Pumping It Up, and Up

Alright, this is getting ridiculous.  On Sunday morning two weeks ago I filled the tank in my truck before driving down to visit our son in San Diego. I was more than a bit peeved that the lowest price I could find along Foothill was $3.79 a gallon. Silly me. Only four days later, I filled my tank again. The same station was now charging $3.89 for the same gas. I was not happy. Again, silly me.

As it turns out, those were the good old days. Because the very next morning I drove by the station and the price had gone up another ten cents overnight to $3.99. Seriously? Once again I drove past the same station later on that afternoon and – you guessed it – the price of a gallon of unleaded gas had jumped another 5 cents. A nickel higher in just a few hours.  

Only two weeks ago, the media was abuzz with reports that gas would “likely” rise to $4 a gallon by Memorial Day. Good call, people. We’re already there. They must be using the same imperfect prognosticators who come up with the your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine-stick-a-finger-in-the-air weather forecasts. (Unlike CV Weekly’s own dependably accurate and reliable Sue Kilpatrick, of course.) When these same folks now tell us that we could see $5-per-gallon prices by summer we should be worried. Or petrified. I won’t be surprised if we roar past the $5/gallon milestone by Memorial Day.

So why is the price of gasoline soaring when there is an acknowledged glut of oil on the world market? There are many reasons; some we can’t do a thing about, but several we can. I won’t travel down that road this week, however. There will be plenty of time for that discussion as the cost continues to climb and the pain at the pump metastasizes throughout our dangerously fragile economy.

The cost of a gallon of gas is as much a factor of life in Southern California today as our frequent drought conditions, traffic jams, overcrowded schools and immigration issues.

It wasn’t always this way. I’ve lived in the Crescenta Valley long enough to remember many intersections along Foothill Blvd. with a gas station on all four corners. Station attendants (yes, they really had such a thing) would not only “check under the hood” while your tank was being filled, but also clean your parent’s front windshield with a spray bottle of glass cleaner and the rag in their pocket.

As if that level of customer service wasn’t enough to entice you to fill up at one station over another, stations gave away freebies with every tank of gas. At our house, we had full sets of drinking glasses, dishes and lots of other goodies given to us simply for filling the tank in our family car. Sigh.

If you wanted to get out of your car (you certainly didn’t have to) you could run into the service station office and get a free roadmap of the area. Although I realize that with smart phones and GPS apps, few drivers would even know how to read a printed map (much less fold one back up) today.

Obviously, a lot has changed over the years. Even though our cars are more efficient than ever before, on the whole we drive farther and more often for work and pleasure. There are more of us on the road than ever before. And the cost and availability of energy has become a political tool (or weapon, if you will) more than ever before. 

As I was wrapping up this column to make deadline, a news item came across about a major oil refinery “blowing up” near the U.S./Canada border several days ago. Apparently, it’s still burning and the newsreader said that the crippled refinery supplies much of the gasoline used in Southern California. Buckle up, folks. This is gonna get even uglier real fast.

If I can still afford the gas, I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a post of my column first published yesterday, 2.23.12, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2012 WordChaser, Inc.

Shared Shock and Sorrow

It was around 12:45 last Friday afternoon when I returned to my office from a physical therapy session on my bum knee. The familiar ping from my phone alerted me that a new text message was waiting. It was from my son at college down near San Diego asking me if I knew what had just happened at Crescenta Valley High – the high school in our small bedroom community on the fringes of sprawling Los Angeles. I had no idea what his text was asking.

At almost the exact same moment I was reading my son’s message, my sister called on our house phone (yes, we still have one of those and no, it isn’t a pay phone) asking if I had heard anything from the staff at the CV Weekly newspaper (the newspaper that runs my weekly column) about the big breaking news. My sister has a son who’s a senior at CV High who had been texting her with what he knew was happening. I think she – like many of my regular readers – assumed that because I write a column for the paper each week I have the inside scoop on any buzz going on in the newsroom on any given day. Not hardly.

As my sister relayed the hard-to-believe news about a possible suicide at CVHS, I suddenly noticed the drone of multiple helicopters hovering somewhere high above the 210 freeway. That sound is always the first indicator that something big is happening up here in our normally calm and quiet valley.

