I Wish I Were a Chicken

On the Westside of Los Angeles, here's a view of what it was like when CNN announced Barack Obama as President Elect of the United States of America.

I was sitting in my friend Bryant's living room. He is the only person I know who is even-tempered enough to make a pot of chili on the day of this historic election. Bryant is also self-assured enough to not take the flake factor of Angelinos personally. While the majority of my friends were anxious, neurotic, sloppy, sleepless messes, Bryant described himself as "anticipatory." While the rest of us had become YouTube and Huffington Post junkies and were emailing each other frantic links at 3:30am with the word "scary" in the subject line, Bryant was calmly gathering information, interpreting date, and analyzing strategies. It is safe to say that Bryant is the Barack Obama of my small circle of friends- except that unlike what we know of Barack Obama, Bryant dressed as Sarah Palin for Halloween- and therefore, Bryant's house is just about the best place to watch the election.

In honor of the biggest economic crises since The Great Depression, he also served bathtub gin and government cheese.

There were signs of change early in the day. It was the first time in 15 years of voting that there had been a line at my polling place. A party guest admitted that this was his very first time voting, and he was in his 30's. I waited an hour and 45 minutes to vote, and was happy about it. I knew only one of my students would be voting for McCain, and that student claimed it was because he wasn't a "socialist."

Mostly we all thought Obama could win, and would. But in Los Angeles, there was still a lot of fear. Liberal Democrats have their own fear to contend with, mostly that perceptions of public opinion and actual public opinion change like how I've heard the weather changes in some other states. But after all, it was both windy and rainy in Los Angeles, could this be a harbinger of change in the rest of the country?

I arrived at Bryant's house at around 7pm (traffic, blah), and allowed my friends to update me on the recent predictions of blue and red states. Ohio... blue. Pennsylvania... blue.

"I told you Pennsylvania wasn't just filled with a bunch of racists," I defended my home state, proudly!

McCain couldn't win at this point. Why were we still so scared?

Then, that blinking noise came up on CNN that suggested another state was about to be called. (Everyone glanced at their iPhones first, to make sure it wasn't an incoming text message). We were all multi-tasking. Communicating with relatives and friends throughout the country, giving each other minute by minute updates, and factoids from the polls.

Obama was at just over 200 electoral votes at the time, and we all expected him to gather a few more right away. Instead "Barack Obama President Elect" flashed across the screen. We all looked at each other, and my girlfriend said, "Seriously?"

"Seriously."

People did it? The polls were accurate? Seriously. The United States really was ready for a change? Was a black man actually going to be the president. Was Barack Obama really the first BLACK PRESIDENT?!?!?! Was Michelle Obama going to be the first First Lady with an actual ass?

"I want to cry, but I can't," my girlfriend said. (Soon, she would, of course).

And then, it sunk in and we all went onto the balcony and started celebrating. Pouring Champagne. Toasting. Screaming. Neighbors coming outside is not a common thing in Los Angeles, and neither are pedestrians, and everyone was in the street screaming, "Oh my god! Oh my god!" And then (as is more typical in Los Angeles), the phone calls and text messages started flooding in, "OMG! OMG! OMG! We did it!"

Seriously? There would be no stealing this election? We didn't have to watch another excruciating manual recount?

And then, shortly after, I noticed that Bryant had stopped watching the television, and taken out his laptop computer. He was starting to gnaw on a hangnail with the intensity he usually reserves for an episode of So You Think You Can Dance, or Project Runway. Bryant was calculating. Strategizing.

And then, it hit me. Proposition 8. California's Ban on Gay Marriage Initiative. What was particularly disturbing about this conflict in California identity was not entirely (as the No on 8 people put it) "unfairness" or "wrongness" of changing the California Constitution to discriminate against Gays and Lesbians. That was both bad and obvious. However, the juxtaposition of Californian values in this election was particularly disturbing. Let's face it, Californians have always been contradictory in their legislation. After all, we have a governor who rides a private jet to Sacramento each day, yet purchases carbon credits to offset his footprint. Our education system went from among the best (and cheapest) in the country to one of the worst in a relatively short period of time, mostly because we hate property taxes. We have a public housing crisis, and hire taxicabs to drop our homeless off at Skid Row.

Sometimes, we're generous about immigration, touting slogans like "Legalize L.A." Other times, we're nearly fascist, threatening to throw illegal immigrants' children out of school entirely, or banning affirmative action in the name of equal rights.

So what was particularly disturbing about this day? California, like always, was a living contradiction.

