Mumblings from the Philosopher's Cave

Moving

2006-12-25T19:36:00.000-05:00

This and the 'other' site are merging into a new common space. All future updates, ranting, pictures, and other miscelaneous detritus will be found at http://web.mac.com/m_reiser.

All or Nothing

2006-12-11T00:15:00.000-05:00

Up In Smoke...

It all depends upon what side of the pool you live on. That is the dividing line, the border between those who have homes tonight and those who are looking for a new place to live. And in the burned out area it seems to be a matter of luck- maybe you have everything, maybe you have nothing. All determined by the fickle finger of Fate.

Many of you have already heard about the recent events. The best articles I have found online are here and here . I have a preference for the Times' article because the reporter and photographer helped get me access to people and places I could not otherwise have come close to.

The short version of the story is that a young woman, probably a student at Cal State Long Beach, was trying to cook dinner in a first floor apartment. She started a grease fire and, in her ignorance, tossed a pot of water on it. The resulting mess was sucked up by the range hood over the stove and carried into the attic above the third floor. From there the fire was able to drop through vents into apartments and hallways playing Hell all along two floors of a very large apartment building.

In the end, it took two hundred firemen and eight hours to put everything out.

But we were fortunate... very much so. As some of you know, having visited, this is a very large property, 340 units cover an area the size of a city block. There are actually two separate complexes, north and south, connected only at one point. Each complex consists of three connected, but largely independent, buildings. In this case, it appears that only one building is a total loss. Unfortunately however, everyone in the North Complex must leave- it could be months before any of them have power or water, and there is no realistic way to keep any of those units habitable.

Over here in the South Complex, we have power and water. I can barely smell the burned out shell of the other building. Except for the constant stream of people solemnly removing their possessions from the apartments that are at least salvageable.

But back to the beginning... Friday afternoon Sharon and I left at about three o'clock to get a few things at Target. We came back about four and saw smoke coming from the neighborhood of our building. Getting closer, we found that the street was closed and we had to park a block away. I sprinted to the area and saw the north part of our complex in flames. Finding Sharon, we made a quick judgment. The fire was in the north building. There were people still in the office area that divides the two structures. No fire, with a dozen trucks already on scene, could possibly travel that length, including at least four firewalls. Not quickly anyway.

So Sharon and I ran in, dashed down the hall to our apartment at the far south corner, and decided what we needed- the laptops, which have her writing and my photos - one small box of the few family heirlooms that are easily portable. Grab those and run. Not back down the hall toward the fire, but out the apartment (locking the door behind us) and across an adjacent stairwell to an emergency exit. Out to the street.

By now the police had a line around the building and there was no chance of getting back in- not that I'd want to. Decided that the fire wouldn't reach us. Not seriously at least. Anyway, it was getting dark and I noticed that our south complex still had power. Not much to say about the north side. Called my mother and told here we were coming over for the night. Drove across town and watched our neighbors on the evening news.

We were let into our place at about two the next afternoon. That was when I took my pictures. That was also when I latched on to the people from the Times and heard from the Fire Captain that this was the worst fire Long Beach had seen in thirty-six years, and the worst 'structure fire' in living memory. (A 1970 fire destroyed an entire city block when a gas main exploded.) According to him, none of the LBFD chiefs had ever seen any fire spread so fiercely so quickly. There will be questions asked. Questions about fire doors. Questions about emergency planning. But in the end, as with most great accidents, it simply seems that it was the result of everything going wrong that possibly could go wrong. Which is why we call them accidents.

Pics: here

New pictures at the Other Site

2006-09-25T15:29:00.000-04:00

Finally got 'round to uploading some more from the camera. Some of Manhattan, but mostly local LA / Long Beach and the San Diego Zoo.

Hot Wieners in Warm Buns!

2006-09-25T15:19:00.000-04:00

That ought to get me some traffic.

Do we really need an individually wrapped, pre packaged frankfurter?

Apparently Kraft thinks so. Witness the latest abomination of the culture of lazy...

