Sonicrusk Blog

My friend Yomama and I have birthdays in consecutive months. Mine comes first, so one year she bought me a gift certificate to the Valley Plaza as a gift. The next month for her birthday, I got her the exact same thing for the exact same amount. No gift exchange since, and that’s cool.

Part of me wonders whether or not buying gifts for birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays isn’t some big swindle. It really is all like the aforementioned birthday gift exchange, isn’t it? Mom spends a hundred bucks to buy me something, I spend a hundred bucks to buy Mom something, and we are each out a hundred bucks except now with two pieces of merchandise between us.

I didn’t get Yomama the exact same gift of a gift certificate to be a smart aleck or as any type of protest. I always get gift certificates as gifts. You can’t go wrong if you get them from the right places. There are certain restaurants and stores here in town that everyone likes. You can get a gift certificate from one of them and be set. Actually, it is impossible to fuck up gift certificates unless you get one for Bob’s Meat Emporium for a vegetarian, or Berean’s Christian Bookstore for a Muslim. I’m pretty bad at buying gifts. I rarely gamble.  I bought some T-shirts for my dad one year, and have bought DVDs a couple of times.

This past Thanksgiving, I woke up just in time to take a shower and rush over for dinner at 3PM. Afterwards, my family adjourned to the backyard where we conversed around a fire for hours. That is what holidays should be about. Compulsory gift buying stresses everyone out if you have no imagination or talent for it like me.

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A post from thirty seconds ago reminded me of something that happened, well, yesterday.

I was riding to a family dinner with my sister and pseudo brother-in-law. He kept singing a jingle from a Bakersfield business that I haven’t heard in a while but that I know well and will never forget, even if I am ninety-years-old living in Zaire.

“When you think of love, think Rogers.”

Argh, jingles! They stick to your brain like peanut butter. I tried to prompt him into Dueling Bakersfield Jingles.

“Rollin’rollin’, to the sounds of travellin’ music! Trans Lex really makes it happen!”

“IT’S A SOUND IDEA!”

He came back with:

“Take a fast trip to the Fastrip!”

We spouted out a couple of more before I petered out with

“Carpet Outlet Plu-uh-uh-us, every day is sale day!”

There are more, but I dare not sing them, even internally. “When you think of comfort, and economy too, you’ll find them at Econo Air.”
What else? Help me torture myself.

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I rarely get a chance to eat at Bill Lee’s Bamboo Chopsticks. When I was a kid,  I used to think the name of the place was Flying Chopsticks.

“At Bill Lee’s Flying Chopsticks, where Chinese cooking is an art.” GONG

That was a jingle for an old TV/radio commercial. I don’t trust my memory, so maybe it wasn’t. Anyway, I only know one person that likes to dine at Bill Lee’s, my friend Yomama. Everyone else just prefers somewhere else, or doesn’t like Chinese food.

Bill Lee’s kind of has a classy décor with subdued gray coloring on the walls. I like the bar. All I drink there are mai tais, which come in an emasculating ceramic cup shaped like a coconut with a bright paper mache umbrella poking out of the top. They do  pack a wallop that can rival any other drink in Bakersfield. Pure alcoholic gasoline mixed in a Cherry Slurpee.

When I eat at Bill Lee’s, I get the Combination Dinner because that is what Yomama gets and it tastes damn good. It consists of sweet and sour pork, chow mein, fried rice, and maybe something else that I do not remember. A couple things are for sure: the meal tastes good and is plentiful. It usually lasts me for two full servings.

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There was a lot of talk last week about another set of dollar coins being introduced by the US Mint. The new coins will feature past presidents on the front in yearly sets of four. This is after dollar coins featuring Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea.

Dollar coins don’t bother me. I can see the utility in them and kind of think they are cool. I’m neither a stripper nor a food server so I rarely have more than five $1 bills in my pocket. I would never let it go higher than that if they were coins instead of bills.

In Germany, if I remember correctly, they only have coins for the 1 and 5 Deutsch Mark. Every European country that I have visited has been similar when it comes to low denomination currency. In those countries, food servers carry around a change purse about the size of a sandwich. You pay the entire bill to them and they make change for you at the table. There is none of this back-and-forth with money, or waiting at a cash register. I think they also have automatic gratuities there.

On the day that the new set of dollar coins was revealed, news organizations reported the story with zeal. One of the common reasons reported on why dollar coins are never successful in circulation is that, when people receive them as change, they go straight into some type of piggy bank never to be seen again. 

I disagree. I think that people are afraid to give them out as change. I had a bunch many years ago, too many coins to handle, and I took them to the bank. The teller groaned in a joking manner. “I hate these things.” I guess no bank customer wants to receive dollar coins in payment.

Sometimes, if I am receiving change and I notice that the register tray has some dollar coins in it, I volunteer to the cashier to receive them as my change, to get them off of his or her hands. They are always happy. Then I take them and spend them somewhere else. I have only received a dollar coin for change one time without asking, outside of a vending machine or a post office, and that was at the Chevron Station downtown. It didn’t bother me any. Whenever I received dollar coins as payment when I was a cashier many moons ago, I would give them as change to kids because they would never complain.

