Craigslist Ad O' the Day

VIDEO FOOTAGE WANTED

Reply to: gigs-321760926@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-04-30, 12:35PM PDT


Need surgery footage of overweight black male, preferably gastrointestinal. Also need orthoscopic surgery footage, preferably gastrointestinal.


Location: Burbank
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
Compensation: Negotiable. It's for a low/no budget movie.

PostingID: 321760926

Jamaica

Cousin Matt's wedding was in Jamaica the weekend before last. Good times, strange times and drunk times were had. Jamaica is a strange place, mon. First off, it's strange to be a white dude where nearly all the black people are either a) destitute b) serving you c) scamming you or d) all of the above.

Jamaican resorts, it seems, do their level best to shield you from the realities of the island. This seems strange to me, really. Why would you want to visit a country if you weren't interested in that country? It is a beautiful place, though. More musing on this later.

Boule Shoot

My photographic skills are broadening! I purchased a lightbox from Calumet a couple weeks ago in preparation for my first-ever quasi-professional product shoot. The equipment I used can be found here. Neat, huh?

Anyhow, with a minimum of problems, I set up the box, the lighting and came up with these beautiful images. I'm pretty proud of 'em, I guess you could say. Any praise/criticism (as long as its constructive, por favor) is more than welcome. Damnit, it's encouraged.

By way of background, these pastries come from Boule, which is a high-end pastry shop located at 420 N. Highland Ave. in Los Angeles. I highly suggest checking it out. The images (strawberry tart, carrot cake and pineapple-basil gelatto, will be published in late May as part of a review by Yahoo! Food. (I'll make another note, of course, when it actually gets posted.)

The Burbank Follower, Vol. 2, No. 20

NEW COUNCILMEMBERS TO BE SWORN IN
Gary Bric and Anja Reinke will be formally sworn in as the Burbank City Council's newest members Tuesday. Members will also choose a new mayor to replace outgoing Mayor Todd Campbell. Leader.

ARMENIAN RELIEF SOCIETY GETS BURBANK GRANT, BUT NO BURBANK APOLOGY
The society, which provides help to immigrants and refugees, claimed the Burbank committee tasked with recommending the public service grants made anti-Armenian statements. The committee, which awarded a grant of $7,500, says "nuh-uh, we didn't." Leader.

The Tree-Morial

As I type this, I can see a pine tree I planted when I was in second grade. The tree, a 10-cent sapling at the time, was given to me by my mother as a gift for St. Patrick's Day. A bit of the green, if you will. We planted it in the backyard of my childhood home in San Diego.

Since then, the tree and I have grown... it a touch taller than I. My mom passed away, and I moved away, but the tree remained.

And, though trees generally have a longer lifespan than us bipeds, its days are numbered. It is not sick, no. Instead, its strength is causing its downfall, its 40-feet worth of pine needles choking the draining system of my neighbor's pool. A nuisance, a fire hazard, a danger. And, so, it was decided that the best for all involved would be to take it down.

But before it went, my dad callled me down from Burbank for a tree-morial, a chance to say so long. Funny to think it will soon be gone, the green expanse that seems to be in nearly every photo of our backyard, its shade that comforted each one of our pets.

So, a moment of silence on the keypad for the tree, which I never thought to name, because I never thought I would need to.

The Burbank Follower, Vol. 2, No. 19

Good God. I've taken so much time off from writing this silly blog, that I've gotten out of the habit. Well, damnit, no more. And now, for your irregularly updated listing of all news Burbank:

BURBANK TO OHIO - $10
Really. A new airline called Skybus is offering $10 one-way fares from Bob Hope Airport to Columbus. If you have no burning desire to see Ohio's capital city, you can jet on to points further east for an additional $10. Getting back will cost a bit more, though. LA Times. Reno Gazette Journal.

ST. JOE'S NURSES MARCH FOR HIGHER WAGES
Nurses and other staffers marched outside Providence St. Joseph Medical Center Tuesday in an attempt to pursude hospital management that increased wages equate to better patient care.
in unison for fair wages and continued high-quality patient care. Leader.

