A Rare Case of Just Desserts

I was driving in Waterloo, New York years ago. A car pulled out in front of me badly enough that I had to lean hard on the brakes and swerve. I cursed but straightened the wheel went on my way? I tend believe car horns should be saved for emergency warnings and not used to express emotion. Down the road a ways I saw gumballs in my rear-view mirror. Oh great! What now? I pulled over but the cop roared by and promptly sped up to the guy who had pulled out in front of me and pulled him over.

The fact that I was so surprised is testament to the fact that there's never a cop around when you need one.

A few years later the California Highway Patrol drove past a car I was trying to stay away from because it was towing a torn-away gas pump handle and six feet of hose down the freeway, to stop me for speeding.

Win some, lose some... then lose some more.

There was one serendipitous little 'vengeance is mine' cookie God handed me on platter once that made up for a whole truck load off rotten tomatoes.

After I dropped out of college I worked as a general merchandise clerk at Wegmans. For those who don't know, Wegmans is an amazing chain of grocery stores in portions of the Northeast. The corporation has been rated in America's top five employers for many years (number 1 in 2005) but this was well after I worked there.

The Wegmans I worked at looked nothing like this at the time 

(now it sorta does)

Myself, I didn't enjoy my time working at Wegmans very much at all.

It wasn't Wegmans fault. Wegmans rocks! (ask anyone) I was in, shall we say, a period of transition: I was living at home. Naturally my parent's were not particularly happy that I had spent three years at a two-year school rendering zero degrees. I knew my grace period at home wouldn't be very long.

I was beginning to face the fact that success as a musician was going to be far harder and perhaps less rewarding than I had dreamed it would be. I was in a band at the time but things were not going very well.

My college girlfriend had recently moved to Georgia. She had not invited me to go with her or even to visit and it was getting harder and harder just to get a hold of her.

The job was monotonous and uninspiring. I could feel my creativity begin to shrivel every second I was there. I didn't relate to the people I was working with at all. I hated the looks on the faces of friends of my parents and parents of my friends when I saw them shopping. They couldn't hide their disappointment watching me schlep boxes and scrape price labels. Their kids were about to graduate from a 'real' school somewhere in another state. What had happened to poor, poor Joel?

Then there was the other thing...

I have always gotten along well with most everyone but there is this archetype of guy that pops up once in a while in my life that can't stand me for some reason. These dudes all seem to have the same basic appearance and personality as if there is some sort of genetic predisposition of wanting to punch me in the mouth. Or maybe it's some sort of family feud that no one's let me in on. Honestly, I don't think these guys had any more clue than I did as to why they didn't like me.

Remember "Our Gang" aka The Little Rascals? There was this one sneering tough-guy character named Butch that was a constant bur on Alfalfa's ass. He was always trying to steal Darla—Alfalfa's would be girlfriend.

"Our Gang's" 'Butch' played by Tommy Bond, 

who served in the Navy in WWII and played Jimmy Olson 

in the Superman serials of the late '40s

That's who these guys make me think of.

We'll call them that for our purposes here: “Butches”.

The undisputed king of all the 'Butches' I ever encountered was a guy I worked with at Wegmans. His name was Matt. He was a key reason I was miserable working there. Matt didn't just hate me, he seemed to enjoy the sport of it.

It was mostly little things; whenever he was around there was always some comment or insult to be endured.

One day he was in rare form. I tried not to show that it bothered me lest it prompt more abuse but I had had enough when our stock carts passed on the main aisle, I on my way back to the stock room, he on his way out. He said one stupid thing too many and then so did I.

I responded in some reactionary, threatening and poorly thought-out comeback that I can't remember. It sure had an effect on old 'Butch' though. He doubled around from another entrance to the stock room walked up to me and pushed me hard. It was put up or shut-up time.

I was terrified. I was afraid of getting fired, afraid of getting my ass kicked (I had never been in a fight), I was afraid of the confrontation, afraid of looking like a pussy, but there was one thing I was scared of more than anything else.

Myself.

Rewind to fifth grade:

There was a girl on our bus in the named Beth. Beth was a year older than I and a lot bigger and tougher than I. She more than occasionally got on my nerves. One day she was sitting directly in front of me and laying it on particularly thick for my benefit.

My little brother, who was sitting across from me remembers watching me grasp my metal “Emergency” lunch box with white knuckles and steam beginning to flow from my ears as I endured Beth's continued insults. He was thinking: “Oh man, she'd better cool it.”

I fumed and fumed until my fuse... gently... blew.