What usually happens to dollar coins is not that they sit in someone’s sock drawer for eternity, it is that cashiers never give them as change. There is an abundance of dollar bills in circulation; what possible reason could you have to hand a dollar coin out as change to a customer besides just trying to get rid of them yourselves. So, dollar coins go from customer to bank to post office vending machine  and back to customer, unless someone like me gets it and hands it off to another business. Then, it is just a small interruption of the above described chain.

The US government should just make less dollar bills and more dollar coins. People would spend them just the same. Dollar bills are nothing but ratty pieces of paper anyways. They only last a few years while coins last for forty plus.

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I was my usual ranting self last June when visiting my buddy Al in Massachusetts. During one Jim Beam fueled bombast Al chuckled. “Sounds like a blog post,” he said. 

I’ve hardly posted at all recently, partly due to work and general business (that’s bizz-E-ness), but mostly due to lack of inspiration. I don’t know how it is with other bloggers, but with me, there is a small teasing nucleus of an idea. The electrons start to swirl and before I know it, a blog post develops. Then all I have to do is get it down on paper so to speak and publish it.

None of these post nuclei have formed. Life I suppose has been mundane. Of course, I could always go to CNN.com and daily pick some human-interest story to write about. Ooh, Kramer said the N word! But whether you are blogging about Iraq or denim skirts, that tease and idea formation is essential. Otherwise,  I’m sure readers can sense the lackluster of it. 

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Have you ever heard the theory that you are truly bilingual or adept if you can dream in the second language? I’ve had a few bilingual dreams in my life. The first occurred in high school.

I studied Spanish for five years during my schooling, beginning in eighth grade when I took an elective class in the language. Then I took Spanish for four years in high school. I was damn good at it at one time, and have had entire dreams of nothing but written and spoken Spanish. I had a dream where I was trying to get from point A to point B. I have a lot of dreams like this, trying to cross town or go from one place to another without getting caught. My pursuers are never that crafty or nimble. Neither is my Spanish, but I can still get by.

I studied Russian in the army for forty-seven weeks and was damn good at that language too. I could go on dates with Russian girls when I visited St. Petersburg, Russia and get along just fine. I’ve had dreams consisting entirely of Russian as well but it has been awhile. Of all of the languages I could have learned on the Army’s dime, Russian is the only one that doesn’t have a population of native speakers here in Bakersfield. I can find someone to speak Persian-Farsi, Korean, or Arabic with. Hell, I worked with them. Anyway, because of this lack of opportunity, my Russian skills have severely deteriorated. It doesn’t help that I have to speak Spanish at work so much either.

Last week, I had a bizarre dream. It took place somewhere in Yugoslavia, a strange Slavic sounding city starting with a “W.” Wizajatne Wizatcjka – something like that. I was visiting some famous Eastern European monument that looked like a two-storied train station. It was the middle of winter because there was a  layer of thick snow on the ground. The air in my dream looked ominous and cold. There were a far amount of other “tourists” there too. I can only assume that is what I was because I was waiting in a series of lines.

I know what fragments of memory my mind cherry-picked to formulate this dream. There was an old episode of Oprah where she visited a concentration camp in Poland, just Elie Wiesel and her, in the middle of winter. A 60 Minutes correspondent did the same thing with Mr. Wiesel if I remember correctly, again in the dead of winter. Remember when Dick Cheney visited a concentration camp in Poland with snow falling around him, a commemoration of an anniversary? The Vice President was dressed like a rabbit hunter while the rest of the visiting dignitaries wore formal black suits. Cheney wore a pile cap, galoshes, and gingham. When I first arrived in Germany, the very next day I drove on a bus for a good four hours to my permanent base, looking out the window at the bleak, cold, snowy landscape. All of these memories coalesced into this dream.

I was in Yugoslavia apparently, and in the dream believed it as fact. Why not Poland? It would’ve made more sense, considering Yugoslavia doesn’t exist anymore. Whatever the case, I spoke Russian throughout the entire dream, and appeared to be communicating quite well. I haven’t had to speak that much Russian in years, but I teletyped it out in a steady, deliberate rhythm during this imaginary instance. Rat-a-tat-tat. I was impressed with myself. Whether I was in Yugoslavia in my dream, or Poland, I knew that they would be able to understand my Russian. The languages are pretty similar.

What’s the point of this post? Well, a recounting of a crazy dream, and maybe some paltry evidence to add to the mix on the power of the human brain. That four years of Russian knowledge must be tucked in somewhere in an old, dusty axon just waiting to be of use.

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Funerals and weddings are always mentioned together for whatever reason. Both are life changing events, visited my all of your loved ones. Is that the extent of similarity? I’ve been to two weddings in my life: my dad’s second marriage in 1989 and a dippity-do wedding in Las Vegas almost five years ago. I went to my first funeral today at age 30.

It was the funeral of an old friend of the family. I was really close to her when I was a kid but hadn’t seen her since the early 90’s. She dropped dead in her kitchen suddenly a few days ago. She was only in her mid 40’s.