MIDDLE SCHOOLERS LEARN ABOUT ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Nearly a third of John Muir Middle School's student body, about 500 students, stayed home Tuesday to memorialize the 1.5 million Armenians killed by the Turkish government during the first World War. Those left in school saw a presentation on remembering all genocide. Leader.

[Interestingly, this has been an interesting week for all things Armenian genocide related. There has been quite a bit of hub (and bub) regarding an article about the genocide killed (or spiked, in journo-speak) due to supposed bias on the part of the Armenian reporter, Mark Arax. LA Observed.]

A Fascinatingly Annoying Day

Before I begin, I want to point out the sheer number of consonants in "fascinatingly." Nine! Or perhaps eight, if the final "y" counts as a vowel, which I suppose it probably does.

Moving on. In terms of basic irritability, Monday took several pieces of cake. I had the day off, and planned on spending a fair amount watching television and annoying my friends at work. These are the good days, my friends, or at least it so seemed.

My humming happy mood lasted only a few minutes, however, as I dropped my the coffee filter basket, snapping off some weird plastic gizmo... a weird plastic gizmo that allows the whole thing to work. Damnit.

I jumped online, figuring that if eBay sells stuff like this, I could probably find a replacement basket with a few mouse clicks. But, well, no. The Mr. Coffee website lists dozens upon dozens of high-tech machines, including the one sitting, useless, on my kitchen counter. Hell, they'll given send me another one. But a replacement filter basket? Nope.

There are a number of places that sell accessories for Mr. Coffee, but these are spread out throughout the land. The closest was Newman's Vacuum in Santa Monica, where a bored clerk informed me that a replacement would cost $10 and take three to six weeks to get to me. And, oh yeah, if I wanted them to ship it to me, it would be an additional $8.50.

"Uh, so it will take until the end of May to get a filter?" I asked.

"Yeah," said the representative of Newman's. "It's on back order."

"So, where do you get the filters?"

"From Mr. Coffee."

"So I could call them myself?"

"Yeah."

"OK. I'll do so."

And I did. Turns out Mr. Coffee will send me a free replacement, and I'll only have to wait a month. Nice.

Of course, this all sounds like incessant and pointless whining (more so than usual) if that was the end of the tale. But it was not. Directly after getting off the phone, I got a call from the collections department of GE Money, who wanted to know why I hadn't paid them the $500 I owed them.

After making sure they were looking for this particular Daniel Evans (there are quite a few, even in Los Angeles), I asked them what I had bought on the card. Turns out, I had bought a couple of pairs of glasses at Lenscrafts last August, put it on a "No Payments for Six Months" card, and forgot about it.

Damnit. Oh, yeah, I never got a bill because GE Money had the wrong address. Because of this, I was not going to be charged for any late fees or interest, though I had to pay up by April 27.

Weirdly, though, I had returned one of the pairs and had received a refund... Or at least I thought. The collections lady (calling her unpleasant would be an insult to surly people) refused to hear it, telling me to take it up with Lenscrafters. Man.

Anyhow, I did get it cleared up with a second phone call, though with a different due date. Now, I dunno about you, but when I'm dealing with entities that can't get their figures or dates correct, I like independent confirmation. Despite asking for it, it was denied, leaving me to fend for myself against the cold and unfeeling credit bureaus.

Well, whatever. GE Money is a bunch of bastards, and you'd be better off setting your cash on fire than giving it to them.

But, finally, to top off the day, I made an unwise purchase. CompUSA is going out of business, or, at least, closing most of its stories. As part of this, they're having a close out sale, no returns, no refunds. No problem, I think, plunking down $170 for a external hard drive. The box clearly states it's for either a PC or Mac.

This, however, is only true for one kind of Mac, something only clear in the fine print at the bottom of the box. The clerks at CompUSA, well, they don't give a shit, and frankly I don't blame them. Still, I'm now stuck with an expensive paperweight, unless I can off-load it to someone that can use an eSATA Seagate drive. Man.

OK. I feel better.