Without even knowing what was happening, I took my lunch box to a fully cocked position behind me and let fly with it at the end of my straightened arm with everything I had until the slightly embossed color images of Johnny and Roy from “Emergency” smacked down on Beth's head.

BANG!

Johnny and Roy really kicked some ass (head) that day.

Ironically, Emergency" was Beth's favorite show too.

Then, with tears of rage, embarrassment and fear flowing down my cheeks, I prepared to die.

Beth turned around in complete disbelief. She didn't kill me, I think just said “jeez!” while rubbing her head.

From that point on though, we were friends.

I wanted so badly to handle these situations differently than I was. I felt like the Not-quite-so-incredible Hulk. If someone agitated me beyond a certain point they, well “didn't like me when I was angry.”

I didn't like me either. Other than giving Beth a sore noggin, I had never hurt anyone so far and I never wanted to. I had once kicked a hole in my bedroom wall and smashed an alarm clock trying to redirect my anger from what or whom I was mad at. Even on those occasions I felt horrible afterwords.

So there I was in the stock room at the old Canandaigua Wegmans, twenty-one years old and confronted by a bully in front of several of my coworkers. I was not about to get fired or bleed for this idiot at that point so I backed down with my tail between my legs. It was a burning bitter pill to swallow.

I wished I could have just walked out of there and never gone back but had to keep on working at Wegmans and endure Matt's abuse which was, of course, even worse from that point on.

A few months later I was finally able to move to Rochester. I had several jobs that when put together I could scratch out the rent and a few groceries. I worked as a sound engineer for a handful of bands, at a group home for retarded adults and at Rochester General Hospital as an X-ray transporter on weekends and some night shifts.

RGH had at that time the busiest ER in New York State outside of New York City. They had a contract with the county sherif and city police so county jail inmates and those in police custody came into our care.

Rochester General Hospital

One such patient was an unassuming looking Hispanic guy who we brought over for a abdominal x-ray along with his deputy escort. He walked from the wheel chair to the exam table on his own power so I wasn't even sure what was wrong with him. When we put the x-ray film on the viewer, even my untrained eyes could see that something was obviously amiss.

“What's that?” I asked the x-ray tech while pointing at the long white balloon-like section of intestine.

“That's a coke condom.”

“So that's why they're x-raying him.”

“Maybe, but look at this here at the end.”

One end of the condom appeared to be broken open.

“What's that?”

“The condom’s freshly broken open.”

“How do you know it's fresh?”

“Because he's not dead.”

Twenty minutes later, as I walked past the room in the ER where they had worked on him, he was very much dead.

I saw many things at RGH. I saw bloodied faces and bodies, bones sticking out of flesh and flesh hanging off places it shouldn't be. I had to wheel bruised and battered rape victims to and from the ER and try to say things like: “I am here to take to to radiology,” and “someone will be with you in just a moment.” in such a way that somehow it might come across as: “I am so sorry this horrible thing has happened to you,” and “I'm sorry there isn't a female transporter to do this because I am pretty ashamed of my gender right now.”

I learned what drunkenness and a whole lot of other things smells like.

And, yes, I did meet people who'd put weird things stuck up their butts.

There was a routine: We'd get an x-ray requisition via vacuum tube from the ER. I'd type up the necessary documents and walk over to the ER with the paperwork in my hand.

I would make a game of trying to guess what the person would be like from the little information on their paperwork. It was surprising what kind of profile you could build up from a name and age and an injury. The time of day and week was always a factor to be considered too.

One Saturday night, or early Sunday morning, I had received a req for a mandible and right orbit x-ray for a twenty-four year-old male.

Bar fight, I figured.

Guys who win fights have boxer's fractures -a spiral-like break of the fifth metacarpal -♪ is connected to the... pinky bone ♫. If it was closer to dawn, when people start getting really stupid, boxer's fractures belong to the dude who punches a wall when he can't get let laid. We got 'em every Sunday morning, like clockwork.

The guy I was about to bring over had an injured jaw and eye but no hand x-ray had been requested. That meant he was likely the one that got his ass kicked.

There was something about that name too, why did it seem familiar?

When I entered the room, sure enough; the disheveled young man had blood stains all down the front of his torn t-shirt and reeked of alcohol. His right eye was swelling badly under an ice pack he was holding to it. I announced myself and he pulled the ice pack off his face.

It was him! Matt, the Wegmans bully, my supreme Butch.

He painfully forced a smile over his clenched bloody teeth. There was no doubt that he recognized me and my witnessing his pathetic state was painful for him.