Word traveled through the grapevine about her passing. Upon entering the funeral home with several members of my family, there was music playing, old rock music that I remember this person liking. There were slice-of-life photos pinned to a board right outside the chapel entrance. I hadn’t seen the lady’s face in years.

Inside, I saw all of her old family members, all much older than I remember. They had all put on weight. The service started late because the mother of the deceased was running behind schedule. She came in being pushed in a wheelchair. Her daughter and the sister of the deceased pointed out an old family friend to her mother. There was a bright smile from the infirm lady and vacant eyes. Not the spry lady I remembered.

The lady minister talked for a while, fucking up a few facts. A few people stood up and told some stories. The service was paused two times so that the audience could listen to favorite songs of the deceased in silence. Some people sobbed instead.

This first funeral made me realize a few things. First, I don’t like ‘em. I’ll tell you right now; there are maybe 10 people whose funerals I would attend willingly. Don’t worry, everyone who comments on this blog that I know in real life is on that list. There are a few more whose funerals I would attend simply as a courtesy to a loved one.

Those song pauses were not appropriate. This lady was not the somber type if she was anything like I remember. In fact, I remember her telling me as a kid about her own grandmother’s funeral. It was a big party, just like she wished. If I remember correctly, the whole family went to a water park directly after the service, per Grandma’s wish. During the song interludes, the sobs increased. I wasn’t a blood relation, but I’m sure the lady wouldn’t have wanted that. The rest of the service was nice.

When I die, unless I am brutally murdered, I’ll go on record now as saying I want no somberness at my funeral. No song interludes. Keep the ball rolling. Have everyone wear a funny hat or costumes. Have them dress as characters from Deadwood. Don’t give them a chance to sob uncontrollably. Get the service out of the way and do something fun. For God’s sake, don’t show my body. That’s creepy.
 

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The election might already be stale news a mere two days later, but I slept all day yesterday. Here is a little story of my experience last Tuesday.

I went to my usual Polling Place in the Hood, a small church tucked in the barrio. I’ve had this same polling place for years now, at least since 2003 because I remember voting in the recall election in the same room.

Inside the spare room that the church uses for elections, there were about a half-dozen of the electronic voting machines near the far wall and four tables spread out near the entrance. I went to each one trying to find my name on the master list they have of all registered voters. Table A, B, C, and D. On the fourth table, they found my name on the ledger. I signed, and got my little plastic card that activates the electronic ballot.

I inserted the card into the slot located on the side of the machine and began maneuvering through the different offices and measures. I got to the candidates for Representative: Kevin McCarthy and Sharon Beery. Huh? Where’s Jim Costa? You see, he is my Congressman. The 20nd Congressional District gerrymands like an appendix down into a slice of Bakersfield to pick up all of the Latino votes so all the Democrats can vote for the Democratic incumbent. Kevin McCarthy is running for the 22th Congressional Seat being vacated by a retiring Bill Thomas. I’ve lived on the same street for five-and-a-half years. It has always been a part of the 20th district.

That’s strange, I thought. Maybe Congress gerrymanded my neighborhood into the 22th without my knowledge. I’m sure they do that type of thing all over the US without notifying constituents. The 22th district represents all of Bakersfield minus that sliver of East Bakersfield. So I continued on with my voting and went home.

At home, I called Congressman Costa’s office in D.C. They asked for my phone number and if the Bakersfield office could give me a call back once they figured out if I was in their district. A while later, a lady from Mr. Costa’s Bakersfield office gave me a call and verified that I indeed was still in the 20th district. Mr. Costa should have been on my ballot, not McCarthy and Beery. Neither one of these folks was running for my district. The Bakersfield office gave me the number to the Kern County Elections Office, and I called them.

A lady at Elections got my information and ran it into a computer before telling me that I was not in Costa’s district. Well, I told them, his office says that I am, and I have been in the 20th for five years. She stammered on for a bit, and then asked if she could have her supervisor call me back. I said sure, but never received a call from her boss.

I wanted to get this settled because a) I wanted to verify that I was still in the 20th and b) if my ballot had the wrong Congressional candidates, there must have been others at my same polling place that had the wrong candidates on their ballots. I guess I’m lucky that Jim Costa was running unopposed since I didn’t get the opportunity to cast my vote for him.

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I got my PG&E bill last week on Halloween Day. I opened it up as I went through the front door, as I always do, to avoid wincing if it is surprisingly high. I might as well get it over with.

The bill was not high. It fact, it was ridiculously low: 22 bucks.

That is the lowest utility bill I have ever received. I thought that maybe my wires were crossed with my neighbor. She said that her bill was $100, significantly lower than usual.

I talked with some folks last night, and they told me that they also received October gas and electricity bills for around the same amount as me. One of them told me that there was a special rebate going around for PG&E customers.

I checked into it on the company’s website. There was a rebate given in a magnanimous way by PG&E in response to last July’s scorching heat. If I read the website correctly, because of the heat and related high utility bills, PG&E decided to give everyone a credit for this month, 15% of July’s bill. Well, my July 2006 bill was $160, 15% of which is $24. Was my bill supposed to be for $46 this month? That’s still pretty low, but I’m not complaining.

Any other Californians have a lower than usual PG&E bill this month?

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