Santa Monica, CA
Last night I almost made it to the end. I was going to drive straight to the Santa Monica pier to cap the trip. But I didn’t quite want to “arrive,” even if I wasn’t really going anywhere and haven’t really arrived anywhere. When I pulled off the expressway I gave Mieko a call and told her I’d be in town a few should days, we get dinner. “Tonight’s probably the only time that’ll work out,” she told me, so I came by to pick her up and we headed to a nearby Thai restaurant.
Mieko hasn’t ridden in Cherry in as long as she’s been in storage. She mentioned how nice the car looked, a little dusty and in need of a wash but nice, and that I look really dark. I haven’t seen her this summer and I’ve gotten more sun than I usually do. I note that she looked very professional and she laughed, she’d just gotten out of work. Late, I thought to myself not wanting to open that can of “work sucks” worms.
We’ve settled on a fairly civil divorced life I think. I don’t know what post-divorce relationship is supposed to be the most efficient and optimal but I know I’ve loved Mieko since probably before I met her in that cosmic sense and think she’s neat and fascinating and great even if I can’t live with her. We talked a little about my drive and her job and had a pretty mellow evening. We used to have a shameful habit of mocking the thick accents of Chinese and East Asian wait staff and takeout in a sign-song, Kahn Souphanousinphone way: “You food ready fifteen minute.” Not to be mean, it’s just a pattern. It catches your attention. The waitress left the check saying, “Thank you very much a have a good night!” in the sweetest Thai intonation and I looked at Mieko as she looked back with a knowing smile.
Yawning the whole ride back to the hotel I wished Mieko good night and she asked where I was going to go for the night.
“I don’t know,” I confided. “I’m thinking about getting to the pier, just to ceremonially finish. But I’m not eager to do that. I’ll find a motel or something.”
“I figure you’re a bit strapped what with the transfer today,” she said. “If you want to sleep on the floor you can do that.”
I hesitated for a second then checked, “Are you sure?” I was ready to fall asleep at the wheel, as ready as I was to sleep under the stars until the truck stop stabbing picture popped into my head.
“Yeah, it’s not a problem,” she reassured.
We parked, I grabbed my luggage and sleeping bag and we headed into the hotel.
This morning I wake to Mieko running late for work and I tell her I’ll call one more time before I leave L.A. As I rush to pack she tells me not to hurry and that I’m welcome to use the internet in the hotel room if I feel like it. Despite my protests she leaves a spare room key card behind. Suddenly the room is quiet, and sunny through the sheers that lead to the balcony. This place is clean and comfortable unlike in the ratty joints I’ve been stopping in. At 8:30AM I get online to check my accounts and I’d overdrawn my Washington Mutual account because the little gas station fees are processed a day or so after they happen. Each $10 meal or gas purchase has a $30 fee, because Washington Mutual would hate for the gas pump to think me a fool and make me all embarrassed by declining my debit card so they cover it and tack on a heavy fee. I don’t mind paying for my mistakes but they charge me for each transaction so I owe $150 in fees and probably still have more rolling in. I’m a little frustrated because getting money between Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo is harder than you might expect in Chicago where there are no Wells Fargo branches so when the chipper phone banker chimes, “You can do that at any of our branch locations!” I roll my eyes and sigh. I’ve been with Wells Fargo since it was Norwest in Minneapolis ten years ago and they carried my mortgage so I’ve got good credit history with them, I figure I’ll keep my account open for that sake. Fortunately Los Angeles has no shortage of branches and I make plans to pop into the nearest to wire money to my Chicago bank to cover the charges.
I notice that after the initial shock of having a glut of fees, I’m not really bothered to pay a service charge. Instead I’m bothered by something else; my differential valuation of things. I’ve gone out of my way to haggle for a few bucks on the cheap and crummy motel I’ve been calling home; I’m unlikely to pay more than forty dollars each night. (Your may be tempted to personally compare, “I’ve stayed in worse! You should see the roach traps I’ve been in.” Or “My parents/friends/self are such snobs they refuse to pay less than $500 a night.” If you’re thinking that, try to stay present and set it aside for just a minute.) For a moment I don’t really care what the particular thing being valued is, or what it is valued at, I’m interested in how and why one assigns a value to something. Why might a few dollars for a motel room matter to me if bank fees don’t?
I know enough to expect variation of values in a population, Chicago installed that in me. Buy how and why do I establish the price I’m willing to pay for something? Where do my own values come from? As I sit thinking alone in this hotel room I start to notice a distant hum and gets gently louder then softer every ten seconds. I stretch and realize I need a shower, and I’m a little disturbed that my intuition is playing tricks on me. I could have stayed three or four nights for the cost of those bank fees. Or I could have been in some slightly nicer accommodations. I could have taken the effort to pack a few credit cards, and I’m sure as hell not roughing it. Getting slapped with fees was not high on my todo list. What’s with the penny-wise dollar-foolish?