An Ethics Commission for Burbank

The recent Burbank general election had a certain Lockean quality - nasty, brutish and (thankfully) short. From my perspective down in the flats, it seems odd that so much anger and vitriol would be spewed over a friggin' city council election. This is ostensibly a part time job, and not a particularly well-paid part time job.

I understand that politics is a full-contact sport, and that negative campaigning is a part of life. And this seems right, even fair. You should be able to point out your opponents flaws, as much as you can (and must) tout your own ideals and credentials. But voters must know where those attacks are coming from. And to do that, the city of Burbank should create an Ethics Commission to oversee the local political process and make things more transparent.

(Full disclosure: I work at the Los Angeles Ethics Commission as a senior investigator and have since 2005. I am suggesting that Burbank follow Los Angeles' lead here.)

Study after study has shown that negative campaigning works, but that it has its price. Voters may be turned off, the target of the negative ad will almost certainly retaliate, and grudges are likely to develop.

All of these problems, though, are ameliorated if these negative attacks are bought and paid for by political friends of the candidate. The candidate stays above the fray.

An excellent example is our recent election. Negative ads bloomed on Burbank lawns like so much crabgrass. Countless drivers saw the signs: a red circle with a cross through the words "Married Couples." It doesn't take much to figure this one out: don't vote for Carolyn or Phil Berlin and create a de facto voting bloc. Fine. Good. Personally, I had some reservations about the Berlins for exactly that reason.

But I would have felt a hell of a lot better about it if I knew that Gary Bric or Anja Reinke (the other two candidates) paid for it. But they didn't. They claimed, believably or not, not to know a thing about it. And, if an informed and ambitious citizen wanted to discover what group, exactly, paid for the signs, what that group stands for, and who contributed to it... well, that citizen would be frustrated.

Now, mind you, negative pieces regarding Bric and Reinke also spit through my mail slot. And again, it was not paid for by their opponents. This is not a good thing.

OK, so I"m Embarassed

Yes, I realize it's been more than a month since I've last posted. I really have no excuse, and lord knows there's been plenty of Burbank items to muse on about. However, since there's little point in rehashing old news, I believe what makes sense is to move on from this unfortunate lack-of-posting incident and move on.

Yes, that's what I'll do.

The Burbank Follower, Vol. 2, No. 18

BURBANK PRIEST DIES
Rev. Larence Signey, of St. Robert Bellarmine Roman Catholic Church, died Saturday after a short, unidentified illness. He was 45. Daily News.

MCCARTNEY EX NOT DANCING FOR DOLLARS
Heather Mills, the estranged wife of Paul McCartney, said Tuesday in Burbank that she is going on "Dancing With The Stars" to raise funds for charity. Aw, how sweet. EarthTimes.

BURBANK TEACHERS CLOSE TO PAY AGREEMENT
Negotiations between the local school district and teachers union tentatively agreed Thursday to a 7.25 percent pay hike for the 2006-07 school year. The agreement still must be ratified by the school board and the union's membership. Daily News.

WHOLE FOODS RE-REDUX
The Burbank City Council is scheduled to decide tonight whether to approve a downsized Whole Food development, less than a month after putting the kibosh on the natural grocer. Leader. Daily News.

Job O' The Day...

From Craigslist.org.

I'm particularly fond of the requirement that "you must be able to transport some fat people too."

****

Human taxi needed

Reply to: gigs-291234252@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-03-09, 12:50PM PST


I need someone who can act as a taxi for a few hours on a Saturday evening in July.

I might have my wedding in place where restrooms are a short walk away but I don't want my guests walking so I'm looking for someone who can get my guests to the bathroom.

We don't want to rent a port-o-potty b/c people will be dressed nice. That means whatever sort of rickshaw you have it must transport people in a clean and comfortable way. You must be able to transport some fat people too.

We would pay about $75 an hour in cash.

It would be in a park but near the road so you won't be transporting people over hills or hiking trails or anything like that.

Please send us an email with any questions you have and a description of what your bike/taxi/mode of transportation would be.

