October 2009 Archives
I currently reside in Los Angeles in a cozy apartment where the hygienic standard remains quite high due to the vigilant efforts of an ant colony. Camponotus modoc I believe, though my taxonomic skills are rudimentary at best. The kitchen trash can lives and teems just outside the back door and even a speck of consumable matter left unattended on a countertop is equivalent to a vellum lined invitation for an expedient infestation. These tiny cohabitants are in many ways humble, in size and ferocity, but so organized, hard-working and abundant in number that humanely containing their population is a daily chore. Lemons seem an effective deterrent. Lemons and garlic everywhere. The other day I was mincing garlic as I watched a lone forager enthusiastically charge a clove in wait. Upon making contact with the garlic, the ant turned and ran in the opposite lemon-soaked direction, clearly discombobulated by the apparent sole choice between garlic matter and lemon juice, probably feeling on an instinctive level like I feel about exercising my right to vote. The perfect workers - industrious, indomitable, unquestioning drones. Yesterday I watched an ant crawl across my leg with another, presumably dead ant in its pincers... I'm skeptical this transport of remains was for any kind of funerary rite outside of protein worship.
But here I am prattling on about bugs when there's work to be found (and lost).
The average rainfall during October in Los Angeles is .37 inches. That's less than the average quantity of spittle that's likely to make a daring exit from my mouth during the average job interview. Nevertheless, on October 13 it poured, misted, doused, came down in buckets, let up, then rained cats and dogs some more. Stubbornly, I set out on my bike enveloped in a mild mist, clad in a wimpy teal jacket and convinced that averages were on my side. It would in all probability be blazing sunny by the time I figured out which buses to take anyway.
Looking for a job in LA, I've started to artfully conceal my carlessness the same way some people dance around outright declarations of political affiliation or sexuality. It's the kind of personal fact that is strangely important to employers, many of whom want to know they can send you on totally personal errands without feeling guilty that you might break a sweat in the process.
By the time I crossed downtown and made my way to the harrowing far right lane of Firestone Blvd, I was drenched and cursing God quite vocally, with 10 or so miles still to go. All this moist blasphemy and duress wasn't even for a proper interview so to speak, but an “audition” with an after school tutoring program. Appropriately called Brain Hurricane, the steps for employment as put forth by the website were attractively simple: “After you (1) attend an audition, (2) are offered a position, and (3) complete the training, you will be ready to join the hurricane team.” 1. 2. 3. I appreciate concision. Straightforwardness.
Please. God. Anyone. Employ me.
I finally arrive at a small Pentecostal church in Downey, CA, decidedly worse for the wear. Smoothing down what went up and wringing out my entirely soaked apparel as much as possible, I enter a portable building behind the modest church, already populated by people of every age, race, and creed, who for all their differences all look like they probably drive earth-toned sedans. There are six tables with five chairs at each.
There's something about this dreary assemblage that reminds me of a funeral reception for a corporate figure. Someone no one really knew, but still has to acknowledge no longer exists, even if only conceptually. The only distinguishing factor about any of us there is a sickly stale sense of desperation. We all rise. The team leader beaming with hollow zeal, her rayon pant suit rustling unwholesomely. We are instructed to form a semi-circle around the front of the room.
There are no refreshments. No snacks. Free pens though, and plenty of.
“Okay Guys. Let's do a little introduction here.”
She turns to the person next to her, an elderly woman with a goiter on her neck, and says
“HiHowareyouNicetomeetyouGottaGoBye,” as one rising and falling and rising again word.
“Now you all turn to your neighbor and do this, saying HiHowareyouNicetomeetyouGottaGoBye at the same time, while shaking hands. Good that's it. Now try to 'meet' as many people as you can in 45 seconds”.
Imagine a roomful of frenzied, desperate and confused adults trying to impress someone with their ability to “meet” as many people as possible before the time expires. Greasy palms graze my own, eyes skimming from one rigorously affected smile to the next, murmurs on top of murmurs on top of vain attempts to enunciate or even understand what is the point or if this is some kind of test and if so how how do I pass.
I can't remember how many people I met, but I know I took five pens home with me.
Looking for a job in LA, I've started to artfully conceal my carlessness the same way some people dance around outright declarations of political affiliation or sexuality. It's the kind of personal fact that is strangely important to employers, many of whom want to know they can send you on totally personal errands without feeling guilty that you might break a sweat in the process.
By the time I crossed downtown and made my way to the harrowing far right lane of Firestone Blvd, I was drenched and cursing God quite vocally, with 10 or so miles still to go. All this moist blasphemy and duress wasn't even for a proper interview so to speak, but an “audition” with an after school tutoring program. Appropriately called Brain Hurricane, the steps for employment as put forth by the website were attractively simple: “After you (1) attend an audition, (2) are offered a position, and (3) complete the training, you will be ready to join the hurricane team.” 1. 2. 3. I appreciate concision. Straightforwardness.
Please. God. Anyone. Employ me.
I finally arrive at a small Pentecostal church in Downey, CA, decidedly worse for the wear. Smoothing down what went up and wringing out my entirely soaked apparel as much as possible, I enter a portable building behind the modest church, already populated by people of every age, race, and creed, who for all their differences all look like they probably drive earth-toned sedans. There are six tables with five chairs at each.
There's something about this dreary assemblage that reminds me of a funeral reception for a corporate figure. Someone no one really knew, but still has to acknowledge no longer exists, even if only conceptually. The only distinguishing factor about any of us there is a sickly stale sense of desperation. We all rise. The team leader beaming with hollow zeal, her rayon pant suit rustling unwholesomely. We are instructed to form a semi-circle around the front of the room.