As often happens, the mental archaeologist strikes pay dirt in the shower. I replay my hotel and motel memory tapes all out of sequence: staying in posh digs in New York and San Francisco; visiting an hourly love hotel in Tokyo; holing up in a Nebraska motel where I was convinced the proprietor was Norman Bates’ brother. More and more and more and more until a memory bubbles up about one of our trips with dad in the black hills in South Dakota. He’d sometimes put us up in motels, particularly if we were near a town and there were no options. But more often than not we’d find a KOA and camp. On one particular trip we pitched our massive canvas tent among the trailers and RVs (this was probably 1980 before Gore-Tex and nylon and child abuse laws) and went to bed early after two or three days of hard driving. (Dad was no leisurely contemplative traveler, at least not with us; his goal was to be RIGHT THERE NOW.) In the middle of the night there was a lot of wind, you could hear cars starting, but hell with them if they want to go to town and get shitfaced so be it. We woke to find the entire campsite deserted. The first thought is that we’d slept in and everyone left, but checking his watch he found it was quarter to seven—too early for everyone to have made tracks. No cars, no tents, a mess of twigs and branches scattered around, a couple of fallen trees on the edge of the field. Strange, he commented, as he got us ready to leave. Before tearing down camp he went to the check-in office to ask why no one was around.
“You’re the crazy bastard that stayed!” the clerk shouted, eyes wide and smile widening. The word “bastard” shocked my youthful ears but that must have been the rapport among outdoorsmen at the time.
“Stayed for what?” dad asked suspiciously.
“For the tornado,” the clerk answered. “Last night, they were telling everyone to leave, find a safe place. We were sure you were done for. When it touched down it went right around you. Amazing!” But he doesn’t want compliments; he’s got nothing to prove and knowing dad if he were upset about anything it would have been that we could have been hurt.
When we reach camp and start packing the tent I ask him, “Dad can we stay in a motel tonight?”
“We’ll see,” he tells me. “Motels are a rip off.”
Something in that moment reinforced by that attitude compound over all the trips we took together. The comment itself was in the context of a camping expedition—we were on our way to Yellowstone—but it was easy for my young mind to hear “All motels anywhere are a rip off.” Dad installed my low esteem of roadside motels (regardless of how fetching their Route 66 neon). I don’t blame him of course, and being that it’s now my value it’s furthermore my responsibility to make of it what I will. Maybe tonight I’ll spend a few dollars more and steal the free soap so I don’t feel quite so ripped off. But what about the banking fees? In ancient times when checking accounts weren’t free and each check cost maybe a quarter to process I complained to my mom about it over dinner about how expensive checks were thinking she’d make it better, I suppose. This would fall into the sphere of concern for a teenage kid working minimum wage at Target. Mom worked in consumer banking, credit, structured finance, and asset management during her career so she knew how money worked and I had no clue. She explained something about automation and manual check sorting and tellers (I thought tellers came free when they built the bank) and added, “That’s just the price of convenience.” That stuck…when I get service charges or overdraft dings, when I have to pay a one-percent origination, when I join a club I never use for fifty bucks a month, it’s the “price of convenience.” Instead of looking at it as a cost I must bear, it’s a price that I may choose to pay. But the cost of avoiding Washington Mutual’s bank fees would be better, more careful planning. I wonder if I can afford that.
As I rinse out the hair conditioner, turn off the water and towel off I thank mom and dad for giving me values, and making them a little tricky for me to sort out. No complaints: some people never have values installed by caring parents to mull over. I’m fortunate to have some social programming to get worked up over. Reprogramming my values…wait a minute…wait a minute. Not all motels are rip offs, some have kitschy consumption value and some offer free broken wireless internet. Not all fees are worth the convenience, some are a waste of money resulting from my own goddamn laziness. I could be really efficient with my money and avoid incurring any undue expenses altogether by simply staying home.
Around 9:30AM I’m feeling pretty pleased for having sourced my mixed feelings about the non-fungibility of motel rooms for banking feels and write down the address of Wells Fargo branch not far from the hotel so I can get directions from the front desk. Before I split I feel the need to clear my head and meditate for about twenty minutes.
Yoga. Meditation. Being present. That’s always sounded like such new-age bullshit it makes me just a little sick. Then one day it suddenly occurred to me (which is of course not true: it didn’t suddenly occur to me at all but I was reading about it or talking it through with a teacher or friend or psychologist who guided me and I’ve long forgotten the source) that maybe how it made me feel thinking about it was not the evaluative criteria. Maybe the way it made me feel doing it was a better means of judging it. So I started stretching and found a five minute routine that gets the blood circulating in the morning and makes me feel, quite to my own surprise, amazing. When I forget or run out of time to do it I feel somehow not right all day—like I’m not entirely in my body. It’s difficult to lay out in words and at first it felt really silly. Who cares? Really silly works amazingly well.
Meditation was something I picked up from my Buddhist infatuation because it sounded like some Dungeons and Dragons fantasy world where the for really real you can destroy your own ego, massacre the world of illusion, avoid the perennial spiral of birth, death, rebirth, and enter into the realm of nirvana (the eternal bliss not the Seattle band). But watch out: if the ego wins you come back as a hungry ghost and inhabit the nonhuman zone until karma restarts you as a mosquito.
All this while sitting on my futon staring at the wall? Sign me up.