Barack Obama's candidacy mobilized young voters, diverse voters (racially and socioeconomically). The voters were finally telling us that they were moving beyond race. This climate of hope and change, which is so exciting and promising, reminds me that Americans might have a future. Also (although I know it sounds cold), the racist politics and G.O.P. values may finally be dying out and being replaced with a more modern, global way of approaching the world. However, as Californians voted overwhelming to allow chickens to spread their wings and turn around in their cages (I voted in favor of that too), they also voted to amend the constitution to define marriage as "between one man and one woman." Californians helped elect the first black president, the first president I can recall who actually acknowledged the diverse "real" America in his acceptance speech. Not "real" America, but REAL AMERICA.

Another generation indeed is coming of age. Thankfully. And they are capable of change. They've proven it. They helped elect the first black president. They are capable of viewing the world in complex ways. They are capable of action.

Yes, another generation of voters has already come of age, and is finally displacing the old style of politics.

They believe in change.

They believe in community.

And, they (like the generation of voters before them) is anti-gay.

¿Toma Leche?

Cow's milk is among the most perishable 

of all foods, due to its fluid form and

excellent nutritive composition.  As it 

comes from the cow, milk provides an ideal

medium for bacterial growth.  To protect

milk's quality, this food is handled under 

rigid sanitary conditions, resulting in low

bacterial count, good flavor and appearance,

high nutritive value, and freedom from

disease-producing organisms and foreign

constituents (National Dairy Council).

Acknowledgements:

Click the title of this entry, ¿Toma Leche?, and you will be redirected to the animated Got Milk website (in Spanish), where you will learn many interesting facts about milk, and pick up useful, dairy-specific, Spanish vocabulary.  This cheerful site takes you on an inspiring virtual journey (think Disney's It's a Small Word) from milking a cow, through production, pasteurization, packaging, distribution, and ultimately consumption.  Conspicuously absent from the site is the final step: evacuation.  This propaganda piece, promoting the merits of cow's milk was an indispensable resource for the following essay.

For the sake of journalistic balance, you might also want to visit the www.notmilk.com website, a propaganda piece in its own right, hosted by the self-appointed not-milkman, Robert Cohen, whose mission statement includes, "breaking down the greatest myth in America:  that milk does a body good."  While I'm not convinced that "milk does a body good" is the greatest of American myths [enter late model capitalism], www.notmilk.com is an exhaustive hyperlinked world of testimonials and gold mines that include conspiracy theories dating back to Marie Antoinette.  One of Cohen's biggest gripes is with the ubiquitous milk moustache campaign, and he blends famous real moustache adverts with charming "What's Next?" paranoid predictions, including painted-in white moustaches on both God and Adam in the Michelangelo piece above. My favorite image (suited to my Nixon obsession) is the following, It's Good For You, Trust Me.

Thank you to both sites for helping me find a journalistic balance in this confusing world, where one cannot decipher myth and reality.

The question remains:  Milk.  A virture, or a vice?

Episode Two: Botulismo

Part One: Condensation

When renting an apartment in a cold climate (thankfully 80% of my current readers are Californians and won't take issue with me calling the Chilean heartland a cold climate, when it is indeed moderate), double check to make sure your refrigerator is plugged in.  It is difficult to determine if the beverages in the refrigerator are cold if it is only 47º Fahrenheit in the apartment.  47ºF can make your hands very cold (or numb), and everything you touch feel neutral.  If this happens to your hands (they make things feel neutral), there are other clues to help you determine if your refrigerator is functioning.  Does it make those periodic humming and rattling noises? If there is a bulb inside (in South America, there rarely is), does a light go on when you open the door?  Is there condensation on the outside of beverage containers when you remove them from the refrigerator?  A no answer to any or all of these questions could be an indicator that the temperature inside the refrigerator, and the temperature outside the refrigerator are potentially equal.

Part Two:  When Am I Ever Going to Use This?

(A Brief Tutorial for the American Readership, and Otherwise Questionably Educated)

Well, let's face it.  Not everything we learned in 4th grade was retained. What was retained is not always easily recalled.  And I do want my readers to experience Latin American cultural emersion on a visceral level; therefore, it is important that you understand Celsius, in order to grasp the temperature-related catastrophe that follows.