There are no refreshments. No snacks. Free pens though, and plenty of.
“Okay Guys. Let's do a little introduction here.”
She turns to the person next to her, an elderly woman with a goiter on her neck, and says
“HiHowareyouNicetomeetyouGottaGoBye,” as one rising and falling and rising again word.
“Now you all turn to your neighbor and do this, saying HiHowareyouNicetomeetyouGottaGoBye at the same time, while shaking hands. Good that's it. Now try to 'meet' as many people as you can in 45 seconds”.
Imagine a roomful of frenzied, desperate and confused adults trying to impress someone with their ability to “meet” as many people as possible before the time expires. Greasy palms graze my own, eyes skimming from one rigorously affected smile to the next, murmurs on top of murmurs on top of vain attempts to enunciate or even understand what is the point or if this is some kind of test and if so how how do I pass.
I can't remember how many people I met, but I know I took five pens home with me.
Imagine you're having a bad dream. Not an over-the-top, watching-your-own-dear-dad-skin-the-family-pet-alive-while-mom-undresses-you-and-laughs-at-your-hidden-reptilian-scales sort of nightmare, but more like a slow burn, naked-at-school/ulcer-at-25 run of the mill anxiety dream.
Here I am... giving a tour of a place I've never really been to in a language I don't really speak. Even if I have something descriptive and informative to say, (which isn't all that often, believe you me), I'm incapable of proper phrasing and inflection. The words come out in a forced, mechanical gurgle as my small lexical reservoir constantly recycles itself like the motorized filter on a woefully neglected fish tank. On account of some technical difficulties for which I feel pretty certain I can't be blamed, the microphone I'm practically shouting garbled factoids in to does not amplify sound in the normal way, adding insult to injurious syntax. My role/gender/nationality is at times unclear, though I get the distinct impression I'm supposed to be in charge and that these people are relying on me even though clearly, I have no idea what is going on or even how I got here.
Not to imply I was wholly unprepared. I got shingles in 6th grade for Christssake. Anxiety is like, my grandmother's maiden name. There was a phone call two days prior, a panicked Southern accent offering a tenuous but clearly desperate solicitation for someone of exactly my famed socio-historic-linguistic expertise. I enthusiastically agree to help the panicked voice of sub-Mason-Dixonian origin, benevolently smiling in to the receiver and pirouetting around the room in a state of morbid excitement. I love a challenge.
The voice gratefully consents to pay handsomely for services rendered. Its in a bind you see, and not in any position to be choosy, or even curious as to my qualifications. Without yours truly the voice is screwed. Following a terrific outpouring of professional niceties, the line goes dead. There's about 30 seconds where this shit-eating grin just won't recede, though the pirouettes lose steam quickly. Plopping down at the kitchen table, I am determined to think this through, to triumph in the face of a pretty painfully obvious crime.
Historically, the public library is a no miss bastion of confidence-instilling educational materials. I feel hopeful. Squinting at the sun as I pedal downtown, I'm determined like so many fools before me to learn everything I need to know from books. Pouring through the catalog, then the stacks, I leave the Recreation and History Departments well armed: Hollywood - A Movie Lovers Guide, Architectural Tours of Hollywood and Beverly Hills, Huell Howell's California Gold: A History of the Hollywood Sign on DVD, and a dog-eared copy of Katzner's trusted Russian-English Dictionary. Firmly convinced that in 48 hours time I will be certifiably infallible in regard to the socio-historic linguistic subject matter at hand - I'm naively brave at best, and at worst - a self-obliterating idiot.
I study the materials tirelessly, mapping a route and then committing all the major architectural and anecdotal commentary to memory. The high gloss photos and maps in the Architectural Guide are particularly appreciated by a student of my calibrated ignorance. I consult the trusted Katzner's for any unavoidable phrases not already ensnared by my steel bear trap of an intellect, marking stress and printing very boldly in the margins of a humble notebook.
Not altogether oblivious to the fact that experience is the best teacher, I take a dry run of the route detailed by the Voice's email account, reciting the newly acquired facts about the landscape in an authoritative, yet genteel voice. I'm cursory, but clearly knowledgeable; funny, but seriously engaged. Who would ever guess this is my first trip to Hollywood?
I smirk most unbecomingly. Self-congratulations are in order. A little preemptive own-horn tooting. In 24 hours I've cultivated a body of knowledge designed to hoodwink even the fool-hardiest Ivan Ivanovich. I'm tired. Yawning, I'm prepared to sleep perchance to dream of Russian intellectuals careening through Hollywood at my misdirection.
Then like clockwork, the time is nigh. Regretting that last minute strawberry milkshake and cheeseburger combo, I climb in to a bed of my own making. The bed is more precisely, a bus -- well, even more exactly, a fancy fiber optically enhanced limousine externally masquerading as a bus.
Distinctly foreign forms bisected by bulging fanny packs line the gently serpentining fine leather seats. Beverages are complimentary, but pretty moot since I can barely manage to pack away my own abundant saliva. Seated at the front and facing the right side, my neck aches from trying to make eye contact with the passengers and look out through the front cabin in graceless alternation.
I space my scant en route socio-historic-linguistic knowledge out as much as possible, leaving plenty of room for the occupants to chat amongst themselves. At one point I might even say, “Will be a long ride, 30 40 minutes to Hollywood, enjoy quiet now”, which gets a few laughs, because they think its a joke.