****

Sick

I am feeling, well, sick. Donna caught a nasty cold, complete with dry cough, fever and general nastiness. No fun. She missed work from Monday until Thursday.

And then she gave it to me. I've missed two day now, yesterday and today. I was supposed to review Severance for Losanjealous, but I've postponed that due to the continuing yucks.

I don't believe that I've ever taken two days in a row off from work. Actually, I might have forced myself back to cubical-land but for an odd bureaucratic policy. The city of Los Angeles gives us wage slaves an incredibly generous number of sick days, something like 12 a year. However, if you have more than six or seven incidents of sickness (more on that term in a minute), your supervisors are supposed to look upon you with suspicion, require doctor's notes, etc.

Now, I do understand why the city does this: people have been taking sick days while healthy for as long as there have been sick days. However, the city defines "an incident of sickness" any amount of continuous time off from work. That is, leaving a couple hours early because you're feeling crappy is one incident, so is taking a week off from work to fight off pneumonia.

So, basically, city employees are tacitly encouraged to take more than one day off work. Is this on purpose? Maybe by taking two day off work, instead of one, you're less likely to pass on germs. But I'm guessing it's just a weird unforeseen consequence of a poorly thought-out policy.

So, excuse me, I have to cough up a lung.

The Burbank Follower, Vol. 2, No. 17

GENERAL ELECTION COMETH
The four finalists for the two open Burbank City Council seats vow not to take their primary wins for granted. Gary Bric and Anja Reinke - who are supported by the current City Council - are vying against Philip and Caroline Berlin, a husband and wife team trying, according to the Leader, "to change to status quo." Leader.

Well, hmm. I voted for Bric and Reinke, despite my misgiving about their backing by the "Working Californians" PAC. Bric almost lost my vote, actually, following a Daily News story where he professed ignorance about the group's support. That, my friends, does not pass the smell test. At the very least, Bric (or someone in his campaign) would have received a copy of the flier - most Burbank residents did - bought and paid for by Working Californians.

I also was concerned that no news article has noted that the same independent expenditure supporting Bric also supported Reinke. Working Californians, on its state forms, only claims to be supporting Bric.

So why did I vote for them? Well, because I like what I've heard from them. I particularly like Reinke's Fine Arts Council proposal (I would considering volunteering should that come into existence, actually) and her views on energy efficiency. Bric I don't know as much about, despite my efforts: it seems that cops and firefighters like him, but that doesn't really hold that much weight for me. Great people, cops and firefighters, but their opinion on who should run the city holds as much weight on my vote as other stakeholders: teachers, business owners and my neighbors.

I never seriously considered voting for Prouty as his campaign literature merely seemed to state that he thought Burbank was swell, and he wanted to make it better. Er, how? The rest of 'em didn't seem to have a message of any sort. Heck with 'em, then.

So, why not the Berlins? Well, I have to admit that I didn't want to create a de-facto voting bloc on the Council. Also, some of their campaign literature seemed to have a serious misunderstanding of the state's open meeting law, the Brown Act. On top of that, they seemed to speak about wanting to change things, without presenting any ideas about what they wanted.

So, there ya go. The Berlins still have my vote in play for the general, but they have a bit of an uphill climb. I like Reinke, frankly. I don't know as much about Bric, but I don't believe it would be possible to split one of my remaining votes for Philip or Caroline. Any thoughts? I'd like to hear 'em.

The New Yorker

I opened up my copy of The New Yorker this morning (um, afternoon), and noticed that the famed caption contest has two finalists from the BGP area.

(Yes, I understand no one, yet, claims Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena, exactly. But, hell, we have Westside, Eastside, South Bay.... and North Cennnntrraalll Easssstsiiidee just doesn't have that ring, ya know?)

Anyhow, two of our local denizens, Jonathan Steinhoff, of Burbank, and Charlie Freund, of Glendale, are two of the finalists for the current caption contest. I actually thing Steinhoff's caption is the best, so I'm voting for that one, bravely deflecting accusations of homerism..