The evening temperature in my apartment is 47ºF.  This is evident because the outside temperature (as indicated by my iPhone wireless weather application) is 47ºF, and there is no insulation (I can hear my neighbors pee), and no condensation on the windows indicating otherwise.  47ºF equals 8.33ºC, according to the following conversion formula:

C = (F-32)  x  5/9

Reverse the formula, and you will find:

F = C x 9/5 + 32

If you're inclined to check my math (and you probably should), don't forget the order of operations (Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally).  If you can't recall what that sentence signifies, remember:  Parenthesis; Exponents; Multiplication; Division; Addition, and finally Subtraction.  If you'd like to watch someone else do the math, check out this conversion formula demonstration on YouTube.  It's fabulous.  The actor has impeccable handwriting, a soothing voice, and pretty hands.

If you're frustrated with scratch paper and hyperlinking, don't worry; there's an easy way to estimate the conversion in your head (not for those who need a tip calculator):

1. Double the Celsius Temperature;

2. Subtract 10%;

3. Add 32º

Points of reference, and some other convenient givens:

1. 8.66ºC is cold, but it is 6ºC warmer than it needs to be for snow.
   
2. Water freezes at 0ºC.
   
3. Water boils at 100 ºC.
   
4. Milk spoils when stored at temperatures about 40ºF, and ideally should be stored well below 40ºF, between 1 and 4ºC.
5. In short, even though the temperature indoors in Chile (and indoors at Christmas in The Cold Bedroom for those of you who visit frugal fathers back east during the holidays), it is not cold enough to store milk.

Perhaps this is what Grandpa means when he claims, "It's not that cold." This translates to, "It's not cold enough to snow.  It's not cold enough to spoil milk. Put on a sweater."

Part Three:  Check Your Math

Cultural Generalizations and Other Miscalculations  

No, milk stored in a sack (instead of a plastic or glass bottle) does not smell different in Chile. Refrigerators in Chile are no quieter than refrigerators in North America.  Just because they have a more efficient system of heating water (they don't use water heaters, water is instantly heated when you turn on the faucet), doesn't mean they have a more efficient system of refrigeration.  

Chileans are ahead of Americans in so many technological, social, and environmental ways. The internet is not a resource divided by class.  No one even knows what "dial-up" internet means. Wireless internet is cheap, fast, and widely accessible.  The elderly and mentally ill are not living on the streets. Chile's literacy rate is upwards of 90%.  It has the strongest economy in South America.  Chileans reduce. Chileans reuse. Chileans recycle.  Their public transportation system is efficient, rapid, and clean.  They use collectivos, shared taxis for navigating winding, narrow, steep roads economically.  

And Valpo is hardly utopia.  It is, in significant ways, paradoxically similar to North America (at least from a grossly, narrow, Californian perspective). Valparaíso is a UNESCO world heritage site for its role in 19th century globalization, yet it is a very homogenous, insular community, lacking access to diversity and high quality international products.  There is the expected racism directed towards indigenous cultures, and others of any sort (European study abroad students excepted).  And while gay sex in not technically illegal, gay culture is mostly closeted.  The suspicious, competitive glances of Chilean women towards the mascara-clad teenage girls of Chile's emerging goth, youth subculture (and the frowning, young girls rocking baby dolls while watching their male counterparts play soccer and ride skateboards) suggest the progress of electing a woman president has not made its way to the streets of Valparaíso.  

The Southern hemisphere, while reversing the seasons (still disorienting after three summer/winters & winter/summers here), does not reverse the laws of capitalism, or physics. Even on the moon, a feather and a bowling ball fall at the same rate, and, I imagine, milk spoils at the same temperature.  Otherwise, astronauts wouldn't bring that dehydrated neapolitan ice cream with them on expeditions.       

Addendum: It's Good for You, Trust Me

(Does This Taste Funny to You?)

Ideally, milk should be served cold.  One of the worst things you can do to spoiled milk is heat it beyond its boiling point to make foam for expresso.  Symptoms of Botulism include, but are not limited to:  cramping, vomiting, diarrhea, night sweats, muscle weakness, paralysis, and blurred vision.  Lack of oxygen worsens the symptoms of Botulism, and there is less oxygen present in higher altitudes- like Chile.

Reasons Chile is Better Than Ecuador

Buenos Dias, Chile.

Expresso.  Actually, the expresso in Ecuador was much better than Chile (at least in Quito).  Then again, I'm comparing the expresso at an Italian café across from my hostel in Quito to the expresso at the snack kiosk at the Santiago airport, where a cappuccino is basically half coffee and half whipped cream... okay, I'm pretending I didn't drink it (it was fatty, sweet, disgusting, and delicious), but still.  