Sure enough, as the minutes ticked by last Friday afternoon, we all quickly learned more about the tragic suicide of the sophomore student. As sketchy and often wrong as the rapidly passed-along details of the event may have been, it reminded me again that we are all connected to each other’s lives like never before in the history of humanity.

With the increasing saturation of smart phones (do you know a single teenager or pre-teen without his/her own mobile phone?), iPads, laptops and near universal access to the Internet, along with apps like Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging and others – our ability to share news or events within literally seconds of it happening is stunning. Much of the time the shared information is trivial and inane at best. But sometimes, like last Friday, the news can stun.

Then, in one of those oddly connected, not-so-random bookends that the universe throws at us every so often, the very next day after the horrific event at CV High, information channels all over the world were ablaze with tragic (yet not entirely unexpected for anyone familiar with her struggles and addictions) news of another untimely death – pop superstar and once-gifted singer, Whitney Houston.

Although one could certainly argue that Ms. Houston’s death was also the result of a suicide – albeit a long-term and not nearly as deliberate an effort – it’s safe to say that both of these sad souls must have been terribly troubled individuals. I can’t help but wonder, with so many available ways to connect with other people, how is it possible that anyone today could live with such loneliness and despair that they ultimately disconnect from life itself?

Our family did not know the young man who died last week. And yet, we are connected. My wife and I are both proud alums of Crescenta Valley High. Three of our four kids graduated from there. My own two brothers and one sister graduated from CV as did one of my sisters-in-law. And as I noted above, I have a nephew who will graduate from CV this coming June. To say the least, we are a Falcon family to the core.

As such, we all grieve the loss of one of our own and send our prayers and condolences to all of those directly affected by this unfathomable tragedy. The school, this community, will forever be a different place because of what happened at the start of the lunch period on an otherwise typical February day in the Foothills.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a post of my column first published yesterday, 2.16.12, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2012 WordChaser, Inc.

Sews Your Mother!

This past weekend my wife dragged me – um, I mean – I willingly accompanied her to a local fabric store while she shopped for material to sew a birthday gift. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that spending precious hours of the weekend meandering through row upon row of fabrics and notions (what exactly is a “notion” anyway?) is not exactly my idea of time well spent. My wife, however, seems to derive as much enjoyment from the experience as I do wandering the canyons of lumber-laden shelves and towering walls of bright, shiny, wondrous power tools at a home improvement store. Go figure.

She, like many other women of her generation, learned to sew both from her mother and from now-extinct Home Economic classes once routinely offered in junior and senior high schools. My own mom was/is a seamstress par excellence. When I was a kid, Mom’s porcelain-colored Singer sewing machine was an appliance at least as important to our household as the refrigerator, stovetop, washing machine or our family television. Okay, maybe not the TV.  

In fact, long before the expression, “There’s an app for that!” became part of the vernacular, I remember another common phrase used around our house as I was growing up. If any of us kids needed a cheerleading outfit, a hip and trendy vest, Halloween costume, pair of warm, snuggly pajamas, Paisley/Carnaby Street shirt or even a Neru jacket like the ones the Beatles wore stepping off of the BOAC airliner on the tarmac at JFK – my mom would pull the cover off her sewing machine and say, “I’m sure there’s a pattern for that!” Then she’d paw through her overstuffed boxes of sewing patterns searching for something remotely close to the article of clothing we were asking for. 

If she didn’t already have a pattern or one that could be altered to come close (trust me on this, fashion standards were a lot more tolerant and forgiving in the 60s), she would load us kids into the family station wagon – a candy apple green Plymouth number with fake, wood grain ‘paneling’ on its sides – and haul us down to one several sewing/notions/fabric stores on Honolulu Avenue.

I would sit as quietly as a kid could sit amongst a cavernous room full of other moms looking through thick, oversized catalogs of patterns from companies like Butterick, Simplicity, McCalls and Vogue. (My wife says that Vogue patterns were the most difficult to master. I wonder if Madonna sews. My wife and I live in different worlds.)  