Awe!

Then I looked down and noticed that he was handcuffed to the stretcher and that there was an officer sitting not far away.

The moment couldn't have been any sweeter if angels had begun singing “Halleluiah” right then and there.

I pitied him... not in a good way.

I wheeled his stretcher over to x-ray and returned him after he had his films done. I never said a familiar word to him the entire time. I was professional and courteous as if he was any other person.

This was my moment, and we both knew it. I could have poured salt in his wounds at any time, and we both knew it. I was the shiny red cherry sitting majestically on top of the humble pie of his shitty day and we both knew it. I was the better man and didn't take the shot that had been given to me, and we both knew it.

He had been my 'Butch', now he was my bitch.

He wasn't the last 'Butch'—dudes that inexplicably want to punch me in the mouth—I've encountered but for a long time now I haven't even thought about them. I guess I've had enough adventures in life and the love of the World's most amazing woman, that the invisible “kick me” sign that only the Butch guys could see has fallen off for good.

I barely think of old Matt whats-his-name bleeding on that stretcher, but I'll probably never forget the way I felt when he saw me standing there.

It is indeed rare, but sometimes there is a cop, not to mention a small taste of justice, when you need one.

My Rather Interesting Week

Most of the crew on that works on “Jeopardy!” also works on “Wheel of Fortune”.

By “most of” I mean: not me.

I'm not all that broken up that I don't work on 'Wheel' but I do have my moments; moments like when I hear stories from the other crew about 'Wheel' remotes -traveling to tape shows in a different city- upon their return from places like Orlando, New Orleans (they missed Katrina by a few hours) and Hawaii -twice!

Jeopardy travels much less frequently, but when we do we go to hot vacation spots like: Columbus, Ohio, Madison, Wisconsin and Yorktown Heights, New York... in the dead of winter.

That's okay though. I'll take freezy Yorktown heights over Hawaii any day...

Okay... maaaaybe that's a stretch.

I really do prefer it on three days in particular though: February 14^th, 15^th and 16^th 2011.

Here's why...

When I arrived at the T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY last Thursday, it wasn't the first time I had been there. We had installed a set of podiums and electronics a year ago to allow a team of scientists to run a series of practice games.

Practice games of what? Oh not much, just a computer that can play Jeopardy against humans.

The IBM TJ Watson Research Center, whose semi circular main hallway extends

for a third of a mile, was completed in 1961 by architect Eero Saarinen, 

who also designed the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

Both of the times that I was there, it looked more like this:

I wasn't at all intimidated by the fact that all the researchers at TJW are PHDs and that there are several Nobel laureates that have walked, and continue to walk, those halls... until someone pointed that out to me.

Some of these gifted folks had accepted what is known at IBM as a “Grand Challenge” a non-linear leap in development; basically attempting the impossible. Their goal in this case was to develop a computer that could provide answers from huge gobs of data to questions in natural language. Their goal could loosely be compared to a sort-of Star Trek computer that could parse contextual human speech, not just pile you up with tons of documents related to a keyword search, but deliver the precise and relevant information you need.

Oh, yeah and it has to be fast.

You'd think (I did) that maybe they were trying to build a better search engine for the Internet, but they have bigger fish to fry than helping me find that video of the 'dude with the thing', you know the 'round thing' with all the... and it's kinda red or something...

Though this technology could be applied to nearly any field, health care is end-use they are primarily focused on.

Why? 

Letsee... save a life/find a video of the 'dude with the thing'.

You figure it out.

In the tradition of Deep Blue, the super computer that went up against chess master Gary Kasparov in the 1990's, what better test of natural language than Jeopardy clues to hone this technology to an art.

Watson and me, a year and many versions ago.

After we installed the podiums and electronics they needed to have a computer play Jeopardy in sparring matches at IBM, I returned home. Months went by. I heard a snippet here and there about the project. Then, suddenly, all information seemed to stop.

This it usually means things are happening.

A little over a month ago I was given a travel itinerary to go to the same IMB research facility where we had installed our podiums. There was going to be a special Jeopardy competition with IBM's Watson computer competing in real-time against to the two top Jeopardy players of all time: Ken Jennings, who had a 74 game winning streak, and undefeated Brad Rutter, who has won the most money on Jeopardy, or any other game show.

That's pretty cool all by itself!

It's a dude with a hard hat in a long curvy hall

Last week, when I arrived at IBM with the rest of the electronics crew, the grip and lighting departments had already been there several days and had begun the process of converting IBM's modest 200 seat theater into a 140 seat television studio (they had to remove some sections of seating to build-out the stage).