I’ve toyed with Zen, Sufi, Indian, Hindu, occult, guided imagery, next life, and hypnotic meditation long enough to have found a practice that works for what I want, which is to clear my head and witness myself and fully engage without excess fear and stress and angst. I don’t always like to meditate and I don’t always like what I see when I do. But one day it suddenly occurred to me (not true) that maybe how much I like something was not the evaluative criteria. Maybe it was how much I love something. Maybe the purpose of all of life is to maximize some hedonic consumption of pleasure and continually strive for a state of explosive bliss. Maybe the goal is a lifelong series of heroin injections and two-hour orgasms and chocolate truffles. As for me I’m gonna try something a little different. Not in some weird recursive “I’m into pain and that’s really my pleasure” way. I mean exposing myself to things I don’t like, not to like nor to dislike nor to form any kind of opinion at all. Just to see where my attention goes. Just to see what happens. Freud unpacked the pleasure principle governed by the reality principle disciplined by the ego; add to that the “things are just fine” principle and the “things are really messed up” principle, all at once, all the time, and see what happens.
That’s the trick. Things are just fine and they are really messed up, all at once, all the time. Contemplative practice, whether prayer or journaling or meditation, whether running or dancing or lifting weights, can help the practitioner appreciate the sheer humbling privilege of participating in the human experience of having overdraft fees (they didn’t suddenly invent fees just for me) or driving across country (I’m not the first person to drive a few miles) or not much liking preachy Christian radio (that’s why not everyone lives Nashville). Of course being open to all this might mean letting in the scary, threatening, crazy shit along with the really good stuff. Hell, maybe you let in something about UFOs, past lives, conspiracy theories, or heaven. Like a fly in my soup it’s nasty and gross and I don’t want to go near it. But realize the crazy shit won’t kill you. If you try hard you’ll probably filter out a lot of it (like thinking all motels are rip offs or accepting unnecessary wasteful fees as part of life). If you don’t catch it, don’t worry—those dear to you will relish the ritual of insulting you over your beliefs and habits and foibles. If you have an intensely grounded and mildly reflective sense of yourself you won’t mind because you’ll have beaten them to the punch and it won’t come as a surprise when they point out that you talk with your hands or slutty girls bother you or you’re an aggressive driver. You’ll note their criticisms, thank them for their interest, and continue with your life. You’ve let in some crazy shit, we all do. But it doesn’t self-conscious because through contemplative practice you’re fairly self-disclosed and comfortably self-aware—you’ve been psychically inoculated.
I learned to listen to my feelings (my intuitions) about the world but keep it at arm’s length after a few too many Hollywood ideas from Star Trek (or today maybe CSI) made their way into my network of beliefs. It’s a short step from conceivable to plausible; also short from plausible to believable. Yet intuition is violated all the time. Take the mathematical expression of infinity (∞). Infinity has the strange property that you can multiply it by any positive number and it’s still the same old infinity. For example there are infinitely many counting numbers 1 2 3 4 … that go on forever and ever. Now if you multiply these numbers by a million you get 1,000,000 2,000,000 3,000,000 4,000,000 … (again, forever and ever). You can see how these sequences of numbers correspond one to the other:
Infinity | (∞) | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ... |
A million infinities | 1,000,000 X (∞) | 1,000,000 | 2,000,000 | 3,000,000 | 4,000,000 | ... |
My intuition says that there should be more numbers in the top row than the bottom row, because there’s like a million numbers in between each number included in the bottom row. I’d think that a million infinities would be bigger than just one. But guess what? They’re exactly the same size. There are just as many numbers on the top as the bottom. How do I know? Simple: for any number on the bottom row, I can give you a number on the top row, and vice versa. This is what mathematicians call a one-to-one or reversible function that assigns values from the top row of numbers to the bottom row. Try it: pick a number in the top row (say, 66) and I’ll give you a number in the bottom row (66,000,000). But, my intuition shouts, this doesn’t make sense because 66 isn’t in the bottom row. That’s where my intuition needs to be acknowledged and then ignored. No one said that the bottom row would contain all the numbers in the top row, only that there were just as many numbers. So infinity equals a million infinities. That’s weird. That’s math. Math doesn’t care whether I like it or not nor how well I understand it, it just keeps on being math.
The universe is much the same.
It was in a group meditation where I clearly saw my thoughts and feelings emerge and arise within me as mere thoughts, mere feelings, just me interacting with the world. We were in a large room doing a seated meditation “witnessing the witness” for about twenty minutes. The meditation leader Chris said, “Now, just observe yourself…observe the environment, if you have a thought, think it and let it go.” About halfway through the session I heard a Harley rumble by and the building shook. I just heard it. I just felt it. It disrupted my observation in that it caught my attention, and once it left I put my attention back onto the witness. At the end of the meditation we were talking about our experience and I commented, “It’s odd because when the motorcycle drove by I thought, ‘That’s a Harley’ rather than ‘That’s a goddamn Harley.’” “Really?!?” the guy next to me added. “Cause that ruined the whole thing for me.” “Would have done for me,” I noted, “if it weren’t for Chris’ direction to just observe. I just observed the Harley.” “So did I,” Chris observed.