So, people, if you couldn't be bothered to vote in the recent City Council elections, mayhaps you could find your way to vote for the New Yorker caption contest. Good on ya.

A Most Amusing Afternoon

Here I work, all broken hearted
I went to sit, and my pants parted

I got sent home from work today. No, not really that bad, but not really that good. My pants, well, they done busted. A pleasant enough morning, filled with the usual coffee, small talk and office nonsense.

And then, riiiiiippp! My blue suit pants, purchased in December 2003, apparently they had enough of my ass (as yogaed out as it may presently be), and went into early retirement. I now am the proud owner of a pair of pants with a hole from the rear pocket to the back of my knees.

"At least you wear underwear," said one of my coworkers. Heh. I GUESS.

They were not exactly my favorite, based on their advanced age, and the fact that they only really look good with my blue suit coat (which now has essentially become worthless as well.)

But, hey, at least I got to go home early. Not such a bad day, really.

I won! Whooo!!

I got second place in the Burbank Library Photo Contest! Whoo! Bow down before my minor bad-assness!

Election Stats - For Yer Viewing Pleasure

CITY COUNCIL ELECTION RESULTS

Primary Winners

Gary Bric - 4,277
Anja Reinke - 3,900
Carolyn Berlin - 3,258
Philip Berlin - 2,946

Primary Losers

Whit Prouty - 2,741
Vahe Hovanessian - 1,194
Margaret Sorthun - 357

A 10,006 ballots were cast, out about 51,053 eligible voters. That's a turnout rate of approximately 19.6 percent. Oi. Modern American democracy.

The Burbank Follower, Vol. 2, No. 16

ELECTION COVERAGE
Not too many surprises here: Gary Bric and Anja Reinke received the most votes in the City Council primary, with Phil and Carolyn Berlin rounding out the top four. Whit Prouty came in fifth, Vahn Hovenessian sixth, and Margaret Sorthun (who apparently did nothing outside of putting her name on the ballot) came in last. Daily News. Leader.

ICH BIN EIN BERLINER
The Daily News does a nice piece on the Berlins and the upcoming general election. Bric, according to the DN, claims he has no knowledge of Working Californians, the independent political action committee that has spent $13,022 in support of his campaign. Sure. I suppose I wouldn't be the least bit curious about a political mailer with my face on it. Daily News.

Found Porn - Picture Head

Vine & Banner Streets, Hollywood.

In Arabia We'd All Be Kings

** Review Also Seen on Losanjealous **

In Arabia We’d All Be Kings
Elephant Theatre
6322 Santa Monica Blvd.
Tickets $20; Friday, Saturday, Sunday 8 p.m. until March 17

The Elephant Theatre sits on the eastern edge of Theater Row, an area bordered by the pompous beauty of West Hollywood and the unreconstructed grit of Hollywood proper. It’s a nasty, dirty part of town, one that gives that peculiar feel of guilt, horror and a strong desire for another $12 cocktail at a too-hip-to-have-a-name bar.

And it’s perfect.

“In Arabia We’d Be Kings” is set in Hell’s Kitchen, a part of Manhattan noted for its honesty in advertising. Or, so it used to be. During the late 1990s, the ‘Kitchen closed, slowly morphing into hipster land, sporting high-end restaurants and no-name bars similar to the ones three blocks north of the Elephant.

The play itself takes place in a bar, and the characters themselves are like moving pieces of the beautifully designed set. They serve as archetypes of the neighborhood that was: the parolee, the whore, the druggie, the old drunk, a sycophantic bartender, opportunistic investors and a teenager with a hair-trigger.

The plot is loose, roughly revolving an imminent sale of the bar and its affect on the characters. Though clearly about gentrification, the play raises questions it does not intend to answer. Does the closing of the bar makes the characters lives better or worse? Is Hell’s Kitchen worth saving?

The plot, such that it is, clearly takes a back seat to the portraits of the characters, presented as a series of well-told vignettes. This is where the play shines. The acting and directing are fluid, the characters vibrant and real. During one particularly poignant part of the play, a woman behind me broke out into loud sobs. I had a lump in my throat myself.