Getting the stage and the electronics up and running was going to be a challenge itself. We had never used such a small space to tape shows. Just getting around from place-to-placewith all those people and all that gear was an exercise in patience and courtesy. I haven't said “excuse me” so much since I accidentally ate an entire roach coach of bean and jalapeno burritos.

A couple days later, the stage and the tech was beginning to take shape. The hallway outside the theater was jammed with racks and cable. Two 53' production trucks (audio, graphics, camera shading and control rooms on wheels) pulled up outside and hooked up to dozens of video, audio and fiber optic cables.

Here's a quick video showing some of the tech in what was just a plain featureless hallway and the production trucks parked outside.

Watson itself takes up an entire room using 90, IBM Power 750 computers; which all together contain 2800 processing cores. The cooling system sounds like a jet engine.

There were a few things that had to be worked out to have Watson play Jeopardy. How would we get the questions to Watson? How would he answer? How would he ring in? Do humans have a chance against a computer. Does the computer have a chance against humans?

I'll let you watch the shows to learn the answers to most of these questions but one thing I will say is that Watson has no access to the Internet so it won't be 'Googling' the answers.

Even if Watson could use the Internet, a machine with such advanced AI trying to get answers from the slow to medium data-only Internet would be like a Los Angeles class nuclear submarine pulling up at Don's Last Chance Gas in Peddle Frock, Utah for fuel and a potty break.

The biggest hurdle for Watson is to parse and organize the puns and word play of Jeopardy clues to determine what the actual question is.

Watson behind the glass. I'm here to tell ya, it's really noisy in there!

That's next 'rilly-rilly kewl' thing that Watson does it answers with not just one response with hundreds of potential responses to each clue. It grades each with a confidence rating and calculates a 'buzz threshold' to determine whether it should take the risk of ringing-in or how much to bet on a “Daily Double”. During the shows that will air in February, a graphic showing Watson's top three potential responses and their confidence ratings will display in real time.

A couple days later, we were ready to rehearse with our famous contestants: Ken and Brad.

A hundred members of the press from around the world filled the theater as Ken and Brad had their first shot playing against Watson. A press conference followed with Alex Trebek, Ken and Brad, Harry Friedman—Jeopardy's executive producer, and David Ferruci, the IBM scientist that has headed the project.

I suppose I could have left my scoring station at the producer's desk and relaxed somewhere but I had never actually attended a press conference before, especially on such a ground-breaking event.

Later that day my mother called: “I just saw this thing on CNN. Is that the project you're working on?”

I didn't have a chance to see any news coverage myself. There was still lots of details to get the podiums and electronics ready for the big day: tape day.

Everything was ready. As with any major undertaking, especially one never-before tried, we had to handle one or two technical issues but by the end of the day we had three great shows on tape and ready for post production (editing, mastering and QC). The reason we taped three shows was that because this was an event of such stature that we played it like the final two games of a tournament (where three finalists pair off and their two-day totals determine the winner.)

“But that's just two shows” you say.

Oh so say you?

Instead of just game-play the Jeopardy episodes will also include the story of Watson and the challenge.

I enjoyed my time at TJW and being a part of history. I would come back anytime just because it's a really cool place, and I don't mean the snow! I got a chance to take a tour before we left which included, oh, just a NUCLEAR PARTICLE ACCELERATOR!!!

Very few of these in the world!

And now my hairs falling out and stuff -just kidding, 

there were no isotopes present during our visit.

I'm not here to promote Jeopardy or IBM but I really believe that everyone should see these shows. For me, it was truly amazing to watch Watson play, far more than I expected it to be. Kinda like those wide eyed scientists in the final scenes of “Close Encounters”...

Okay, okay, maybe a notch or two down from that. Years from now you will be able to say you saw what very well may eventually change everything, your grand kids will act all unimpressed but they will be someday... with something... maybe.

If ground-breaking technology and historic events don't blow up your skirt, it's always very entertaining and funny to watch Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter play Jeopardy and quip between the clues.

February 14^th, 15^th and 16^th. Jeopardy is syndicated so it depends on where you live where to find it. I think it's safe to say that this won't be the last you'll hear about it.

For me, it would be nice to watch from Hawaii, but my living room will do just fine.

At least it ain't Madison, Wisconsin.

TV

When we were growing up, my parents only allowed us one hour of TV a day. They felt, as many people did then, that though TV could be a good thing it should be something experienced in moderation, especially for kids.