Packed and almost out the door, I grab the room key card just in case. Not really sure in case of what. It’s nice to have a “base camp” when you’re traveling and I think Cherry is sick of doubling as a timespace rocket ship and nap-time crib. That’s why she’s getting so hot and spitting up coolant on me. I get directions and lucky me, the bank is on the way to the end of the Route anyway so I cruise down Lincoln toward Washington (very presidential out here), take care of my silly banking problems, and continue to Olympic looking for a commemorative plaque or a completion mile marker or some kind of sign. Anything. Frustrated I check my route guidebook and it reads,
The ‘Official’ end of 66 at Olympic is rather unsatisfying. For a better finish to your voyage, visit the ‘Unofficial’ end of 66, the Will Rogers Hwy Marker, in Palisades Park, at the ‘T’ intersection of Santa Monica Blvd and Ocean.
I wasn’t expecting a ticker tape welcome but how about a hundred dollar highway sign? Probably for the best, if they had one hanging I’d probably come back at night and steal it. After having asked several of the local shop proprietors at the intersection of Olympic and Lincoln if this is really the end and turning up dry, I took a few pictures and continued to the pier. Fair enough, I figure, if it’s not a big deal to them then it’s not a big deal to me. Either way there’s something deeply satisfying about reaching the end for the sake of attaining the goal, however arbitrary; at the same time I was fully conscious of the fact that the journey is the destination and time spent in L.A. is just for the laughs.Around 11:00AM I make it to Santa Monica Boulevard and cruise slowly and gently down the road. I notice everything—the art deco buildings, the amazing SoCal sun, the beautiful recreational shoppers—and make a note of a nice ocean side café I’d like to spend the afternoon whiling away the hours typing (I’ve got some writing to catch up on) and relaxing and soaking up the sun. I’m in rare form, in no hurry to be anywhere and totally blissed out at the sense of arrival. My spine tingles and my mouth tastes like pennies but I’m completely relaxed and almost coast straight into oncoming traffic at a red. That snaps me out; consulting my guidebook I see the pier should be…right…there! Rolling down the wood planks I get the attention of all the other tourists who think Santa Monica pier is where it’s at; I make it to the end of traffic and double-park Cherry alongside a cop car and switch on my hazard lights, hoping I don’t incur the wrath of the local CHiPs and get Ponch’d (haha) in the nose. In the middle of my picture taking I turn to a cute passing mother and take a shot “for the record” before asking her to snap me with Cherry. I’ve arrived. Feels pretty good.
I chat up a guy who introduces himself as Tim, a small guy, retired, Chinese immigrant, Ph.D. in engineering from the University of Minnesota, one son at Yale (he discloses all this upon seeing my Minnesota plates and I find his spirit warm and friendly so I can’t help but listen). After a minute or two I’m about ready to leave. Then The Benz starts its approach.Down the pier The Benz rolls, off-white, coming up behind Cherry. Now Cherry is blocking half the lane leading to the parking lot. I’m enough of a vehicular misanthrope to hate when someone blocks the road, so I’m totally aware of all cars coming and going. I’ve left plenty of space to pass, although it does require a slightly crossing over the solid yellow line into the lane leading away from the parking lot (the lane that precisely two cars have torn up at the posted 10 MPH in the five minutes I’ve been there). Breaks the rules, I know. As The Benz inches up behind me she lays on the horn and starts cawing about my blocking the lane, move that piece of junk, all that. The Benz is mid-forties, short brown hair, tortoise shell spectacles, and a screeching voice. Now, I’m standing like a tourist with my camera and my old car on Santa Monica pier. I don’t really expect The Benz to cut me some unreasonable amount of slack but in this context I’m kind of surprised. Who in L.A. (The Benz is wearing California plates) gets wound up about a little silly tourist misadventure on the fucking SANTA MONICA PIER? The Benz, that’s who. The Benz follows the rules to the letter and expects the same of the rest of the human race. The Benz does not plan to leave her lane. The Benz is not going to stand for this traffic infraction. The Benz will make her disapproval known.
As usual I’ve got nothing to prove so I sort of wave in acknowledgement (The Benz has disrupted my attention so I don’t mind giving her the satisfaction of knowing she’s inserted her bitch attitude into my awareness) and point with jazz-hand to the wide open adjacent lane. The Benz offers a tongue click and head shake like an experienced professional, as if maybe she’s expressed her condemnation once or twice in the past, and rolls too close for comfort past Cherry into the parking lot.
As I turn around and head away from the pier, still glowing with the sense of arrival, I think about The Benz. Most people are vocal supporters of my little drive. Scratch that: most people who are vocal are supporters; for all I know the silent majority have classified me Richard for Cerebellum (dickhead). A gaggle of four guys in a pickup in Oklahoma made it known while photographing Cherry outside the National Route 66 Museum that I’m gay (hey your state riffs a spelling of Okla-HOMO, not mine) at the top of their passing coward lungs. This goth inked and pierced casher in New Mexico gave me a jaded “that’s original” when I explained what I was up to and asked for my gas receipt. I guess that means I won’t be sleeping with her any time soon. But for the most part the old road self selects its supporters.