The unspoken pressure is building. One of Them, a red-headed fellow whose name is Dima or Kostya or something other than Boris offers a little pointed levity:
In Russian: “A professional translator goes to a professional conference. He stands up to introduce himself. My name is Dima or Kostya or something other than Boris and I speak five languages fluently: Chinese, Italian, Japanese, French and German.” Then in thickly accented English: “I'm so happy to be here. Nice to meet you all”. Then in Russian again: “His colleagues respond- 'But Kostya or Dima or whatever, that was English'. The translator smiles, 'Okay, then six languages'”.
As the fiber optic dream machine rolls off the 101 down Hollywood Blvd, I tentatively cough into the mike and launch in to a meticulously prepared blurb about the conservative origins of the city, which was originally founded as a Methodist enclave away from the iniquitous goings on of Los Angeles proper. Though less than riveting, at the moment I'm overcoming some fairly obvious shortcomings with a sort of distinctly American naivete, which tends to be very effective in Slav-saturated social situations.
After all, its not like this is some nightmare where I have to speak Swahili to Margaret Thatcher's vagina in front of a Quaker community action committee - this is anxiety realized in a much more subtle, fatally life-like form. I can feel it in my bones, I can even feel it in Their bones. In some past life I really could speak passable, quirky Russian to a person or even a small group of persons.
But conversational fluency should really be called platitudinal fluency. Most people labor under the self-congratulatory misapprehension that polite conversations are interactive: the content original or at least potentially original. They are artfully oblivious to the monopoly of prescribed verbal constructions, which allow a listener to read the intonations and eyebrows of the speaker as much as their words, all too often responding completely in stock phrases. At present, I'm in no shape for a center of attention, Queen of the Sovereign Nation of Bullshitostan type foreign language sitch.
Still, thanks to the previous day's cram session, I know some things about very specific places as they are perceived according to a very specific line of progression. Unfortunately, I know basically nothing about any person/place/thing existing outside of these very narrow confines. My real undoing is not just the surreal circumstances alone, but a soul-crushing snafu I did not predict. They decide to forgo part of the original route, so as to skip Larry King's neighborhood and get a close up view of the Hollywood Sign. For me, this pretty plainly spells Big Mess on the hillside.
Desperately, I point out a randomly selected Spanish style apartment building and lie quite poorly, but with admirable conviction:
“Carol Burnett rented a room there during young time. Judy Garland also young lived through the street from the left side of the bus.”
Stupid American. Not only do I lie, but I misspeak atrociously and pick relatively obscure, dead or nearly so celebrities. I only get a few approving eyebrow smirks from the under 35 constituency when I point to a fairly unremarkable parking lot and gargle:
“And to left you'll see a lot for cars over a night club once had Britney Spears accidentally showed too much of herself Lamborghini of exit”.
The jostle of the bus works in vile cahoots with 15 narrowing sets of Soviet educated eyes, unraveling my generally indomitable poise and contributing to one increasingly unpleasant gastric-intestinal outlook.
The bus ominously ascends in to uncharted territory: Griffith Park, the name of which I announce boisterously along with its spatial relation to the bus, but then volunteer no additional information. At that moment, even the sound of crickets would have been an aural kindness outside of karmically conceivable scope. The Observatory in sight, I wait until the last second to incorrectly boom the one half-fact I could possibly muster about the area:
“Famous American film James Dean actor Rebel Without a Cause at the end goes out of his mind at the world famous Observatory from the right hillsides”.
As They unload for a hilltop photo-op, I run to the public restroom, clutching a purse where I have secreted away the Movie Lovers Guide Book. Out of sheer nervous guilt, I turn on the sink full-blast, presumably to hide the sound of my burning anxiety. Table of Contents... Chapter 10.... Griffith Park.... Shit. Shit. Shit.
I find myself wishing there was not just an iron curtain between me and these attentive sock and sandal loving tourists, but a titanium reinforced steel vault door, the combination to which is only known by a hapless technician, who has sadly but conveniently been sequestered for a merciless top secret experiment involving cryogenic freezing.
After an interminable silence down an interminable stretch of Californian consumer depravity, I see hope in the form of a recognizable street. I instruct the driver, a kind Slovakian with a nose that looks like its spent more time broken than not,
“Turn left and please it would help me out a lot and for Gods sake get back on to the Sunset Strip then to Rodeo Drive”.
Milyosha has been a big help throughout the journey, besides the fact that it was his big bright idea to change the route in the first place. Sensing my subsequent ignorance and feeling what appears to be compassion, he periodically whispers things from the corner of his mouth, like "Such and such place is coming up and you should them such and such things about it". He is mercy incarnate, though strangely insistent that I disseminate certain superfluous reflections, which clearly emanate from his own inestimable experiences as a bus driver. For example, when we drive by the Beverly Hills Police Department, an ornate art deco palace, he adamantly requests that I translate his witticism:
“This building looks beautiful from the outside, but you don't want to see it from the inside.”
Though I tacitly decline to translate, already emotionally decimated and clearly on the outs with my audience, he repeats himself ever more forcefully until They are all staring at me expectantly and I can't avoid relaying the broken joke:
“From out its beauty, from in its bad to see.”
The final sight is the ultra-swank Beverly Wilshire Hotel.
“Straight front of us we see the hotel in where Richard Gere and Julia Roberts made and lived famous world renowned American film Pretty Woman. Very luxurious, well-known hotel for stars and rich people now from the right. Exclusive and pink.”
The bus turns left on to Wilshire. A shell of my waking self, I do what any logical meta-tour guide does when in way over their socio-historic-linguistic heads: I flee the bus.
Tight-jawed and sweaty, I'm caught in the purgatorial space between sleep and waking where the illusion of lucid choice seems to present itself just within reach, but I know from books this is merely the vindictive taunt of a higher power or pleasure principle or what have you.