We were never exactly happy about this arrangement of course but like any other rule we grumbled then went on with our lives. Besides, we were often able to get away with up to two hours with various techniques.

We could usually get away with watching a little PBS after school (“Zoom!” “The Electric Company”) without it adding to our TV hour. We might have been able to pull off some more free TV time by watching PBS during prime time but who wanted to? Nature shows, politics, science... -meh

Did you ever notice that as a kid, you would turn off a documentary on PBS faster than you could say “sugar high” but if the same material—or more likely of much lower quality—was in the film projector was set up when you came back to your six grade class from lunch you were psyched and relished every frame?

For instance, my brother might want to watch one show at one time and I would choose a show at a later time. The end result was often that both of us would watch the other's show. Since our house had a large L-shaped living area that incorporated essentially everything but the bedrooms, it was difficult to ban one kid from the glowing TV without restricting them to their own room. We sometimes picked different shows at different times just for this reason. This also worked for the before-bedtime shows my parents wanted to watch. Even if we didn't like it, it was still TV.

As a result of my parents' favorites I saw some pretty good shows in the end: “Mary Tyler Moore,” “Rhoda,” “M*A*S*H”, “The Bob New Hartshow, and later on it's apparent dream-quel “Newhart.”

Sometimes our parents called us on our little 'tricks', sometimes not.

We played the odds.

One did what one could to score as much as possible of the all-important childhood opiate. I think if Fagan, from Dicken's “Oliver Twist”, had TV to dangle over the heads of his parent-less rabble, those pick pockets could have evolved into the most notorious and successful crime syndicate in England.

There was a quasi truce on Saturday mornings. Since my parents couldn't varify when we started watching (what, we were gunna tell 'em?) We could often get from Bugs Bunny all the way to Fat Albert without being banished from the house sentenced to play outside in an idyllic country neighborhood in perfect weather. When Soul Train came on around noon we would shut the thing off ourselves rather than watch strangely-dressed adults dance. The animated train in the opening credits fooled me into thinking another cartoon was coming on, on a surprising number of occasions though.

Call it wishful thinking.

The entire priority of TV was played-down in other ways besides the restriction. Till I was in my teens we had one TV in the whole house: A thirteen inch black-and-white Panasonic with a propensity to loose horizontal sync.

Cable TV? Don't make me laugh. Even if it had been available nine miles outside of town as we were we would have known enough not to even ask for it.

We didn't mind about those things though. We didn't know any different...

UNTIL...

We began staying over at a certain friend's house who:

A. Had a color TV

B. And cable, enhanced cable with the good channels.

C. That they could watch as much as they damn pleased -and not get in trouble for saying “damned” by-the-way.

D. ALL IN THE PRIVACY OF THEIR OWN DAMN ROOM!!!!!

It was like being locked in a candy story. When it was time to go home there was at least that sad and wonderful self pity, believing that starving kids in India must have a better TV-watching childhood than poor, poor us.

There was one occasion, once a year, that we got to watch TV in our bedrooms. My parents would often have friends over for New Year's Eve. It wasn't hard to bribe us out of sight and mind with a bowl of chips, some, otherwise, banned soft drinks and best of all, the TV placed, like a fatted calf, for one night, in one of our rooms!

Every year, the same movie played and every year we loved watching it. When else but everyone-is-staying-up-late New Year's Eve can you get away with running the three hour long “It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World? The commercials were the perfect time to run out and raid the party food out on the table.

It wasn't until the '90s when I purchased my own VHS copy of the classic movie that I realized it was shot actually in color.

Another great tradition was on Sunday nights when, not only was the one hour limit loosely interpreted, but another ban was temporarily lifted: eating dinner in front of the TV.

My parent's (thank God) were also sticklers about eating a proper meal at the dinner table with everyone present. However, on Sunday evenings we would get out our folding TV trays, set them up in a semi-circle around the glowing box and turn on Mutual of Omaha's “Wild Kingdom”. It wasn't our favorite show but it filled the time climatically to what was coming while my Dad cooked one of the following Sunday dinners: Pancakes, French Toast, Waffles, or Corn Fritters.

Mutual of Omaha's Marlin Perkins and... that sedated monkey he always had.

Backwards suppers: Every so often, maybe a couple times a year we would wear our clothes backwards, sit backwards in our chairs at the table and eat dessert first, then the main course. Without fail, my Dad would announce during desert with the most serious face he could muster (not very): “Alright kids, if you don't finish your ice cream, you can't have any broccoli. I swore that I was going to test him on that and leave some ice cream in my bowl, but every time, before I knew it, I would look down and it had somehow been completely finished.