What interests me is that doing anything interesting—and when I say anything, I have yet to think of a counterexample—doing anything interesting has its supporters and its detractors. I mean, if something infiltrates the consciousness of a group, captures the attention of a person, and is not immediately dismissed as boring or not interesting, it tends to get a fairly rapid evaluation (that’s cool/that sucks) by the person or people made aware of it. Think about it: some people love the potent rumble of a passing Harley and some people hate the noisy disturbance of a passing Harley. Some people love the sticky sweet smell of cotton candy wafting from the pier and some people are sickened by the sticky sweet smell of cotton candy wafting from the pier. It’s not the Harley or the cotton candy that’s intrinsically good or bad, but our interaction with it that makes it cool or makes it suck.
Anything interesting is like this. The reason is simple: the more interesting the object or person or event, the more it captures people’s interest (or we wouldn’t call it interesting) and the more become aware of it—the larger the number of spectators. And with any population comes a population’s range of tastes, values, preferences, experiences, opinions. Opinions. Opinions. Opinions informed by experience. “That rocks” because my dad rode a Harley and it quite unconsciously reminds me of him. “That sucks” because my stepdad rode a Harley and it quite unconsciously reminds me of him. It’s a fool's errand to try to please everyone. It’s not so much a bad goal as it’s doomed to disappoint when it comes in contact with reality. Try it sometime (I have and I’ve seen it again and again): do something you’re passionate about. Share it without preaching. Chances are really good that someone quite soon will call you a fool or an idiot or a cunt—or worse.
I make my way back down Santa Monica Boulevard and see a turn off for the Pacific Coast Highway. “Can we go? Can we go? Can we go?” Cherry implores. “Okay, but you have to promise to play nice with the other cars,” I consent and we turn onto the highway ramp and make our way north. The day, the scene, the weather could not be more perfect and Cherry is invigorated as she breathes the perfect ocean air and leisures toward Malibu. It’s Tuesday afternoon and the traffic is light enough that there’s no competition, no sense of urgency, no race to win. We’ve arrived, so to speak; the sun on my arm and the wind in my hair give me more of a rock star boost than I deserve. Out here of course I’m one in the herd and I notice my “not unique in the course of human history” self as I’m passed and I pass left and right all variety of well-preserved Fords, Chevys, and the odd Chrysler in this town of excess. In St Louis I stand out with my website on the back window; here who doesn’t have a website on their sweet ride? I don’t mind; my inner iconoclast doesn’t mind being in such good company and anyway it’s not like I invented the idea of a pointless road trip blog (no no, not invent, all I did was raise it to an art form).As I’m driving and stopping to take pictures, take in the scenery, dip my toe in the ocean, I keep coming back to the critical commentary and the approval or condemnation of my trip. It suddenly occurs to me (not true) that we are saying more than we might think.
Social Disclosure
Most of us are familiar with self disclosure: telling someone near and dear (or a complete stranger, it doesn’t really matter) about our inner lives. The purpose of self disclosure is selective vulnerability where I reveal something that is not apparent like my color or gender is. Maybe it’s my personal history, my medical condition (hey, is that why the folks at the Missouri McDonalds love to compare notes on how broken their body parts are?), my relationship status, my taste in music. Often self disclosure provides a pathway for intimacy.
The key here is that self disclosure is a direct commentary about myself. I say things like “I like…” or “I feel…” or “I believe…” Consider the sentence “I like cake.” The subject is “I” and the object is “cake”. What is being disclosed is my feeling about cake—I like it. It’s all about me.
Examples of self disclosure:
I would not choose to behave like her.
I disapprove of her behavior.
I don’t like her.
Social disclosure is similar in that it’s all about me but it puts the heavy lifting on the object itself and tries to brush me out of the picture by externalizing my feeling and making it somehow part of the object. Social disclosure intentionally or inadvertently takes the God’s eye view of matters of taste and renders judgment as though it were independent of the perceiver.
Examples of social disclosure:
She exhibits behavior I would not myself choose.
She behaves in a disapproval-worthy manner.
She is bad.
Both of these reveal more about the speaker than that the person, place, thing, or event spoken about. This is not postmodern deconstructionism reducing the physical world to a subjectivity trick; it’s because the sentence describes a matter of preference and the perceiver is baked right into the perceived. There’s no outsmarting this. The speed of light is the speed of light regardless of my opinion about it; the deliciousness of cake is precisely my opinion about it. Let’s unpack this a little bit further and see how it plays out. Consider the assertion:
Paris is a bitch!
What does this really declare? Without reading into it things that are not already present, a few conditions must have been met for this sentence to be coherent and meaningful using the rules of grammar and conversation.
- Attention: Paris caught my interest and I noticed her. (If not why am I thinking of her?)
- Direction: I disapproved of something I noticed; maybe it was her clothes, her attitude, her little dog. (If not why do I think negatively her?)
- Intensity: That something I disapproved of was enough for me to form an opinion and take a position. (If not why do I forcefully condemn her?)
- Disclosure: Something else further compelled me to share my disapproval with others. (If not why do I speak of her around other people and not keep it to myself?)
Paris is a star!
- Attention: Paris caught my interest and I noticed her.
- Direction: I enjoyed something I noticed; maybe it was her clothes, her attitude, her little dog.
- Intensity: That something I enjoyed was enough for me to form an opinion and take a position.
- Disclosure: Something else further compelled me to share my enjoyment with others.