Fully awakening somewhat disoriented on the very public corner of Wilshire and La Cienega Blvds, I realize to much dismay that I don't have any money for the bus fare back home.
Here I am... giving a tour of a place I've never really been to in a language I don't really speak. Even if I have something descriptive and informative to say, (which isn't all that often, believe you me), I'm incapable of proper phrasing and inflection. The words come out in a forced, mechanical gurgle as my small lexical reservoir constantly recycles itself like the motorized filter on a woefully neglected fish tank. On account of some technical difficulties for which I feel pretty certain I can't be blamed, the microphone I'm practically shouting garbled factoids in to does not amplify sound in the normal way, adding insult to injurious syntax. My role/gender/nationality is at times unclear, though I get the distinct impression I'm supposed to be in charge and that these people are relying on me even though clearly, I have no idea what is going on or even how I got here.
Not to imply I was wholly unprepared. I got shingles in 6th grade for Christssake. Anxiety is like, my grandmother's maiden name. There was a phone call two days prior, a panicked Southern accent offering a tenuous but clearly desperate solicitation for someone of exactly my famed socio-historic-linguistic expertise. I enthusiastically agree to help the panicked voice of sub-Mason-Dixonian origin, benevolently smiling in to the receiver and pirouetting around the room in a state of morbid excitement. I love a challenge.
The voice gratefully consents to pay handsomely for services rendered. Its in a bind you see, and not in any position to be choosy, or even curious as to my qualifications. Without yours truly the voice is screwed. Following a terrific outpouring of professional niceties, the line goes dead. There's about 30 seconds where this shit-eating grin just won't recede, though the pirouettes lose steam quickly. Plopping down at the kitchen table, I am determined to think this through, to triumph in the face of a pretty painfully obvious crime.
Historically, the public library is a no miss bastion of confidence-instilling educational materials. I feel hopeful. Squinting at the sun as I pedal downtown, I'm determined like so many fools before me to learn everything I need to know from books. Pouring through the catalog, then the stacks, I leave the Recreation and History Departments well armed: Hollywood - A Movie Lovers Guide, Architectural Tours of Hollywood and Beverly Hills, Huell Howell's California Gold: A History of the Hollywood Sign on DVD, and a dog-eared copy of Katzner's trusted Russian-English Dictionary. Firmly convinced that in 48 hours time I will be certifiably infallible in regard to the socio-historic linguistic subject matter at hand - I'm naively brave at best, and at worst - a self-obliterating idiot.
I study the materials tirelessly, mapping a route and then committing all the major architectural and anecdotal commentary to memory. The high gloss photos and maps in the Architectural Guide are particularly appreciated by a student of my calibrated ignorance. I consult the trusted Katzner's for any unavoidable phrases not already ensnared by my steel bear trap of an intellect, marking stress and printing very boldly in the margins of a humble notebook.
Not altogether oblivious to the fact that experience is the best teacher, I take a dry run of the route detailed by the Voice's email account, reciting the newly acquired facts about the landscape in an authoritative, yet genteel voice. I'm cursory, but clearly knowledgeable; funny, but seriously engaged. Who would ever guess this is my first trip to Hollywood?
I smirk most unbecomingly. Self-congratulations are in order. A little preemptive own-horn tooting. In 24 hours I've cultivated a body of knowledge designed to hoodwink even the fool-hardiest Ivan Ivanovich. I'm tired. Yawning, I'm prepared to sleep perchance to dream of Russian intellectuals careening through Hollywood at my misdirection.
Then like clockwork, the time is nigh. Regretting that last minute strawberry milkshake and cheeseburger combo, I climb in to a bed of my own making. The bed is more precisely, a bus -- well, even more exactly, a fancy fiber optically enhanced limousine externally masquerading as a bus.
Distinctly foreign forms bisected by bulging fanny packs line the gently serpentining fine leather seats. Beverages are complimentary, but pretty moot since I can barely manage to pack away my own abundant saliva. Seated at the front and facing the right side, my neck aches from trying to make eye contact with the passengers and look out through the front cabin in graceless alternation.
I space my scant en route socio-historic-linguistic knowledge out as much as possible, leaving plenty of room for the occupants to chat amongst themselves. At one point I might even say, “Will be a long ride, 30 40 minutes to Hollywood, enjoy quiet now”, which gets a few laughs, because they think its a joke.
The unspoken pressure is building. One of Them, a red-headed fellow whose name is Dima or Kostya or something other than Boris offers a little pointed levity:
In Russian: “A professional translator goes to a professional conference. He stands up to introduce himself. My name is Dima or Kostya or something other than Boris and I speak five languages fluently: Chinese, Italian, Japanese, French and German.” Then in thickly accented English: “I'm so happy to be here. Nice to meet you all”. Then in Russian again: “His colleagues respond- 'But Kostya or Dima or whatever, that was English'. The translator smiles, 'Okay, then six languages'”.
As the fiber optic dream machine rolls off the 101 down Hollywood Blvd, I tentatively cough into the mike and launch in to a meticulously prepared blurb about the conservative origins of the city, which was originally founded as a Methodist enclave away from the iniquitous goings on of Los Angeles proper. Though less than riveting, at the moment I'm overcoming some fairly obvious shortcomings with a sort of distinctly American naivete, which tends to be very effective in Slav-saturated social situations.
After all, its not like this is some nightmare where I have to speak Swahili to Margaret Thatcher's vagina in front of a Quaker community action committee - this is anxiety realized in a much more subtle, fatally life-like form. I can feel it in my bones, I can even feel it in Their bones. In some past life I really could speak passable, quirky Russian to a person or even a small group of persons.