About the time the pancakes hit the plates it was time for 'Waltz Dizzy' (“Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom). One of us had mispronounced it as a toddler and as we all continue to say it that way to this day.

If I posted a Disney pic the 'rat' would have it lawyered out in an hour.

While gobbling up pancakes the on my fork, we watched Disney cartoons and specials though those weren't my favorite. I loved the live action movies like: “Old Yeller,” “Tom Sawyer,” “Mary Poppins,” and “Uncle Remus Stories”. There was nothing better, however, than those hormone-stirring Haley Mills movies like “Pollyanna”, “The Parent Trap” and my favorite “That Darned Cat.”

Oh Haley, all you had to do was say something like: 

“Oh reaaaally...” or “that's just terrrible,” 

and wrinkle your nose, and I was yours!

…

…

…

Um, what were talking about?

Oh right, Sunday night TV.

As I got to stay up later and my hormones outgrew Haley a little, Sunday night TV seemed to respond on the next level and offered “James Bond” movies at nine O'clock on one of the other channels. but that's another story. Let me tell you, some intense negotiations occurred when the clock chimed ten and I was asked to turn off James Bond midway through; and just when the bikini-wearing Bond girl was...

See what I mean?

A few of our classic must-sees during the week were: “The Brady Bunch,” “The Partridge Family,” “Emergency” “The Waltons.”

By-and-large TV during week the was usually kept to an hour and for the most part we were fine with that. I felt it was some sort of badge of courage and would brag about it at school.

Much the way I'm doing right here.

There was a price to pay. There are so many shows I never saw; shows that when I hear people talk TV I often can only say, “Um, actually, I've never seen a single episode of 'Starsky and Hutch',” and wait for their jaw to drop.

In college there was this crazy kid who would jump off our deck and land on his butt on the the roof of his car, the reference was completely lost on me.

Could my parents' strategy backfire? What if they had created such hunger and lust for the TV drug that I would go out and OD on HBO my first opportunity.

I did.

During my high school years I was asked to house sit by a friend's parents. They had HBO so I turned it on and settled in to drink up all that I had been missing. Even though the violence I was witnessing in those late night movies they ran in the eighties made me ill, I couldn't seem to look away, turn the thing off or sleep no matter how tired I got.

I emerged from that weekend a freaked-out twitching sleep-deprived zombie. I might have been better off if I had simply raided the liqueur cabinet and passed out early on, but my thirst for HBO and cable TV at least had been cured.

When I left home to be an alleged adult, I suppose it was just poverty that kept me from owning a TV. But when I still hadn't purchased one four years later perhaps it was also in some part because of my parents' policy.

Yet in recent years when work was slow and I was home for weeks at a time, I found myself watch quite a lot of television. Remember, we don't have cable, so if we weren't in the mood for soaps, day-time talk shows or “I Love Lucy” we were left with those low-budget independent stations that ran either run old reruns, truly horrible movies or chat-line infomercials.

We loved the reruns. For a while it became tradition that my wife and I would watch “Hawaii Five-O and “Magnum PI” back-to-back. Sometimes “Quincy” before, sometimes “Hogan's Heros” afterwords.

The price paid for this otherwise dandy, if campy, entertainment was the quality of the commercials.

There was a surprisingly small variety of intelligence insulting schemes.

There were the: Hoverround-you-cannot-be-refused-life-insurance-denture-prepaid-cellural senior commercials, the paycheck-loan-we-buy-gold-bailbonds-lottery-lump-sum poverty commercials, and of course the get-a-goverment-loan-and-learn-medical-billing-and-construction-managment-even-thoug-there-are-no-jobs-or-think-your-learning-to-be-a-cop-when-you're-really-just-going-to-end-up-as-a-prison-guard-not-really-college college commercials.

As a result we referred to our daily viewing time as “Loservision”.

By the way, if you happen to go to any sort of trade or online college, I don't mean to knock it. You're doing something positive and proactive, and that is to be commended.

Eventually, I got steady work but even when I had had a weekday off and we attempted to renew our tradition those commercials, made it all feel kinda dirty, and not in the good way.

During good times and bad in the evenings we're more likely to be watching a movie from our modest library, a Netflix DVD or streaming. We have followed some of the better cable shows on DVD as well. I don't know much about what is currently on TV but MST3K will always rock.