The Oscar Meyer Fast Frank

Now you too can be freed from the drudgery of placing that beastly sausage in a bifurcated bun... food engineers have solved that problem forever!

Condiment application is still your own problem however.

I'm not really against the item per se, because hot dogs truly are a great American food. One of the original industrial meats, they embody everything this great nation stands for. I just can't see a market for simplifying one of the simplest meals in existence. The Fast Frank is obviously not trying to re-create the occult alchemy of the Dodger Dog, the Fenway Frank, or any of the other mystical creations of Major League Baseball. Nor is it trying to achieve the sublime perfection of a grilled dog. In the thirty five seconds it takes to produce this modern wonder, I believe I could actually microwave a regular dog, and have my bun and condiments prepped for application.

When something truly is an advance that improves the quality of my kitchen life, I will embrace it with open arms. But somehow I think it is mildly insulting to lump "microwave single serving hot dogs" in with great inventions like canning, pasteurization, and ramen noodles.

Pack Mules of the World-- UNITE!

2006-08-24T01:04:00.000-04:00

I swore I'd finally write something today, but it's later in the day than I wanted to attack this, and at this point its as much a labor of pig-headed resolve as a labor of love.

I haven't spent any time in the cave lately because I've been working. I wish I could say it had worked out...

Back in March I took a job as an Admin for an employment agency in Orange County. I thought I was being hired to write reports and help management build the business. In all honesty, I think that is what I was originally hired to do. Unfortunately, that's not what I wound up doing. Then our payroll clerk flipped out and quit. I don't mean Two Week's Notice- 'thank you ma'am but the situation isn't quite working out so I'm leaving for better opportunities'- quit, but 'take this job and shove it up your #@*!' quit.

Which left us with no way to pay three hundred employees...

So I became the payroll clerk. No training, no experience. No clue.

Payroll is one of those jobs that is mentally taxing, but not particularly stimulating. A payroll clerk has to apply a complex set of rules to an infinite set of individual circumstances, with no ability or incentive to improve upon or alter the system. Timecard to late? ... Sucks to be you.

So of course I sucked at the job. I didn't screw up badly enough to actually get fired. I didn't even screw up enough to get yelled at. But I hated the work, and the abuse, and the misery of a job that offers no reward for accomplishment, but plenty of misery for every little mistake.

And It ate at me. I started getting sick in the morning. I started to get nasty. I was always tired and worried about what I had fucked up this week... So I quit.

It's really hard to get up in the morning and drag yourself to a miserable job when you don't need the money, and I don't need the money. I see why people do it, one of my problems as a payroll clerk was too much compassion. I'd bend the rules for a sweet kid who just bough his first car and needed to make sure his check would clear. Need that check a day early? No problem.

And I just couldn't find a reason to get up in the morning, so I gave my Two Week's Notice- 'thank you ma'am but the situation isn't quite working out so I'm leaving for better opportunities', I found/ hired two people to do the job that I had been doing, and I'm once again unemployed. Honestly, I think everyone is the better for it. The receptionist/ admin I hired has the bubbly personality needed for a job like that, and the new payroll clerk is a competent, unambitious, bitch who knows the rules inside an out and cares more about her office's books than the contractors' sob stories.

Oddly, unemployment feels really good. I'm reading again, writing, and shooting (new pictures soon). Too much busyness, too much concern over trivial things destroys the mind's ability to concentrate on more complex problems. Don't believe me, ask the Pope (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/20/AR2006082000183.html).

It's axiomatic in American society that anything but hard labor must be a sign of corruption and weakness. We all know it as the vaunted protestant work ethic, a philosophy that may as well be interpreted as "Arbeit Macht Frei". Success, freedom, and worth in our culture are based upon your position in the job market. The next time someone asks me "What do you do?" I may give them a truthful answer. I eat. I drink (probably too much). I write a bit. I take pictures. Of course I'm expected to give a more relevant answer... to tell them what I do to earn money to buy food and shelter. But food and shelter (and drink even!) are not in immediate peril. Sharon and I could stay the course for months without a dime and not feel the pinch of 'short-rations.'