One tells you about Paris. The other tells you about me.
Having unpacked that thought like a suitcase, rifled through the dirty clothes, found a clean pair of jeans, and stuffed it all together again, I’d like to reconsider The Benz. As cars go zipping by on Pacific Coast Highway as I stop on the shoulder every few blocks for a nice little picture I’m sure to rub someone the wrong way.
When I attribute intentions to someone runs the risk of making myself look like an asshole. Let me show you what I mean. My whole commentary about The Benz was about reducing a woman to her car to attribute to her a sense of entitlement and remove the benefit of any doubt about her intentions. Yes, she was verbal and aggressive. For all I know she just got out of a stressful meeting (been there), she was running late to a lunch date (been there), she was a tourist in an unfamiliar town stressed by traffic (been there). I further ascribed to her a rigid sense of rule-driven inflexibility that suggested she knew everything I knew about the pier (that there had been no traffic and she could safely and easily switch lanes). When I say “the Benz is not going to stand for this traffic infraction,” that’s social disclosure for “I don’t like this person’s behavior.” More rigorously,1. This person honked and flapped and got my attention.
2. I am threatened and annoyed by her honking and flapping.
3. I can feel myself getting tense at the threat of this woman and I don’t like it.
4. I simply must poke fun of her in writing the first chance I get.
If you’re sympathetic to my take on The Benz then I’m humorous and cool. If I just got through characterizing your mom, your best friend, or you, I’m a complete asshole. Either way I find it interesting.
Scampering back and forth across traffic on Pacific Coast Highway I’m getting the attention of a lot of The Benzes and Cherry craves an extended cruise. Once she gets a taste of that freeing ocean air it’s like crack, she’s gotta have more. We drive up and down for about an hour exploring the ocean side, saying hello to total strangers (mostly not The Benzes), staring at the water, and enjoying the scenery.
2:00PM or so I’m feeling peckish and head back to Santa Monica Boulevard. Not able to find the little café I saw on the way to the pier, I find a spot to park Cherry until 6:00 when parking is restricted to residents only. A few hours to stroll around Wilshire Boulevard and make unfair judgments of the L.A. tourist hub should be enough before I skip to the edge of town and call it a day. I’m eager to spend some time reviewing my recorded notes to write down some thoughts, look for some themes, develop some ideas. I must like the sound of my own voice. It suddenly occurs to me (not true) to get online and check my email for a message from McCoy or my friend Leon, both of whom have roots in the area. I asked them what I must see while here and maybe they can structure my day. As I sit down at some French bakery chain to coffee and a dry sandwich and a flakey wireless connection (Could it be the computer…no, my computer? It must be all these hotspots that are at fault.) I find myself more interested in the cast of characters coming and going down the pedestrian mall. Some sociologists interpret fashion as the external display of a person’s interior, and if social disclosure tells the world something about our for really real selves then the staff here at the Center for Conspicuous Consumption are screaming at full volume about their fundamental values. It’s a peculiar mix though. It’s one thing when a group is exclusive, when membership is restricted or invitation-only or involves a rite of passage; it’s different when membership is a combination of interest and ability to participate. It may be that only the six-figure crowd actually goes into the Hermes shop, but on the pedestrian mall it’s everyone from punk runaways to Texas cowboys to hip-hop wannabes to porn stars. The pedestrian mall is an intersection of non-exclusivity but it sure as hell is no melting pot. It’s noisy and chaotic and shoppers follow their preferences, eat, stroll, socialize. This is no Midwest shopping mall and no Wal-Mart Supercenter. It reminds me of a high-end shotengai, the alley markets around most railway stations in Japan. It’s like a bazaar, like a consumer wonderland, like a…Like a classic marketplace. High and low value sitting side by side available to whoever wants (and can afford) the treasures kept within. Upscale, yes, but not exclusive. That punk rock superstar has a grand to drop on a Kate Spade purse and it’s hers. Insta-status. Not that she’d want it; that would make her too much like the mother she’s desperately trying not to become.
I spend a few hours looking around, bothering the passersby, sipping coffee. I know I’m just seeing a snapshot of Santa Monica and not getting the whole picture. There’s a lot more I could take in, nooks and crannies to explore. If I had a guide or the gumption or a little good luck I’d trod off the beaten path and find something unexpected and amazing. But I’m not feeling it. I don’t care for the scene, I’m not interested in buying anything, and my attention is too short to focus on writing on such a beautiful day. I’d rather be somewhere else besides the tourist stretch of Santa Monica. Restated as social disclosure: Santa Monica sucks.