If you need me to explain MST3K, you need to look it up.

We'll let everyone else sort out the crap for us and we'll rent/stream it later.

Not having kids and it being, as they say, a different time (should it be that different?) I am not sure what my TV/Internet/video game policy would be exactly.

Backwards suppers however, would be a common occurrence.

New Years 2003 and an Impromtu Cross-Country Road Trip

For Christmas in 2002 I took Audra on her first trip to Upstate New York. We landed in Buffalo and rented a car to drive to the Finger Lakes. When drove towards the Thruway from the airport the wind was fierce. The cable-hung traffic lights were swinging nearly sideways.

“That's insane,” Audra said. She looked up warily as we passed underneath the dangling lights.

We were engaged at the time and it was her first time meeting my family in addition to everything else. It was wonderful for me but rather stressful for Audra. Between that and the weather she got sick; sick enough that we had to postpone our flight back to LA to New Years Eve.

There was problems with our next flight as well. We stood facing each other in the airport with that “what the hell do we do now” look in both our eyes.

What happened next solidified our relationship in more ways than we can even guess eight years later.

“Why don't we just drive,” Audra said in frustration.

She says the expression on my face was priceless. She describes it as: “It was as if I had suggested to a little kid 'why don't we have two Christmases this year?'.”

“Are you serious?” I said enthusiastically.

I am king of the road trip, highness of the highway.

We secured a rental car for the trip. All that was available was a Chrysler Sebring... convertible.

Perfect!

As we were loading the car, Audra said, “Someone left their garbage back here. She emerged from the back seat holding wood-handled device with a red plastic blade at one end and red bristles sticking sideways out of the other.

I laughed good and hard and introduced her to her very first ice scraper/snow brush.

It was already evening when we embarked down the Thruway on another first for my wife: A trans-continental road trip. I loaded a “Shadowbox” disc into the CD player and just like that, we were road-worthy.

That disc got repeated several times during the journey and I ended up leaving it in the car. I hope the next folks enjoyed it as much as we did. I got a replacement from Jim Schreck himself later on.

Audra's favorite part about driving at night was the radio towers with their red lights glowing a message of solitude into the dark. My favorite part was watching Audra watch the radio towers.

We reached Toledo, Ohio around eleven PM and checked into a Motel6. I had always had good luck at the “6” so we didn't even shop around. Little did I know I had found the absolute worst Motel6 in the world... Until we found a new king in Arkansas this summer.

In our first room, the bathroom had been left in a disgusting state so we moved to a room that had sort-of been cleaned. We toasted the New Year most humbly in paper cups with Caffeine-Free Diet Coke (the absolute antithesis of a good tasting beverage). The clock on my mobile phone served to count-down to midnight.

The room next door was later occupied by some kids who had no intention of letting 2003 in quietly. The front desk guy came by twice but it was the third knock on the door from the police that seemed to do the trick.

The next day we ate breakfast at a busy local diner. It was so authentic it could have been in a movie. The pink clad waitress called me sweetheart... And yes, this was no -“Hey, I'm Tiffany, your server. Can I start you off with something from the bar or maybe some Insane Chili Cheese Fries™ ”- this fifty something gal was a 'waitress'.

She laughed when I ordered the eggs Benedict. “The chef hates cooking eggs Benedict, so I looove ordering 'em.”

The states ticked by slowly. One by one, Audra added places to her 'been there' list.

We made a long hard drive out of New Year's Day. We made it all the way to Lincoln Nebraska.

The next day Audra saw something she had to have a picture of. We had to loop back several miles to get back to what she had seen. All she had with her was a simple disposable Kodak camera she gotten in her stocking from my par... er, Santa. It had one picture left on the roll.

It was the only picture from this trip. Sadly or not, neither of us has taken a film picture since.

An abandoned church in Milford, Nebraska. 

Audra took the print from the disposable camera,

enlarged it on a copier and gave a couple more 

generations through the copier before 

scanning the final copy as you see it here.

The stretch through Nebraska and Eastern Colorado is so flat, featureless and open it can freak you out a little if you're used to hills or mountains. In Eastern Colorado I once saw a mailbox next to a driveway that lead off into the horizon. There was no structure in sight. 

Having grown up where there was always a mountain range to look at, Audra found the Midwest and the plains overwhelming. She felt uneasy with all that space around her. Driving towards Denver and watching the Rockies emerge on the horizon was an especially wonderful sight for her. It's something every American should do: cross the plains then see the Rockies appear before you.