I don't know what I am doing at this point, but I am going to avoid selling my days to boredom at all costs. It's not worth the early grave. There has to be a better way to support a body and soul. I am planning to work with the camera some and shoot places that have been on my list for months. I'm sweeping out the cave, and promise new rants every few days. I care again, and am willing to lend my talents to anyone who is willing to provide just compensation for product. But get this clear, my time is not for sale.

Olympic Hang-Up

2006-02-26T21:33:00.000-05:00

Full explanation later, but The Cave's internet connection has been down for nearly a month. Well, not entirely down, but reduced to the modern equivalent of a pair of tin cans and a piece of string. I'd be sending telegrams if Western Union hadn't stopped the service back in January.

**********

I used to care about the Olympics, honest. I even watched figure skating once every four years, albeit with the semi-detached eye required of every man who still puts on his pants one leg at a time. But this year I just don't seem to care. A bit of bobsled, maybe a couple of figure skaters (but none of the medal contenders), and perhaps a ski run, but then it's nine o'clock and off to Lost or House and off to bed. I could stay up until midnight to find out who wins the (literal) Gold, at least I could try. I'm not actually sure I could make it.

The problem, is that NBC is trying to treat the Olympics as a 'news event.' As if somehow they can build suspense about the outcome of an event that has been over for most of a day and reported about across half the world. But there is no suspense. I went into the final event of women's figure skating with sure knowledge of the result. I didn't particularly care. I wanted to watch the skaters.

Instead of skaters however, I was subjected to a series of overproduced 'human interest' pieces. A sentimental piece on every damn skater so trite that any third rate j-school hack would be ashamed. I never made it to the last group because by eleven-thirty I was fast asleep.

From a programming point of view, it is truly astounding that NBC actually thinks they can keep an audience clear up until midnight, for any event, even big ones like figure skating. If it were a live broadcast, I could at least see the news possibilities, but as a taped production it seems insane. Don't most people work? The last thing I am going to loose sleep over is another story about the skater whose mother needs a kidney transplant.

Not that I'm against kidney transplants. I hope the nice old lady gets hers and lives to a ripe old age. But that is not the point of the Olympics. I don't watch any sport to see how the young man overcomes the tragedy of whatever to succeed in spite of the obstacles the fate puts in his path. If I want that story I have Chariots of Fire somewhere around the house. I watch the Olympics to get my quadrennial fix of athletic competition, and even if I know the outcome I still want to watch.

But I want to watch uninterrupted by constant reminders of how obviously 'touching' everything is. I just want to watch the short track skaters go heat after heat, knowing that half of them won't make it to the next round. There is a visceral competitiveness that is enthralling even if you know who will ultimately prevail. It's like watching a movie when you know the outcome. The drama is not in the outcome, but in the struggle of competition. It's that struggle, the culmination of muscle, mind, luck, and sheer will that enthralls us. For one brief moment the world can be an ice rink, or a bobsled run, or a ski slope. But true to the original spirit of the first games however, it is just as soon all gone, and the real world asserts itself once again.

But I've got to go. The closing ceremony is on and I can hear the gentle strains of Italy's cultural gift to the world- Louis Prima.

Cinema Paradise

2006-02-01T16:58:00.000-05:00

Cinema Paradise

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (known simply as "The Academy") announced the nominations for the best movies of last year, and I don't care. I simply can't weigh in on a contest when I haven't seen half of the movies nominated. If you want informed opinion, go here- here- otherwise you can stick around for my uninformed ranting.

There is one line in Jan's entry however, that remind me how lucky I am to live in the current cultural center of the Western world:

"Nevertheless, there are some excellent movies on this list, both in terms of craft and in terms of the story they choose to tell. Movies worth seeing, even though some may never make it to small towns this side of DVD."