Maybe the real reason I like Chile better than Ecuador is that I'm staying in Valparaíso, which is the San Francisco of South America. Isn't San Francisco just about the most wonderful place on earth?  I wish I could afford San Francisco.  Combine that with the quirks (leche comes in a 31-gram bag, for example, while the smallest measurement for beer seems to be the 330cc) and pace (porteños start their day at around 11:00 am, from what I observe, and siesta is a three-hour process which begins just two and a half hours later) of Latin America, and I'm happy. Plus, there is that wonderful relationship Latin Americans have with safety (Ines, my landlady, told me if I get cold, "sleep with the gas stove on," while at home, I obsessively check to make sure the gas is off before I fall asleep); and death (Peruvians tie the rungs of their wooden ladders together with string); and insanity (while Argentines plan their vacations around therapy, Chileans simply call "losing your mind," "brushing the doll" and move forward).

But the focus of today's blog is expresso.  Whoever rented this apartment before me was kind enough to leave their Moka Express and a half kilo of coffee.  Have I mentioned that I don't drink coffee?  I don't own a coffee pot, or an expresso machine.  I don't have coffee when I wake up in the morning.  Instead, I take my herbs, vitamins, live active yogurt cultures, and SNRI with watered-down coconut water, a shot of Noni, a shot of aloe vera juice, a banana, and sometimes small bowl of oatmeal. 

A few hours later, I have been known to say, "Hmmm.  If I could find some coffee, I'd drink the shit outta it!"  Then, I go to Starbucks and order one of those Angelino cuntaccinos, with embarrassing precision - size, temperature, strength, fat content, sweetness, etc. all articulated in under one second.  So, perhaps the more accurate statement is not, "I don't drink coffee," but rather, "I don't make coffee."

So, faced with all the tools this morning (a Moka Express, a kilo of café, a sack of leche, a gas horno, and a fistful of fosforos), I found myself helpless, having to google, "How do I drink expresso with one of those Italian metal stovetop expresso things," upon which I was corrected by the google search engine, "Do you mean, 'How do I make expresso with a stovetop Moka Express?'"

Don't tell my students, but I used the Wikipedia answer because it was the easiest and came with a diagram.  I also warmed the milk in the teapot, and if you leave the lid off (it was a happy accident) and the flame too high, it creates a nice, overflowing foam.  

Three hours later, I was starting my day at the typical coastal Chilean hour (el hora typico de porteños), and fitting right in, realizing why there isn't a phrase for "good morning," but rather Chileans are satisfied instead with "good day."

Reducing My Carbon Footprint

This is an actual photo from my house, and I think it illustrates a particular brand of Los Angeles depression. It's the kind of depression that doesn't come in the form of sadness or exhaustion. 

Can it be treated?

This paradoxical Angelino apathy, that summons you to scrub the corners of your bathroom with a toothbrush, but allows for plants from the outside to braid themselves into ropes, grow through your window, and choke you in your sleep.

And yet, it's beautiful.  (In its way).

You don't want to kill it.  Strangely, you and the plant coexist because in Los Angeles, whenever nature triumphs over civilization, there's hope.  

Hollywoodland

On an abstract level, there must an organizing principle.  If not an argument.  If not a thesis.  A curiosity, or a cliché.  

I feel protective over Los Angeles because parts of this sprawling, center-lacking city could break off and fall into the ocean.  My grandmother, Gladys, warned this might happen when my mother first brought me to Los Angeles in 1982.  What my grandmother didn't realize was that if this did happen, many of us wouldn't notice.  

Mike Davis might call this our collective "disaster amnesia," an amazing, Angelino ability to recover from separation (even if parts of our own bodies break off and fall into the sea). Wouldn't we just become imbalanced, hobbling versions of ourselves?  

In 1949, the "L-A-N-D" was either removed from the Hollywood sign, or it slid down the hill. The transition went smoothly.  Nobody remembers it.  We became HOLLYWOOD, as if the HOLLYWOODLAND version never existed.  There were a few protests.  Weren't there?  And some nebulous memories.  Right?   But mostly, those people were curmudgeonly Luddites possessing paranoid, repellent nostalgia, shaking their impotent fists at the inevitable.  Maybe even hurting themselves in the process.  Cutting off their noses to spite their faces, my grandmother might say.

The survivors translate their past, creating a new mythology that rewrites (and thus includes) HOLLYWOOD sans LAND.  Lest we cut off our noses to spite our faces, we reinvent archives to accommodate history.  

There are only two things in Los Angeles that I do not understand:  a store next to the Arclight Theater's parking garage (don't know the name); and Darque Tan.  