Around 6:00PM I head for Venice Beach and find myself pleased to have moved. Venice Beach feels a lot more quaint, sporty, welcoming. It has that SoCal je ne sais quoi. I spend a few hours in quiet contemplation of nothing in particular and as day wears out I crawl into Cherry and drive along the service road looking for a spot by the ocean side to get a sunset photo of the car. Funny thing about Venice Beach is that it has no Pacific Coast Highway cutting people off from the sand; something I come to fully realize only as sunset turns to dark and I find myself tangled in one-way side roads and dead-end alleyways. Oh well, a sunset picture would have been nice. {Goal: Take a picture of Cherry by the ocean at sunset. Relevance: None, it’s just something to do. Agent: Me, I might have planned this out in advance, but that whole planning thing is very expensive. Alternatives: Drive around; enjoy the sights and smells; wait until tomorrow; Photoshop Cherry into an ocean sunset.}Around 8:00PM I find myself generally heading back to Marina Del Rey near Mieko’s hotel. The roads are familiar once I pick up the remnants of Route 66. There’s a restaurant that caught my eye on the way down Lincoln that I think might be fun and swank {stated as social disclosure: this restaurant is fun and swank}, and since I was out of sorts yesterday I call Mieko on a lark to see if she cares for a burger. It turns out she’s up for it, work let out early and she’s been at the hotel catching up on administrivia. I stop by and pick her up and we head back down Lincoln.
“Where were you today?” she asks.
“Around…Santa Monica, Malibu, the beach, the marina. Saw this place this morning and it looks like retro diner so I wanted to give it a try.”
A few minutes down the road she comments, “Wow, you really went all over. I’ve been at this client for a month now and I haven’t been farther than a few blocks. Except when I fleeing to the airport.”
“This strip is cool. There’s a classic car shop and a few malt stands and a ton of hand carwashes. I think I’ll clean the car tomorrow.”
“It kind of needs it,” she observes quite uncritically.
We pull up at Swingers, a little joint with glitter stucco and a hep retro shop sign. “Totally your kind of place,” Mieko laughs. We go inside and make ourselves comfortable as the inked-and-pierced waiter sets us up with a pot of joe. Yesterday we reminisced and rebuilt some rapport. Today we talk about plans for the future.
Mieko is a software consultant. I’m not sure if she sees herself as more a consultant or more a programmer, but it’s clear to me she lacks the science-fiction-as-reality confusion and requisite misanthropic tendencies to be a programmer. I’m not sure I saw her put together for client meetings while we lived together; tonight she’s in a smart pantsuit and red blouse. She’s in one of those bait and switch consulting jobs that promise all kinds of recognition and rewards to type-A gunners and drain their love of work before have that quarter life crisis where they wrestle with a work life that has become largely meaningless. Might there be a pattern to the corporate rat race? No, I’m sure every company is unique in the course of human history when it takes advantage of the discretionary emotional energy of its young employees by promising more than it could conceivably deliver.
One of the perks of being a software consultant is that you can call just about any city with an international airport home. Mieko is thinking about moving out of Chicago. For the record, she only came to Chicago from Saint Paul with me in the final days of our tenuous separation when I started school, so in some sense I can’t help but feel responsible for her being in the city. That said, all I know how to do is listen and help where I can with thoughts (not advice or criticism; cf. being divorced) and ask questions that I’m interested in knowing. I think moving to Minneapolis would be great for her because she has some close personal friends there but I hold my tongue.
Mieko: Chicago is fine but all the people I’m close to moved away.
me: You know Vlad and Vicki in Minneapolis and there’s a little Japanese community. Would that suit you better?
Mieko: Maybe. I’m also thinking about moving to Boston to be closer to headquarters.
me: {Innervoice: Go! That’s a brilliant career move!} Boston is a nice city. When are you thinking of moving?
Mieko: I signed a year lease so not until summer.
me: If there’s anything I can do let me know. I can water your plants.
Mieko: I don’t have any plants.
me: You should get some. Then I can water them. Makes me feel like I’m helping out.
She laughs, the waiter comes and takes our order. Mieko insists on hearing every option available to her before deciding what to order, so even though clam chowder is her favorite soup she wants to know what’s in the kitchen…then she orders clam chowder anyway. I ask about her parents, who like mine are divorced but unlike mine stuck it out until Mieko and her sister were grown.
Mieko: It’s tough. My mother’s restaurant is not doing so well, so I send money home for the mortgage. But if business doesn’t improve in the next year or so she’s going to have to shut the place down.
me: What would she do then?
Mieko: Who knows?
Not sure what to say, I say nothing. I offer a sympathetic lip purse and just listen. Very different from when we were married—then I’d figure out how to operationalize a five-step process for increasing revenue she should implement next week. Let’s do this. What’s the big fucking delay? C’mon, c’mon. Let’s go.
Framework for a supportive and relaxing relationship.
Mieko: She’s been putting a lot of pressure on me to move to Japan. {Pause} I’m not sure that’s where I want to be right now.
me: {Innervoice: So stand up to her!} If money weren’t an issue where would you want to be right now?
Mieko: That’s the problem. I’m not sure.
I know that being close to people matters quite a lot to Mieko. She’s very friendly and social, but that tatemae and honne differentiation among acquaintances isn’t something you wake up one day and wash off in the hot springs. Letting people get close can be frightening. She’s introverted by nature, she didn’t grow up riffing on the same pop culture pabulum that most of us did, and she’s female in a male-dominated industry. Not sure how I’d manage in her shoes but I don’t think it’s all that easy. I’m tempted to tell her that most of us are trying to forge ahead with the cards stacked against us, figure out what it’s all about—and I hold my tongue. Sometimes when I’m dealing with the shit in life I find something satisfying about letting the experience just consume me. I do not want to admit that everyone goes through it. I do not want to make it better or solve the problem, I do not want to forge ahead. No, instead I want to privilege my little drama over the little dramas of everyone else in the world. Because, for God’s sake, it’s my drama. In these ultra rare moments my inner martyr doesn’t want to feel better, he wants to be angry and hopeless and awash in doubt. He likes that. Not sure if Mieko is feeling this right now, but if she is anything I offer other than supportive silence is likely to get me the results I deserve.
