. “It’s not true at all!”

Not surprisingly, Kris wasn’t often impressed upon seeing many landmarks with her own eyes that she had previously only seen through the skilled (and skewed) editing of the various media. On her last night in Southern California, in fact, we watched the first episode of the new season of American Idol, during which the contestants who make it past the judging panel are told with great fanfare and feigned enthusiasm, “You’re going to Hollywood!” When the first talented contestant of the show that evening was given the good news, I heard Kris comment under her breath, “Don’t get all excited. It’s not that big a deal!”

On the other hand, while she visited our dear Southland, we did manage to treat her to not one, but two of our infamous hours-long freeway police chases and one SWAT hostage/standoff.

Now I just have to figure out how to arrange a minor earthquake for her next visit. I’ll see you ‘round town.

Weather Weenies

With the unexpectedly heavy rains of last week, we’ve had our first official taste of,  well, something other than summer. Granted, our true winter season, for what it’s worth, is likely to still be at least two or three months off and may not bring with it another rainstorm even as impressive as the one last week. And true to So Cal form, we went from a chilly but welcome mid-60s couple of days to a triple digit heat wave in the span of less than a week. Don’t get me started.

Be that as it may, you didn’t need to be out in our recent, short-lived inclement weather incident to know that a storm was predicted, was on its way, was almost here, had “drenched” the San Francisco Bay area, was now “hammering” Santa Barbara County, then was “raging” through Ventura County and soon to “burst upon the scene” in Northern Los Angeles County. You couldn’t possibly missed have missed it. Our local TV stations cover a rain storm like nowhere else on the planet. Seriously. To watch the televised “StormWatch!!” or “StormTracker!!” or “Wild Weather!!” coverage of any given rain incident, you’d think Southern California was regularly in the path of record-breaking monsoons.

Let’s face it. Southern Californians are certifiable weather weenies.

Just last week, TV news crews were deployed to locations across the city to set up their live shots of raindrops hitting a sidewalk, pedestrians stampeding for cover to escape the moisture, or a car tire splashing dramatically through a pothole filled with …. gasp … water!!! Breathless reporters decked out head-to-toe in network-issued arctic survival gear did man-on-the-street interviews to get spontaneous reactions to the horrific onslaught of wild winter weather.

Out-of-town visitors to Southern California are often highly amused by our hyperactive media coverage of even the slightest cold snap or rainfall. In other parts of the country, rain is rain. Clouds are clouds. They gather, drop some rain on the ground, it runs off or soaks into the dirt and the sun comes back out. Things dry out. Flowers grow. Life goes on. Not here, where even the slightest amount of rain (even if it’s only predicted!) qualifies as a big news story.

However, as expected as the saturated (pun intended) news coverage of a Southern California rainstorm might be, there’s another, more dangerous certainty that arrives with each and every storm. It’s the certainty of rain-caused traffic accidents on our local highways and byways (whatever a ‘byway’ is). That’s because as rainy day drivers, we’re a slippery bunch.

Last Wednesday, I drove to a mid-morning client meeting in Pasadena just as the storm was hitting its stride. On the short drive from La Crescenta to Old Town, I counted a solo car spinout on La Crescenta Avenue, another solo accident into the freeway divider at the always-flooded section of the 210 freeway near the Ocean View overpass, another one-car wreck near the Gould Avenue off ramp, a multiple car smash up on the westbound side of the freeway just before the Arroyo Seco bridge, another solo car wipe out near Lincoln Ave. and then, the mother of all freeway follies, a jackknifed big rig blocking all lanes of the heavily traveled westbound 134/210 transition.

In other words, just another rainy day demolition derby on Southern California streets. It made me wonder once again why local drivers can’t handle even a little rain? Maybe it’s those mysterious, back-and-forth wiper thingies that mesmerize drivers when they suddenly come to life before their eyes. Or it could be that the cloudy skies make it too dark to read and send text messages while we’re driving.

Whatever it is, the Auto Club even has a dedicated web page to try and educate So Cal drivers about how to drive in the rain. Good luck. The site recommends taking specific precautions, including; 1. slow down; 2. leave more distance between cars; 3. drive in the center lane, and; 4. avoid distractions (like big rigs and concrete bridge pillars!)

I have a better idea; just stay home and watch the Eyewitless Doppler 10,000 team coverage of the storm. I promise it will be more entertaining and – except for the occasional tragic umbrella malfunction – hardly anyone ever gets hurt.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a revised version of my column first published yesterday, 10.13.11, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.

Laughing My Arse Off

Last weekend, my wife and I saw “The Trip” at a small theater in Old Town (no ‘e’) Pasadena known for showing artsy-fartsy, lo-budget, independent films.

I laughed myself sore at the achingly funny, often poignant, mostly-improvised “dialogue” between actor-comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon (playing dangerously loose versions of themselves), as the middle-aged duo spend a week on the road traveling through Northern England’s Lake District – ostensibly to review its more esoteric inns and restaurants for a British magazine.

The movie has been edited together from an earlier six-episode BBC2 sitcom of the same name and features several spontaneous, seemingly ad-libbed, devastatingly sharp verbal duels between Coogan and Brydon, each a brilliant impressionist in his own right. These two do Michael Caine, Al Pacino, Sean Connery and even Woody Allen better than the originals themselves.

I purposely don’t do movie reviews, so I won’t go into any more details of the plot, or lack of one, than I already have. My point, however, it that as I laughed my way through the eye-wateringly entertaining film, I was once again reminded that the British accent is a God’s gift to the English people.

Maybe it’s His way of making up for giving them a taste for bland food, Benny Hill and medieval dentistry skills. Now imagine how much funnier that line would sound spoken with a British accent. See what I mean?