On the store next to the Arclight's parking garage:  I can't figure out its theme, and this bothers me.  The store is attractive, the way Famima is attractive.  Well lit.  Colorful.  Climate controlled.  The staff is friendly and well dressed.  They are attentive, and have had their hair cut recently.  In the store, there are lots of little things that you'd like to own.  The entire store is an impulse purchase.  The problem at the Arclight store is that I want to buy something, but I can't tell what's for sale. There are beauty products (not for sale).  High-end pastries for pets or humans- they are so perfect, I'd eat either- but they're not for sale.  Cellular phone accessories (incompatible with the iPhone)  Tasteful furniture (not for sale).  It's like being in Pinkberry, where those colorful, plastic, alien-looking kitchen accessories (can't think of the artist who made them right now) trigger the impulse of an impulse to buy, but it's impossible to justify following through with that impulse because I don't want to spend 78 dollars on a pair of acrobatic salt and pepper shakers that stack sideways, and spill the salt and pepper granules onto the table.  Plus, my grandmother collected salt and pepper shakers, and I'm trying to break the patterns of my past.  At least at Pinkberry, I know why I'm there.  For yogurt (Is it indeed yogurt?  Has that debate finally been resolved?)  And those artsy, plastic, impractical kitchen accessories keep me entertained while I'm in line.  Bright colors make time pass more quickly.  I totally get it.

On Darque Tan (The Corner Market):  My cousin pronounces it in French, emphasizing the 'ARE,' and dropping the end vowels, "d'AAARRq Tan." I trust her pronunciation because she is their ONLY customer, and took French in high school.  I prefer exposing the direct, racist implications of Darque Tan in my pronunciation, calling it, "Darkie Tan."  How does Darque Tan make its rent (which surely must be 10,000 dollars a square foot per month)?  Drugs? Human Trafficking?  I'm promised by the media that these businesses make up the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles, and Darque Tan has the requisite closed-circuit television, obvious lack of customers, odd hours, and suspicious name.  Is there a basement, where a fat man is bound and gagged, a red rubber ball stuffed in his mouth?  Darque Tan can't be a leader in pornography or guns because Van Nuys already dominates that market.  How else could miniscule Darque Tan compete with the Barney's, Tiffany's, Neeman's, and BMW dealerships of Wilshire Boulevard?

The point is this:  how are these businesses surviving when (at the risk of sounding like a fist shaker) Dutton's has lost its lease?  Mrs. Gooch's was bought out by Whole Foods (I know that was in 1993, and I should be over it by now).  And, okay, I still haven't recovered from the closing (and subsequent demolition of the historic Beverly Theater twenty years ago, and more recently Beverly Vista Elementary School.  Nor am I over the bust of a very convenient "hair salon" on Melrose that sold nothing but perfectly-rolled (but admittedly overpriced) joints when you asked for a "bottle of conditioner," winking.  Am I really nostalgic for the pre-legalization of medical marijuana?  I can't be.  I'm not the nostalgic type.  I'm a survivor after all. 

But then again, I'm very worried because of the petitions to save The Reel Inn. Is the Reel Inn in some kind of danger?  I've been signing those Reel Inn petitions for six years.  Has there been progress?  Any progress? 

On the bright side, there's The Resistance.  The Shine Gallery in Farmer's Market restores my faith in both Fairfax & Third, and humanity.  Their theme is recycled, carnival memorabilia. Everything comes in its original packaging.  

My faith in Fairfax and Third had been previously destroyed by The Grove simulacrum one day when a security officer "suggested" that my bike might be more comfortable locked in the parking lot in the designated bike parking slots, rather than attached to the fake street lamp on Main Street, Grove, USA.  

The truth is, I need EVERYTHING at The Shine Gallery, and I've only bought ten or twelve items so far, including Nixon propaganda that reads, "Lady Bird Start Packing, The Nixon's Are Coming!" and a carney name tag that reads "Butch."  They sell toy guns from before the make- toy-guns-look-like-toys-so-cops-won't-shoot-at-children mandate.  They sell used clothing from when gas station attendants wore uniforms.  Hell, from when gas station attendants existed.  And, they're STAINED uniforms.  I even need the displays that are not for sale at The Shine Gallery, those empty clown mouths that you throw bean bags in and win a prize.  Those floating ducks that you try to capture by tossing rings.  The Shine Gallery sells ALL THE PRIZES from ALL THE CARNIVALS in ALL THE WORLD.  They sell those tiny onion-looking paper things that explode when you throw them on the ground.  Thank you, Shine Gallery, for reminding us that toys were once dangerous.