Anyway, I remember one article of clothing in particular my Mom made for yours truly that – in retrospect – probably seemed like a righteously cool idea at the time. But the reality of the finished product was embarrassing at best. It was a one-piece pair of overalls made of dark chocolate brown, wide-wale corduroy. I’m talkin’ WIDE, wide wale. Like drive a MatchBox car between those bad boys.

What on God’s green earth was I thinking? In my defense, I was the drummer in one garage band or another from sixth grade through senior high, so I did have a proclivity to push the fashion envelope – at least as much as my short-sleeve-white-shirt-polyester-tie wearing, tapered haircut-loving Dad would allow. Apparently, however, a corduroy nerd suit was permissible. Either that or my Dad’s in heaven snickering at me even now.

Last weekend as I caught up on emails, texted and absentmindedly shuffled after my wife while she picked her way through bolts of wildly colored material and “fat quarter” packs (don’t ask), I half-wondered if sewing as a hobby was quickly becoming a lost art. Wide wale corduroy overalls notwithstanding, that would be a shame.

Then again, my talented and oh-so-crafty wife reminds me that there is an ongoing resurgence of young, upwardly mobile girls and women taking up old-school arts like knitting, quilting and needlepoint. Me? I’m holding out for macramé to make a comeback.  

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a post of my column first published yesterday, 2.9.12, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2012 WordChaser, Inc.

Bowled Over By Commercials

I’m glad it’s finally February. For one thing, I can’t remember a January before this last one that I had to turn on the ceiling fan just to be able to sleep comfortably at night.

With any luck, this month will at last bring some more seasonally cold temps and rainfall. But I’ll leave the official weather prognostication and precipitation prestidigitation to my columnist colleague at the CV Weekly newspaper, Sue Kilpatrick.

Mostly, I’m thankful it’s February because those awful, terrible, annoyingly vapid JCP commercials with all the screaming people are supposed to be replaced by, well, something else. It seems like only yesterday that we were subjected to months of that screaming guy in the commercials for Universal Studios’ King Kong attraction.

But back to JCP, which, in case you haven’t caught on to their marketing sleight of hand, is what JC Penny is now calling itself. You know, like Kentucky Fried Chicken tried to become relevant and cool by calling itself KFC. Or like California Pizza Kitchen suddenly became CPK. It’s marketing gimmicks like this – along with obnoxiously loud and uncreative commercials like the current JCP teaser campaign – that make me cringe with embarrassment at my own profession.

Thankfully, this weekend has the potential to redeem my faith in the creative process.

As someone who has spent the last thirty years or so writing advertising copy (not “verbage,” please!) including literally thousands of TV and radio commercials or “spots” as we call them in the biz, the annual NFL Super Bowl broadcast is Christmas, the World Series and Olympics all rolled into one event.

To get an idea how important and prestigious the Super Bowl is to advertisers, the going rate for a mere thirty seconds of airtime on this Sunday’s broadcast is a reported $3.5 million. For thirty seconds! That’s over $116,000 a second. Even the Federal Government doesn’t spend money that fast. Oh wait, yes it does.

This year’s Super Bowl advertisers include Volkswagon, Acura, Coca-Cola, Toyota, Career Builder, Anheuser-Busch, Audi and others with deep marketing budgets. I really couldn’t care less whether the Patriots or the Giants win on Sunday, since the Dodgers didn’t even make it into the playoffs (and that right there should tell you how much of a football fan I am.)  No, I’m more interested to see whether the agency creative teams have come up with winners or wieners to debut during the broadcast. If I have to go to the bathroom or the kitchen, I’ll be going during the game itself so I can be sure not to miss any of the commercials. I’m not kidding.

At some point in the early 80s, the Super Bowl became the place for advertisers and the agencies who produce their commercials to showcase new, hopefully breakthrough work – spots that were created to be talked about at office water coolers all across the country the following Monday. The advent of online streaming video channels has only increased the importance of having a hit commercial air during the Super Bowl.

Apple’s “1984” commercial to launch the Macintosh computer was one of the first TV spots to use a “big idea” concept along with feature-film production values (the ground-breaking spot was directed by newcomer Ridley Scott, who went on to direct Aliens, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and other mega-hits). It also enjoyed the highly unusual status of airing only once – during the game itself – and never again. At least, Apple never paid to have the commercial run again.