But conversational fluency should really be called platitudinal fluency. Most people labor under the self-congratulatory misapprehension that polite conversations are interactive: the content original or at least potentially original. They are artfully oblivious to the monopoly of prescribed verbal constructions, which allow a listener to read the intonations and eyebrows of the speaker as much as their words, all too often responding completely in stock phrases. At present, I'm in no shape for a center of attention, Queen of the Sovereign Nation of Bullshitostan type foreign language sitch.
Still, thanks to the previous day's cram session, I know some things about very specific places as they are perceived according to a very specific line of progression. Unfortunately, I know basically nothing about any person/place/thing existing outside of these very narrow confines. My real undoing is not just the surreal circumstances alone, but a soul-crushing snafu I did not predict. They decide to forgo part of the original route, so as to skip Larry King's neighborhood and get a close up view of the Hollywood Sign. For me, this pretty plainly spells Big Mess on the hillside.
Desperately, I point out a randomly selected Spanish style apartment building and lie quite poorly, but with admirable conviction:
“Carol Burnett rented a room there during young time. Judy Garland also young lived through the street from the left side of the bus.”
Stupid American. Not only do I lie, but I misspeak atrociously and pick relatively obscure, dead or nearly so celebrities. I only get a few approving eyebrow smirks from the under 35 constituency when I point to a fairly unremarkable parking lot and gargle:
“And to left you'll see a lot for cars over a night club once had Britney Spears accidentally showed too much of herself Lamborghini of exit”.
The jostle of the bus works in vile cahoots with 15 narrowing sets of Soviet educated eyes, unraveling my generally indomitable poise and contributing to one increasingly unpleasant gastric-intestinal outlook.
The bus ominously ascends in to uncharted territory: Griffith Park, the name of which I announce boisterously along with its spatial relation to the bus, but then volunteer no additional information. At that moment, even the sound of crickets would have been an aural kindness outside of karmically conceivable scope. The Observatory in sight, I wait until the last second to incorrectly boom the one half-fact I could possibly muster about the area:
“Famous American film James Dean actor Rebel Without a Cause at the end goes out of his mind at the world famous Observatory from the right hillsides”.
As They unload for a hilltop photo-op, I run to the public restroom, clutching a purse where I have secreted away the Movie Lovers Guide Book. Out of sheer nervous guilt, I turn on the sink full-blast, presumably to hide the sound of my burning anxiety. Table of Contents... Chapter 10.... Griffith Park.... Shit. Shit. Shit.
I find myself wishing there was not just an iron curtain between me and these attentive sock and sandal loving tourists, but a titanium reinforced steel vault door, the combination to which is only known by a hapless technician, who has sadly but conveniently been sequestered for a merciless top secret experiment involving cryogenic freezing.
After an interminable silence down an interminable stretch of Californian consumer depravity, I see hope in the form of a recognizable street. I instruct the driver, a kind Slovakian with a nose that looks like its spent more time broken than not,
“Turn left and please it would help me out a lot and for Gods sake get back on to the Sunset Strip then to Rodeo Drive”.
Milyosha has been a big help throughout the journey, besides the fact that it was his big bright idea to change the route in the first place. Sensing my subsequent ignorance and feeling what appears to be compassion, he periodically whispers things from the corner of his mouth, like "Such and such place is coming up and you should them such and such things about it". He is mercy incarnate, though strangely insistent that I disseminate certain superfluous reflections, which clearly emanate from his own inestimable experiences as a bus driver. For example, when we drive by the Beverly Hills Police Department, an ornate art deco palace, he adamantly requests that I translate his witticism:
“This building looks beautiful from the outside, but you don't want to see it from the inside.”
Though I tacitly decline to translate, already emotionally decimated and clearly on the outs with my audience, he repeats himself ever more forcefully until They are all staring at me expectantly and I can't avoid relaying the broken joke:
“From out its beauty, from in its bad to see.”
The final sight is the ultra-swank Beverly Wilshire Hotel.
“Straight front of us we see the hotel in where Richard Gere and Julia Roberts made and lived famous world renowned American film Pretty Woman. Very luxurious, well-known hotel for stars and rich people now from the right. Exclusive and pink.”
The bus turns left on to Wilshire. A shell of my waking self, I do what any logical meta-tour guide does when in way over their socio-historic-linguistic heads: I flee the bus.
Tight-jawed and sweaty, I'm caught in the purgatorial space between sleep and waking where the illusion of lucid choice seems to present itself just within reach, but I know from books this is merely the vindictive taunt of a higher power or pleasure principle or what have you.
Fully awakening somewhat disoriented on the very public corner of Wilshire and La Cienega Blvds, I realize to much dismay that I don't have any money for the bus fare back home.
Some serious attire-related anxiety precedes this interview. My enviable wardrobe is still located in Brooklyn, while my person is decidedly in Los Angeles, making options pretty scant, shoes being the most damning deficiency. I go to Ross, hoping to dress for less. I buy the single pair of even remotely appropriate dress shoes in my size. I have long feet. I will not admit to having large feet. They bear an unsettling resemblance to super-sized strips of uncooked bacon: long, thin and nearly translucent in the sun. The shoes themselves remind me of the sort of stock footwear 8-10 y/o girls wear to Methodist Sunday School. But given my pecuniary restraints, they'll have to do. I briefly consider a few irregular skirt suits, which line the Misses Section racks with the ominous, yet still somehow impotent authority only business professional clothing can exude. I decide against accruing more credit card debt to purchase an irregular rayon ensemble. Mentally, I'm opting for an understated cowl neck teal dress my loving mother sent me recently, bearing the sweet but vague card, “Happy Fall!”