Mieko: I’m not sure if this is the right job for me.
me: Why do you say that?
Mieko: It just doesn’t feel like me. You know, I was thinking about doing sales. But I don’t know if I’ll be any good. Our sales people just promise whatever they need to get a sale and move on to the next customer, and we’re left to come in and fix the mess.
me: You think all sales people are like that?
Mieko: All the ones I’ve seen, yeah.
me: How long do salespeople last at your company?
Mieko: Not long.
Silence. I’ve been thinking about this very topic and think it might be helpful for me to talk it through. But the last thing I want to do is ram it down anyone’s throat, so I decide to broach it, hesitantly at first, ready to bail out with my trusty parachute at the first sign of engine trouble.
me: Stop me if you don’t want to talk about this, I don’t mind. Not all sales people are scam artists, you know. The good ones tend to be committed to making customers happy. Sure they probably use closing techniques, they probably know how to entertain guests, all the normal socializing stuff. But people like you, people who know their products, customers love people like you. They buy from people like you. People have different skills, different aspects of themselves, some are stronger than others and some weaker. Some people are really good with machines and not good with people. Some are great with software like you and know how to handle customers but would make good project managers, partly due to skill and partly due to interest. Martin Gardner calls this “multiple intelligences,” and you know what they are: some people are great musicians, some great athletes, some great scientists. But virtually no one is great at everything. It’s probably important that you’re willing to try it, willing to improve an aspect of yourself that must be weak otherwise you’d already be a top sales person, and willing to let “I’m a salesperson” be part of your new identity. If that makes you feel slimy it’s probably doomed from the start.
Mieko: No, it’s not that I feel slimy. I don’t know, it’s just too much to do all at once.
me: {Innervoice: So don’t do it all at once, make a plan!} Yeah, it is a lot.
Mieko: Maybe after this project ends I’ll talk to my boss.
Our food comes and we eat and talk slowly. We spread rumors about Tyson and our old friends from Saint Paul. But I’m only half present because it suddenly occurs to me (not true) that all these aspects, these roles that I see in Mieko are at once completely genuine and at the same time arbitrary illusions. She’s a woman, Japanese, a consultant, a programmer, temperamental, introverted, a musician, friendly, logical, unpredictable, a Chicagoan, my ex, I could go on. She’s all these at once—any one doesn’t preclude the other, and some contradict one another. That’s just how it is. What occurs to me is that she’s all these things and yet none of these things. I can take away the programmer and Mieko is left; I can take away the consultant, still her; the Japanese, strange as it seems, does not define her—even with that gone she’s still there. I suddenly do this for everyone in the room: those two black chicks kissing slowly in the next booth, if they weren’t black or chicks or kissing they’d still be themselves in some deep sense. The inked-and-pierced waiter who brings our bill, if he lost his ink and piercings and made less unfortunate choices about his facial hair he’d still be him. If I weren’t so tall, if I weren’t white, if I cut my hair there would still be some me left in there.
I notice this because I’ve been thinking about self disclosure and social disclosure, surfacing the stuff the for really real me keeps hidden from others. What if when even our deepest preferences, tastes, values, fears, neuroses, all the shit we let in with that open mind stuff, what if when even all that is swept away we’re left with something behind. An indescribably pure source of will to live. Life that simply wants to experience life. For just a moment everyone in this SoCal dinner dive is transcendent, radiant, a precious gift to the universe.
With a shrill cackle the fat guy two booths down takes a phone call and shakes me out of my fascination. But I’m thankful for having had the moment. Our waiter has been replaced by a cute dreadlocked waitress in the course of a shift change and she notices my stack of business cards I had printed for the trip and asks about them; I tell her what I’m writing about and suggest she follows along. She’s chatty and asks a few more questions. Having met with her approval I leave it there; while I’m tempted to put the moves on the girl I hardly think I’m ready to recruit Mieko as my wing woman.
The drive back to the hotel is short. Arriving Mieko suddenly remarks “Wow, that was quick. Really quick. It always seems longer getting somewhere than coming back.”
Familiarity, I think to myself. Familiarity lets you turn your attention to the big stuff; when you’re unfamiliar with an area you don’t know what matters and what doesn’t so you’re so busy trying to take it all in. But I don’t say anything, I just nod and smile knowingly. “Have a good night,” I wish Mieko.
“Where are you going to go know?” she asks.
“Not sure, probably get some coffee and drive a while. I’m beat.”
“Well if you don’t mind me typing for an hour you’re welcome to stay here again. It’s up to you,” she offers.
“Yeah?” I ask, hesitating.
“Sure,” she says.
I dart my eyes back and forth for a minute {Goal: I don’t have a goal I just want to sleep.} and say, “Think I just might do.” Familiarity, I think to myself, as I park the car and dig out my sleeping bag.
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