Wow. I'd forgotten about that. I'm not talking about bizarre foreign 'art house' fare, movies subtitled or dubbed from eastern european languages that feature hollow faced women crying over the loss of what might be either a small child or a large turnip, but I can't tell because the thing seems to have been shot on film stock so grainy it must have been bought at the Pathé brothers' yard sale. I'm talking about real movies with actual actors, coherent plots, shot by competent directors that, for one reason or another, were simply not deemed 'marketable' by the studios and the distributors.

I'd forgotten that I can see movies at Arclight.

So I get to see movies like Constant Gardiner, Pride and Prejudice, Secuestro Express, and Howl's Moving Castle. I get to see entertaining 'popcorn' movies like Mr. & Mrs. Smith while sipping Sam Adams in a room without gum on the floor. I get to see movies like King Kong the way they should be shown, on a screen so wide it curves around the whole front of the theatre. I can see, in a real movie theatre, Gone With the Wind, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Dr. Strangelove, and in some cases finally understand what all the fuss was about.

This is where people who love movies can see them right. When I saw Kong at a Wednesday matinee a few weeks back, I gradually became cognizant of the fact that the producer of one of the most popular shows on television was directly behind me. Why does someone who could see a free screening of this movie choose to pay twelve bucks to see it with us plebs? The answer is that movies really do require a certain venue. A certain immersion that can't really be duplicated on a small scale.

DVD's just don't cut it. No 54" plasma can compete with a real theatre. And if your ever in town, Arclight's at the corner of Sunset and Ivar.

The rumors of my death...

2006-01-24T20:47:00.000-05:00

I'm not dead, and while a bit mouldy from four months of neglect, the cave is not closed for good. I refuse to walk away from this attempt in the vainglorious pursuit of at least a dozen occasional readers.

So the $.64 dollar question is... what has the philosopher been doing for the last six months? I went off the air largely because I took a short term job that had the small advantage of occasionally allowing me to actually work with Sharon, and the very large disadvantage of keeping me away from her almost all of the time.

Physical exhaustion is not particularly good for the philosophical mind, but that bit is over now and I'm back onto the search for something that at least approximates 'real' employment. It would be simpler if I had a career goal the way most modern people do, a firm desire to be a lawyer, or doctor, or parking garage attendant. The problem is however, that I have this strong desire to simply be married and perhaps raise a family. Everything else is just beans, and so it makes interviews a bit awkward. Interviews typically get to a point-

HR Drone: Mr. Reiser, tell me, *cough* , what makes you want to be a TPS Report Analyst?

And there's not really a good answer for that sort of question, because I don't really want to shovel some disingenuous load of tripe down there throat about how I've always wanted to analyze reports, because it's simply not true. On the other hand, I'm sunk if I look her (no offense ladies, but the interviewers are almost always women for some reason) in the eye and state flatly: "I want the job because I have a wife to feed and rent to pay and nice things I would like." That would be treason, because in modern culture we are all supposed to find our 'economic vocation' and devote our lives and very souls to some variation on 'developing synergy' or 'facilitating communications strategies.'

And it's everywhere... people will come up to you at a party and ask "What do you do?" I'm sometimes tempted to say. "Well, this morning I got up and had a cup of coffee. I'm pretty sure most of the time I was breathing, though there were a few seconds I'm not sure about because Sharon surprised me in the bath. In any event, at the moment I'm talking to a stupid twit who thinks the best way to begin introductions is on business interests."

But I don't. Most of the time I give an evasive answer and find someone I know. At the rare party where creative people might be about I call myself 'an unsuccessful freelance photographer.' It's mostly true, gets us off the subject of work, and sometimes gets the conversation on to a subject that I actually like to discuss.

End of rant, there's more pedestrian news to get to. If anyone has or soon will try to access the pictures at homepage.mac.com/m_reiser, don't be surprised to notice that they are gone. That whole site is being rebuilt as time permits. Also, I give notice that I may disparate from the internet for days at a time. I'll go into details later, but it involves myself, Verizon DSL service, and a technologically ignorant neighbor.