The day of the interview I shower meticulously, as though the interrogation won't be strictly intellectual. Everything looks to be in order, only the dress is shorter than I remembered. I feel a bit more like a partially defrocked sexualized Druid than a burgeoning account executive. I attempt to add leggings and then black cigarette pants underneath -- the results wholly unsatisfying and altogether too older-second-cousin-at-Thanksgivingy for my liking. I even go so far as to pose for a few self-timer photo shots in the doorway, to get a less corporeally confined perspective on the whole loose jersey floating well above the knee dilemma. Non-plussed and confirmed in my suspicions of sexy cultishness, I decide a drastic change in aesthetic strategy is in order. I pull out some trusted (though woefully faded) designer trousers and a men's button up western shirt with the sort of collar that demands popping. Then the cherry of the new vision: a navy micro-pinstriped men's suit jacket. In 45 or so deliberative seconds I've gone completely androgenous. I add a pendant to the suits lapel, just in case they forget I'm a lady, and to be double plus sure, the whole thing is bottomed off with black-patten and buckle little girl shoes. I'm not exactly what you would call satisfied with the ensemble, but at least I'm no longer imagining the first thing they say to me as, “Nice gams toots!”.
On the bus an attractive suited man with striking hazel eyes very politely asks if he can sit next to me, even though there are plenty of empties lining the 720 Rapid Metro. This is a good sign. I feel understated and sensible, but clearly still in possession of indispensable mate-alluring feminine flair, an essential for any woman who wants to penetrate a boys club and not the other way around.
I get there early. My cheap shoes are already cutting the bejeezus out of my heels. I take them off and stroll around the block barefooted, trying to sync my erratic heart-beat up with the soft padded rhythm of my feet hitting the cement. It occurs to me that in New York I'd never walk around barefoot, no matter how fancy the neighborhood, but for some reason in Mid-Wilshire the threat of broken glass and bodily fluids seems less imminent. After a leisurely turn around the block I'm only 15 minutes early so I decide to go on up and brave the reception area for a while if necessary.
The office is unsettlingly empty. A single distant voice can be heard having a low-tone pretty clearly personal conversation in the farthest reaches, but I don't call out or even consider it. I do a meditative turn around the waiting area, which is generic, lined with yellow ochre micro-suede couches. Two perfect fans of Picture magazine radiate from the glass coffee table. I take a seat, concentrating hard on my heartbeat. So far, no signs of life, outside of the distant deeply engaged voice.
A vaguely European looking older man enters, glances dismissively in my direction and barely grunts in response to my tenuous 'Hello'. He goes in to an office, unlocking the door first. A flash of dread crosses my mind as I consider the probability he'll be the interviewer. So far, the portents are as they say, auspiciously bad.
The sound of high heels approaching on industrial carpet. The kind of heels that hunt down baby seals by smell alone. A young woman enters, wearing tailored business shorts (a trend I hate), a short sleeve white blouse and a very feminine black silk vest. She's definitely like, textbook hot. The shark sticks terminates near the reception desk and she starts emitting these chirping sounds I assume are salutations. I can hear the Euro man shuffling out from behind his desk, like an aged but avid specimen responding to what may be the last mating call he'll ever get.
“Hi. I'm here to check on your equipment?” She cheeps (and as far as I can tell, without irony).
(Prefaced by stereotypical disgusting French male laugh) “And who are you my lovely lady? And what is zis about checking my equipment?”
He practically runs over to her, his perfectly starched pot belly jouncing along. He takes her arm in his and and leads her back to his office without really waiting for a response.
Okay, so she's clearly here in some professional capacity to check on 'ze equipment', but he's fawning all the same, asking if she models and where. She giggles and says some stuff like she used to model, but its 1 in a million, BCBG, some other unintelligible chirps.
They walk back across my view, presumably to scope out ze equipment. He's now touching the small of her back. He starts asking her all sorts of unnerving little inane personal questions, eventually leading her back to his Corner office and offering her a seat. Ever so often his cell phone rings. He answers at least 3 different calls, his response is scarily formulaic:
"Allo?"
"..."
"Just cut ze bullshit and tell me what you want".
"..."
"Call me back when you are ready to cut ze bullshit."
I hear her voice from the office. “Well, its not my dream job, but I'm a working type girl,” (Again, no irony), “I just love working.”
“My dear, ze ting is, someone as beayuuutiful as yourself should be able to use zis beauty, it is a rare gift...”
(Followed by more unintelligible fawning and chirps of pleasure).
“No really, you, and I hope you will forgive me for saying zis, but you have a lovely butt.”
(Embarrassed but clearly edified chirping).
So now I'm trying not to listen, intentionally depriving myself of what is basically comedic gold because I've noticed a distinct correlation between my attention to their exchange and the profusion of sweat accumulating on my nose.
Male footsteps on industrial carpet. A well-dressed, middle-aged man enters, his crisp striped shirt unbuttoned one too many. He greets me warmly, we exchange palm sweat. I'm shown to the conference room, which as luck would have it, abuts the Frenchman's office with wide open, double glass doors. Buttoned-Down Greg immediately goes to close them, mildly muffling the still full-scale fawn-n-chirp-a-thon underway within. Monsieur gets up from his desk, his whole body visible as he pops his head through the ajar glass door.
“I prefer zis one.” He smirks, looking at me even more disdainfully and pointing to the I guess, like empirically hotter chick.