This Sunday I’ll be glued to the set, watching to see if another water-cooler-worthy commercial is aired. I’m certain of one thing, however. If the ad agency creative teams have done their jobs, the only screaming heard during Sunday’s game will be from unhappy Patriots or Giants fans.

Then again, it could also be me screaming at the summer-like weather that continues to torture my very soul. I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a post of my column first published yesterday, 2.2.12, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2012 WordChaser, Inc.

Of F-bombs and Family Fare

So, where were we? Well, in addition to receiving vitriol-soaked missives attacking me for daring to voice an opinion different from theirs, and – in the name of tolerance and civil dialogue, ironically – demanding the removal of my column from the CV Weekly newspaper in which it runs every week (I wonder, do these enlightened folks ever look in the mirror and recognize themselves as the primary source of the hate, intolerance and demonization in public discourse today? Probably not.) … besides that, this time last week I was writing about primetime television and the possible elimination of FCC restrictions on content allowed to be shown by network broadcasters.

You remember primetime television, right? That block of time just after the dinner hour (ha!) that used to be reserved for good, wholesome family entertainment? Not hardly. According to the Parents Television Council (PTC), a group that advocates for “family friendly TV”, the use of profanity alone has skyrocketed in recent years. A recent Wall Street Journal article quoted a PTC report last year showing 1,227 bleeped or unbleeped uses of the “F-word” or “S-word” on primetime network broadcasts. As recently as 2005 there were only five such instances. Sadly, some would call that progress.

Actually, I’m surprised last year’s bleeping total isn’t higher. It’s gotten so that you can’t even watch a morning news program without the ever-present, ever-lovin’ sound of bleeps. When you also factor in the violent and perverted plots, along with the flood of salacious, lewd and downright crude content, I’m beginning to think that “TV” should stand for “Toxically Vile” or “Terribly Violent.” Maybe “Too Vacuous” would be even more appropriate.

I’m no longer surprised to hear of parents who have either completely pulled the plug on TV in their homes, or who have dramatically limited what content they allow in by way of strict parental controls or prescreened DVDs.

Every once in a while, however, a glimmer of hope appears on the screen. In this case, it isn’t the TV, but the silver screen. A couple of weeks ago my wife and I were trying to decide which of the current movies to go see in the theater. Although it was far from my first choice, we had heard several critics rave about “The Artist” and – never one to miss the chance to score beaucoup hubby points for willingly going to see a chick flick – we went. I was hesitant, to say the least. After all, the film is set in 1927 and it’s entirely in black and white. It’s a silent movie about a silent film star. You read that right – a silent movie. As in, no dialogue. And I was supposed to sit through 100 minutes of that?

The movie turned out to be one of the most enjoyably entertaining, inventively original pieces of movie making we’ve had the pleasure of seeing in a long time. The plot was engaging, the acting – Oscar-worthy, the costumes, music and art direction were all perfect. But how could that possibly be? There wasn’t a naked body (other than “Uggie”, a too-cute Jack Russell Terrier), no F-bombs or any swear words for that matter, no slam against the U.S. or our military, no corrupt conservative politicians, no evil, profit-hungry corporations, no hypocritical Christian character, not even a single drunken, party-hearty low-life from New Jersey.  

Even more surprising, The Artist won several top awards at the recent Golden Globes ceremony – an awards show with a penchant for celebrating anything controversial, non-traditional and counter-cultural. Just this week, the movie was also nominated for at least six Oscars. So, as I said, maybe there’s reason to hope. Then again, if the networks ever wind up showing The Artist on TV, they’ll probably want to trash it up to boost ratings.

And now, I’d better shut up. Because I certainly wouldn’t want to get any letters accusing me of inciting malice or hatred towards tolerant and enlightened progressives who like their films with sound. Even if it is the sound of falling f-bombs.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a post of my column first published yesterday, 1.26.12, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2012 WordChaser, Inc.

Primetime or Slime Time?