Minutiae out of the way however, the important news is that Sharon and I have moved once again. I'll go into gory details sometime in the next few days, but I am now finally master of my domain once again. It will be nice to be able to entertain guests of our own once again. The new address will eventually appear in the alumni directory for 'the community of those who know', but any interested parties can get it by e-mailing me at matt.reiser@mac.com.

That's it for tonight. This place is dirty and I think I see a spider under that rock... or is it just the form of a spider?

Cajun Pulled Pork

2005-09-26T20:06:00.000-04:00

I'll probably say something later, but for the moment...

"the Louisiana delegation's $250 billion bill would cost more than the Louisiana Purchase under the Jefferson administration on an inflation-adjusted basis"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/25/AR2005092501413_pf.html

Storm Porn

2005-09-21T18:03:00.000-04:00

Just a quick rant...

Shepherd Smith was on Fox News a moment ago, 'reporting' on the massive hell-storm that God is about to visit upon the good people of south Texas. (That is assuming, of course, that it doesn't mysteriously veer north and finish off New Orleans for good.) It's shows like this that give liberals just cause to slam Fox. Right now the storm appears to be headed straight at Galveston, site of the worst hurricane disaster in US history. (For those of you who don't know, a storm in 1900 washed over the island that the city is built on and flattened the town, killing something like six thousand people.)

Shep was trying to 'interview' an historian and and draw comparisons to this storm, except that Shep was factually wrong about the details of the event. Not that he gave the guest much time to correct him, it wasn't that kind of an interview. What's wore, Shep almost seemed to hope that this would be just as bad. He kept looking for reasons why we should be devastated now in the same ways that we were over a century ago. You could almost see the anticipatory excitment in his eye.

And it dawned on me that a story like this is practically pornographic. We have a long, intense buildup of emotion, anticipating the main event. This is followed by a sudden, violent outburst, a 'stormgasm' in which we release all of that pent up energy. Finally, we all collectively sigh as we look at the aftermath and start to get worked for the next one.

Ron Jeremy should get a job as a broadcaster, but he might consider it beneath him.

Disgusting.

Now back to your regular programming...

... oh, that was regular programming.

Sigh.

Rebooting

2005-09-21T17:50:00.000-04:00

A quick update for anyone who hasn't heard...

I'm in California now, San Pedro for anyone who knows the L.A. area. I burned out not long after the crash, and realized that life was on hold, spinning around in an endless succession of ordinary days. So I quit my job (they let me hire my replacement though), packed my wife and other assorted treasures into a van and headed back down the road that brought me East.

The drive itself is a blast, particularly when you have a companion and more than two dollars to rub together. The northeast isn't much to speak of, but once you're bouncing across the Ozarks listening to Coal Miner's Daughter on the classic Country station ("Oh, we have both kinds, Country and Western") it's all good. Oklahoma is still full of cows, north Texas is still one of the emptiest places on Earth that can realistically claim to be inhabited (someone must harvest all that corn), and New Mexico still looks like a Road Runner cartoon come to like.

Midwesterners are still as friendly as ever, they really do just seem to like people. In fact, the best night we spent was at the Travelodge in Elk City, Oklahoma. I'd stayed here before, except that five years ago the Travelodge was closer to the Interstate in a building now housing some dodgy sort of 'Budget Motor Lodge.' The Travelodge had moved into it's present home a year or so back when the Motel 6 left for a new building down the block. That's how the hospitality industry works in western Oklahoma I'm told.

I was told by the manager when we checked in. I assume he knows what he is talking about, his name was also listed on the plaque behind the desk as the franchises owner. Which was the kind of place this was. We weren't just staying in a hotel, we were staying in his hotel. He clearly didn't have much to work with, but the old furniture was at least clean, and the important bits all worked. How much profit can there be in renting rooms at thirty dollars a night? This was the sort of place where the desk clerk sold her (very nice) homemade quilts in the front lobby and insisted we at least eat something from the selection of breakfast pastries if we didn't have time to make ourselves some hot waffles.

This is why I hate so see urban 'sophisticates' bash red state populations- I like these people.