My face must have momentarily betrayed me before I could artfully apply my most forced, acerbic smile, instantly selected from a whole reservoir of twisted acerbic smiles I keep on hand. Gregory and his buttons look mortified, watching me. My butt feels bad about itself, while my head is outraged and indignant. It keeps smiling like a slighted idiot, the head that is. The butt is definitely frowning, in its own buttish way. In mocking recognition of his colossal rudeness to me and all my physical constituents, Monsieur Jacques Ass then offers a light apology,
“I only joke,” then (as if he needed to up the grossness ante any more), winks at the preferred damsel, who is not ever there to interview for the job I'm clearly qualified for.
At this moment, I feel pretty painfully angry with myself for so much attire-related anxiety, what with the legs and the suits and the little girl shoes, into which I can literally feel the blood from my heels pooling -- all in some futile effort to ensure respect in a male-dominated potential workplace, all the while forgetting they wouldn't respect me now matter how I dressed. They might flatter me if I'd gone the leggy route, or in this case, humiliate me for modest plainness. But I'm mad at myself because once again, I've been soul-crushingly naive about relations with the opposite sex.
Now, I'm imaging the Monsieur reading this. I can see his pock-marked little face scrunching up in to a disgusting nasal laugh. I imagine him saying, "She wouldn't have written zis if the Monsieur had fawned all over her instead of ze goddess. She is just ze poor jealous woman". Then I imagine the hot chick sucking his dick, greying pubes spilling out around her perfectly formed mouth, her eyes inexpressibly sad as she regrets looking up over his well-nourished torso. I imagine her feeling just as uncomfortable as I do, but in some socially ingrained way, also hollowly victorious.
The moment distends awkwardly. Greg and his buttons jump ship, go to the bathroom, do a line, call mom, Leave the Room, whatever. I'm left there to serenely gaze in to the Monsieur's office, which I'm facing, trying to look unflappable and classy.
Greg returns after an unpleasant period of time ,still unbuttoned, but with another higher-up in tow.
They are looking for a self-starter, a jack of all trades sales/admin team member. They keep using the term, “point person,” which makes me visualize myself standing in the middle of this Roman coliseum while 10,000 men point and laugh at me.
I keep it admirably together, talk about myself with alternating gravity and levity. I sell my personality, (especially since we've already established I'm not much in the looks department). At some point I'm pretty sure I actually say I have a “semblance of expertise,” without irony.
The second man looks to have full body eczema and a rodent-like face covered in freckles. There's almost no indentation between his nose and his bulging blue eyes. When he looks at me I feel like we've met before, at maybe like, a family reunion.
The thing wraps up nice and neat. My horn has been full hilt tooted. As I'm walked out by Greg and his Buttons, he apologizes for the Monsieur's behavior sheepishly, offering the lame excuse, “He's French”.
There are a myriad of terribly witty, bone-cutting I-Should-Have-Saids that I wish I could put here without lying to you and myself.
Instead I stiffly respond, just a little too loudly, “My sense of humor is not altogether undeveloped,” which judging by the look on his face, was not the right thing to say.
The day of the interview I shower meticulously, as though the interrogation won't be strictly intellectual. Everything looks to be in order, only the dress is shorter than I remembered. I feel a bit more like a partially defrocked sexualized Druid than a burgeoning account executive. I attempt to add leggings and then black cigarette pants underneath -- the results wholly unsatisfying and altogether too older-second-cousin-at-Thanksgivingy for my liking. I even go so far as to pose for a few self-timer photo shots in the doorway, to get a less corporeally confined perspective on the whole loose jersey floating well above the knee dilemma. Non-plussed and confirmed in my suspicions of sexy cultishness, I decide a drastic change in aesthetic strategy is in order. I pull out some trusted (though woefully faded) designer trousers and a men's button up western shirt with the sort of collar that demands popping. Then the cherry of the new vision: a navy micro-pinstriped men's suit jacket. In 45 or so deliberative seconds I've gone completely androgenous. I add a pendant to the suits lapel, just in case they forget I'm a lady, and to be double plus sure, the whole thing is bottomed off with black-patten and buckle little girl shoes. I'm not exactly what you would call satisfied with the ensemble, but at least I'm no longer imagining the first thing they say to me as, “Nice gams toots!”.
On the bus an attractive suited man with striking hazel eyes very politely asks if he can sit next to me, even though there are plenty of empties lining the 720 Rapid Metro. This is a good sign. I feel understated and sensible, but clearly still in possession of indispensable mate-alluring feminine flair, an essential for any woman who wants to penetrate a boys club and not the other way around.
I get there early. My cheap shoes are already cutting the bejeezus out of my heels. I take them off and stroll around the block barefooted, trying to sync my erratic heart-beat up with the soft padded rhythm of my feet hitting the cement. It occurs to me that in New York I'd never walk around barefoot, no matter how fancy the neighborhood, but for some reason in Mid-Wilshire the threat of broken glass and bodily fluids seems less imminent. After a leisurely turn around the block I'm only 15 minutes early so I decide to go on up and brave the reception area for a while if necessary.
The office is unsettlingly empty. A single distant voice can be heard having a low-tone pretty clearly personal conversation in the farthest reaches, but I don't call out or even consider it. I do a meditative turn around the waiting area, which is generic, lined with yellow ochre micro-suede couches. Two perfect fans of Picture magazine radiate from the glass coffee table. I take a seat, concentrating hard on my heartbeat. So far, no signs of life, outside of the distant deeply engaged voice.
A vaguely European looking older man enters, glances dismissively in my direction and barely grunts in response to my tenuous 'Hello'. He goes in to an office, unlocking the door first. A flash of dread crosses my mind as I consider the probability he'll be the interviewer. So far, the portents are as they say, auspiciously bad.