It might surprise some readers, but I’m actually not old enough to have watched original broadcasts during the infamous “golden days” of television. You know, those days when Lucy and Ricky Ricardo’s bedroom had two twin beds in it lest viewers get the idea that they actually slept together as husband and wife – or when Gone with the Wind couldn’t be shown on network television without censoring Rhett Butler’s shocking “Frankly, my dear …” rebuke to Scarlet.

I did watch every saccharin-sweet episode of Flipper and Lassie, but also grew up watching Roadrunner/Wiley Coyote and Bugs Bunny cartoons with more violence (albeit of the animated type) every five minutes than an entire hour-long episode of CSI today. I would plant my wide-eyed self in front of our family’s black and white TV so I wouldn’t miss a single episode of Sea Hunt or the Rifleman (I can even tell you how many shots Lucas McCain fired from his modified lever-action Winchester in the opening of the show each week*).

I developed a deep appreciation for fantasy and horror shows with a regular diet of Fright Night, Creature Features, Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, the Twilight Zone, the Outer Limits, the Night Stalker and other deliciously scary shows. Good times, indeed.

I’ve been thinking about TV and how it’s changed over the years because the U.S. Supreme Court this week began considering whether the Federal Communications Commission’s efforts to police the national airwaves for “dirty words and images” violate the broadcast-television industry’s right to free speech. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, if the Supremes side with broadcasters, industry experts say that networks are poised to begin showing racier content and/or language like that now found on cable-channels, Internet video domains and other forms of entertainment that aren’t subject to the FCC’s indecency standards.

As if network TV isn’t already “racy” enough. If you watch any network lineup, you know there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of censorship or standards of any kind being imposed on broadcasters.

NBC’s Wednesday night lineup makes my point. For example, a week ago on the network’s new hit show, Whitney, the entire “plot” involved Whitney catching her live-in boyfriend in the act of, well, let’s just say he was taking matters into his own hand. Next up, the pilot episode of Are You There Chelsea? dealt with that endlessly hilarious subject of a DUI conviction. Too funny. After that, the season premier of Suburgatory  was about the lead character, Tessa – a high school student – trying to convince a new student to admit he was gay. By the end of the episode it was actually the school’s guidance counselor who came bursting out of the closet. And yes, Suburgatory is a comedy. LOL.

Of course, if you’ve ever seen Fox’s mega-hit show Glee, you know that when the students at McKinley High are boning up on their studies, it has nothing to do with cracking the books.

And there’s the wholesome (hole-some?) family entertainment flushed into living rooms each week courtesy of CBS and its highest rated show, Two-and-a-half Men. To be fair, the show is brilliantly written and acted and I’ve laughed my head off whenever I’ve watched. But I could never watch with anyone below the age of 18 in the room, and even then I would feel awkward. It’s raunchy stuff. In fact, about the only thing it – and the majority of other primetime shows on the networks don’t have – are the actual swear words and full frontal nudity still banned by the FCC. But it looks like that may soon be changing, as well.

I’ll have more thoughts on this subject next week. So, as they say in TV land, stay [bleep]in’ tuned.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

(* For the record, the Rifleman fires 13 shots from an 11-round capacity rifle. Nice trick.)

Note: This is a post of my column first published yesterday, 1.19.12, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2012 WordChaser, Inc. 

What Would Martin Luther Do?

So, does it deepen or cheapen the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.  when the holiday honoring him has become so mainstreamed there are now “MLK Day Sale!!” ads appearing online and on TV, in newspapers, etc.? I don’t remember seeing these kind of ads in years past and frankly, cringe a little each time I’ve seen one over the past week or so.

I mean, are the civil rights icon’s accomplishments and place in history honored by shopping for discounted lingerie on his holiday?

Does it enhance his significance now that his memory is used to sell stainless steel appliances at Sears?

Or should we be proud as a nation that MLK’s place in history is so accepted and expected that he has already been relegated to a place and status occupied by the generic “Presidents’ Day”?

This also begs the question: Since another iconic leader, Cesar Chavez, also has a national holiday honoring his work and memory (March 31), I wonder how long it will be before the two holidays are combined into a “Civil Rights/Social Justice Day”?

Just wondering.