More on the trip another time... We got to L.A. safely and I did what anyone else would do in my situation, I took a long vacation. April-June were the first summer I had not worked in years, and probably the last. But it is tempting to quit work every few years to recapture that lost pleasure of knowing that all I have to do tomorrow is...

And now it is back into the job search. It's taking a while, because I am re-learning how to go about job hunting and because I am being a bit pickier about career moves. Ansoft was a place to work when I needed a place to work, but this time I'd like something a bit more. I'll be twenty-seven in a few weeks, and I'd rather not be in the same place I was when I was twenty-three.

(If anyone happens to be hiring, my resume is here.)

At the moment though, life consists manly of sitting on the porch with a bloody mary while I scan CareerBuilder for anything of interest. As long as the money holds out, and it will for some time yet, semi-voluntary unemployment can be quite pleasant.

Crash

2004-12-30T10:48:00.000-05:00

Things Fall Apart

It's odd really, but I don't actually remember the accident itself. All I remember is starting to change lanes, hearing a loud bang, thinking "S*&!, I just hit someone!", and then sitting on the side of the road, suddenly motionless. The force of the impact and subsequent spin tore my glasses off my face, leaving me totally unable to regain my bearings. But Volkswagens are built well, and though the car is a total write off (I've not heard that officially, but am certain of the fact), I walked away from the scene sore, bruised, but otherwise totally unhurt. But the psychological trauma is a bit odd, a week after the crash and I'm still pretty rattled. I have to do things slowly and deliberately, noises spook me (not just loud ones), and my hands still shake a bit. I know I can drive- I have done so several times since the accident, but it will be a while yet before I can subconsciously process the firsthand lesion about how easily and quickly everything can come apart.

I'm not going to mince words, nor will I exaggerate the facts, but simply state the truth of the matter. I lost control of my car, crossed two lanes of freeway traffic, and clipped a concrete barrier at around eighty miles an hour. Someone, myself included, could very easily have been killed. And yet I walked away. I don’t feel lucky.

The realization that I walked away unhurt is more a feeling of having been blessed with a second chance and a message. This is not my time, if it were I wouldn’t be writing this. But the lesion is clear, written on forty foot high letters in my mind- GROW UP KID. Last week I was 26, and as is typical for that age I subconsciously thought that, while bad things could happen to me, somehow they wouldn’t. Except that something bad did happen, and that by the grace of God it was merely life changing, not life shattering. I’m still 26, but somehow I now feel older than that, a bit more worn. Lucky Me.

Jericho Road

On the Jericho Road there's room for just two
No more but no less, just for Jesus and you
- On the Jericho Road, Trad.

So things have fallen apart a bit. The car crash could easily wind up costing me almost ten thousand dollars when all is said and done. But that is money I have, and I’m nowhere near financial ruin. But things have been falling apart for a while now. I’ve been miserable, and misery’s best friend is loneliness. I’ve withdrawn into myself and into depression, and consequently begun to vent that frustration. I’m angry all the time, I make stupid thoughtless mistakes. On most days Sharon is the only reason to get up in the morning. I’ve seen this coming, but the crash was an inciting incident. Sharon and I have been looking to our collective future, and those looks take us West, backwards towards a new start.

Sharon is from Boston, and I am from Southern California. We met at college out west and, after I graduated, I decided that I wanted her more than home. So I followed her home and eventually proved to myself that I could indeed support myself. We got married a little over a year ago. But the Northeast doesn’t really suit me- I’ve always felt cramped back here. Sharon has a serious desire to write movies, and it is a little hard to do that when you need to fly across the country for every single meeting. So every time we talk about the future, we talk about California.

The crash has brought into focus the one reality that has escaped me, even as I have considered this for a while- the future is now. It is time to get up and shake the dust from our feet, and in a very real sense leave this life behind. There is not much to take. The constants in my life are my faith in God and my wife’s faith in me, and there really isn’t room for much more than that. The future won’t be a blank slate, but it is the beginning of something new, and I like beginnings.