We spent our next night in Denver. No more Motel6!

The climb through the Rockies is another incredible experience. Jaw dropping postcard scenery is all around you for one-hundred and fifty miles. At one point the two lanes of I-70, the Colorado River and two sets of train tracks are crammed into such a small canyon the I-70 lanes are stacked one above the other!

We were lucky that the weather was mild; it's not the best place in the world to get caught in a snow storm. That was the only time I've attempted that route during the winter months.

One thing during the journey that became obvious to us was that Audra and I, relatively new in our relationship and stuck in a small space together for several days, had not had any fights. 

Okay, okay... I was just reminded (My friend Ned Lucas once wrote a song titled: Men Can't Remember What Women Can't Forget") there was one fight we had about hardworking Eastern folks being superior to lazy Californians. It's a subject that still comes up once in a while and I'll bet will again after I post this.

If you are unsure about a relationship I totally recommend a long road trip. If that person is not completely right for you, you will know all about it in short order.

Even our bliss started to break down a little around Las Vegas. I have never been a huge fan of Las Vegas. I had always seen it as the place where people who smoke and cuss went on vacation. Most notably my farmer neighbor Stu Middlebrook. Now, I am a tight wad who has never enjoyed gambling or even playing cards for that matter. In addition, my association with Las Vegas is complicated by the fact that though I have been there about ten times, I have never vacationed or even been there for convention; only work: A low Budget Feature, A Taiwanese 'American style' coffee commercial, several trips for various poker shows, a demo for a possible gambling show that never got off the ground and most recently a Jeopardy remote.

Audra, by contrast, had grown up in Southern California and has been on several nice actual vacations to Las Vegas. I, being a superior Easterner (what Audra calls simply- “snotty”) made no bones about my feelings for sin city.

I know, I know, I'm an idiot.

We started talking again somewhere in the Mohave Desert in California.

Traveling across the country is all about incremental changes in weather, climate and culture, but there are a few, like going from the plains to the Rockies, where the change is more abrupt and obvious.

One of those places is the Cajon Pass (say ka-Hone -yes, yes, similar to the Spanish for testicle, can we grow up now, no, okay me either).

When driving on I-15 South from Las Vegas to LA most of the trip is in the Mojave desert. It is a spectacular of mountains and particularly bleak and desolate desert. In the daytime it can be incredibly hot and at night, below freezing. If you have seen “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”, “Bagdad Cafe” and ten thousand other films, you have seen this place.

Once you start down the Cajon Pass (technically the highway traverses Cajon Summit) it takes you through a transition of altitude, weather, flora, fauna, economy, pollution and population over 15 miles that days of travel cannot match.

The Pass itself is through the San Bernardino Mountains which prevent moist ocean air and weather from going any further. As any flight into LA will clearly show you, they are desert tan on one side and mountain green on the other as if someone had painted them that way with opposing airbrushes.

The Cajon Pass

 

The southbound lanes of the freeway wind and dive on a descending slalom weaving through the other ribbons of the old route 66, the Northbound lanes and three sets of very busy train tracks.

Route 66 through the pass.

It's still partly there, known these days as Cajon Boulevard

 

There are several runaway truck ramps and in 1989 a runaway train reached speeds of 110mph before derailing into a residential neighborhood at the bottom.

The pass is also known for...

 Fog & high winds (and the mayhem they cause),

 snow (and the mayhen it causes),

 and fires (and the... you know).

On a later trip, a trans-con train journey on the Southwest Chief, Audra, who was sick in bed in our train berth at the time, wrote a wonderful poem about descending through this pass on our way home and it's healing effects.

With her kind permission here it is.

                   Southwest Chief

                   by Audra Glandon

                   I was a bag of spastic muscles
                    lithely divided by small alleyways
                    of bloodless veins. 
                   heaving gently over swollen sacks of air.

                               I am released from the rugged birth canal
                                of the dessert. 
                               Joined at the heart 
                                              of a watery
                                                          slip’n’slide

                                               highway ride.

                   Sinking deep 

                                         into the

                                                                 basin

                                             of golden city lights. 

                   I am home. 

We had crossed the greater part of the nation in a convertible in the dead of winter, but we were determined to use our convertible to convert at least once. In our plunge through the Cajon Pass we proudly put our top down. It was freezing but we didn't care.

We had just conquered a nation!

We have had several road journeys since, and I had had several before that one, but nothing will ever quite match the magic of embarking together on that impromptu adventure, looking in childlike wonder at all the radio towers along the way.

Kinda like life.