The sound of high heels approaching on industrial carpet. The kind of heels that hunt down baby seals by smell alone. A young woman enters, wearing tailored business shorts (a trend I hate), a short sleeve white blouse and a very feminine black silk vest. She's definitely like, textbook hot. The shark sticks terminates near the reception desk and she starts emitting these chirping sounds I assume are salutations. I can hear the Euro man shuffling out from behind his desk, like an aged but avid specimen responding to what may be the last mating call he'll ever get.
“Hi. I'm here to check on your equipment?” She cheeps (and as far as I can tell, without irony).
(Prefaced by stereotypical disgusting French male laugh) “And who are you my lovely lady? And what is zis about checking my equipment?”
He practically runs over to her, his perfectly starched pot belly jouncing along. He takes her arm in his and and leads her back to his office without really waiting for a response.
Okay, so she's clearly here in some professional capacity to check on 'ze equipment', but he's fawning all the same, asking if she models and where. She giggles and says some stuff like she used to model, but its 1 in a million, BCBG, some other unintelligible chirps.
They walk back across my view, presumably to scope out ze equipment. He's now touching the small of her back. He starts asking her all sorts of unnerving little inane personal questions, eventually leading her back to his Corner office and offering her a seat. Ever so often his cell phone rings. He answers at least 3 different calls, his response is scarily formulaic:
"Allo?"
"..."
"Just cut ze bullshit and tell me what you want".
"..."
"Call me back when you are ready to cut ze bullshit."
I hear her voice from the office. “Well, its not my dream job, but I'm a working type girl,” (Again, no irony), “I just love working.”
“My dear, ze ting is, someone as beayuuutiful as yourself should be able to use zis beauty, it is a rare gift...”
(Followed by more unintelligible fawning and chirps of pleasure).
“No really, you, and I hope you will forgive me for saying zis, but you have a lovely butt.”
(Embarrassed but clearly edified chirping).
So now I'm trying not to listen, intentionally depriving myself of what is basically comedic gold because I've noticed a distinct correlation between my attention to their exchange and the profusion of sweat accumulating on my nose.
Male footsteps on industrial carpet. A well-dressed, middle-aged man enters, his crisp striped shirt unbuttoned one too many. He greets me warmly, we exchange palm sweat. I'm shown to the conference room, which as luck would have it, abuts the Frenchman's office with wide open, double glass doors. Buttoned-Down Greg immediately goes to close them, mildly muffling the still full-scale fawn-n-chirp-a-thon underway within. Monsieur gets up from his desk, his whole body visible as he pops his head through the ajar glass door.
“I prefer zis one.” He smirks, looking at me even more disdainfully and pointing to the I guess, like empirically hotter chick.
My face must have momentarily betrayed me before I could artfully apply my most forced, acerbic smile, instantly selected from a whole reservoir of twisted acerbic smiles I keep on hand. Gregory and his buttons look mortified, watching me. My butt feels bad about itself, while my head is outraged and indignant. It keeps smiling like a slighted idiot, the head that is. The butt is definitely frowning, in its own buttish way. In mocking recognition of his colossal rudeness to me and all my physical constituents, Monsieur Jacques Ass then offers a light apology,
“I only joke,” then (as if he needed to up the grossness ante any more), winks at the preferred damsel, who is not ever there to interview for the job I'm clearly qualified for.
At this moment, I feel pretty painfully angry with myself for so much attire-related anxiety, what with the legs and the suits and the little girl shoes, into which I can literally feel the blood from my heels pooling -- all in some futile effort to ensure respect in a male-dominated potential workplace, all the while forgetting they wouldn't respect me now matter how I dressed. They might flatter me if I'd gone the leggy route, or in this case, humiliate me for modest plainness. But I'm mad at myself because once again, I've been soul-crushingly naive about relations with the opposite sex.
Now, I'm imaging the Monsieur reading this. I can see his pock-marked little face scrunching up in to a disgusting nasal laugh. I imagine him saying, "She wouldn't have written zis if the Monsieur had fawned all over her instead of ze goddess. She is just ze poor jealous woman". Then I imagine the hot chick sucking his dick, greying pubes spilling out around her perfectly formed mouth, her eyes inexpressibly sad as she regrets looking up over his well-nourished torso. I imagine her feeling just as uncomfortable as I do, but in some socially ingrained way, also hollowly victorious.
The moment distends awkwardly. Greg and his buttons jump ship, go to the bathroom, do a line, call mom, Leave the Room, whatever. I'm left there to serenely gaze in to the Monsieur's office, which I'm facing, trying to look unflappable and classy.
Greg returns after an unpleasant period of time ,still unbuttoned, but with another higher-up in tow.
They are looking for a self-starter, a jack of all trades sales/admin team member. They keep using the term, “point person,” which makes me visualize myself standing in the middle of this Roman coliseum while 10,000 men point and laugh at me.
I keep it admirably together, talk about myself with alternating gravity and levity. I sell my personality, (especially since we've already established I'm not much in the looks department). At some point I'm pretty sure I actually say I have a “semblance of expertise,” without irony.
The second man looks to have full body eczema and a rodent-like face covered in freckles. There's almost no indentation between his nose and his bulging blue eyes. When he looks at me I feel like we've met before, at maybe like, a family reunion.
The thing wraps up nice and neat. My horn has been full hilt tooted. As I'm walked out by Greg and his Buttons, he apologizes for the Monsieur's behavior sheepishly, offering the lame excuse, “He's French”.
There are a myriad of terribly witty, bone-cutting I-Should-Have-Saids that I wish I could put here without lying to you and myself.
Instead I stiffly respond, just a little too loudly, “My sense of humor is not altogether undeveloped,” which judging by the look on his face, was not the right thing to say.
