Thursday, February 26, 2009

Sad, bad times

The kids ask, Do you ever remember it being this bad? Hell no, we reply. Rob and I came of age in 1973, which was a bad economic downturn, what with the first energy crisis. There were lines to get gas and inflation was insane. But we were both really young and people will always hire kids because they don't cost much.

We made it all the way through the crappy 70s. Anyone remember WIN buttons? Whip Inflation Now. We remember mortgage rates of 14-plus percent, and thought we'd never be able to buy a house, and we weren't for quite a while.

Conservatives like to point to what they call, through their distorted lens, the Golden Reagan era. Lately Rush the Magic Idiot has been saying that Reagan cut taxes to stimulate the economy. First, at the end taxes were higher under Reagan than at the beginning of his term, which started with huge inflation/stagnation and ended with the savings and loan crisis and the great market crash of 1988.

But now there's the Great Meltdown, and the ground has the solidity of quicksand. Today it was announced that the Rocky Mountain News was going to cease publication. We all find this so sad, even though it will probably help out at the Star because Scripps won't be hemorrhaging money and a money-making vehicle like the Star had to subsidize the Rocky Mountain News for a long time in its losing battle against Dean Singleton and Media News, another member of the conservative cabal.

But I used to live in Colorado and know some of the people at the Rocky from back then. I also know some kids who went out there because it was the biggest paper in the Scripps chain and a great step up.

I guess what I'm failing to understand is how newspapers can be folding and cutting back when the need for news has grown exponentially. Here we have all kinds of gadgets to keep us updated 27/7 with information and at the rate we're going there will be no one to supply it.

When I first started at newspapers one of my favorite parts of the job was access to the AP wires. I could see what tomorrow's news was going to be today. It was almost a living thing, constantly morphing and updating as events unfolded and the reporters kept pace. Now everyone can get the news immediately, without the need for a physical newspaper, which is an anachronism.

But the news business is too entrenched and lacking in vision, having been effectively cowed by, as Hillary put it, a vast right-wing conspiracy that screams and moans about any news coverage that didn't fit into their rigid, narrow, bigoted agenda.

Newspaper editors went from booze-guzzling bombasts, who lived and died to get the best, most accurate story out to readers to corporate lackeys who were promoted precisely for their unthreatening mediocrity. So when it came time for creativity and real original thinking, they all stood around a table peering down at a computer screen, bellies hanging over their belts, arms crossed, one hand to the mouth, with a disapproving look, never offering suggestions, insight or ideas, just peering intently and vacantly as their world crumbled around them.

Now the news business in in a tatters because newspaper executives can't seem to get their minds around how to give people what they actually want in this Brave New World of News.

People want a discussion. They're tired of some middle-aged white guy telling them what "good news judgment" is. People want to decide what they want to learn about things. They want to have a say in what is reported, rather than the pedantic model newspapers now use and can't get away from.

Newspaper people need to take a page from our new president, who always found that he made his best decisions when he was able to get out and listen to people, real working people, as they gathered and spoke about their lives.

As journalists, we need to get out and find out what people want us to write about. Not what they SAY they want us to write about -- because people aren't going to SAY they want to see more stories about Paris Hilton, even as they read the latest about her at TMZ. Newspapers need to use Yahoo and Google for models of how to package news online. They need more reporters gathering more and more news and they need to charge advertisers -- not right now -- but on a sliding scale for being on their web sites.

Right now, it appears newspapers are in a death spiral and there's nothing left to do but wait for the inevitable crash. Until they embrace real change in their business model and the way they approach the packaging and preparation of the news, they're just not going to be able to survive.

I'm not sure where we're all going to end up after the smoke has cleared. We're hanging on by our fingernails, as most everyone is these day. It's a Brave New World out there and it's time to embrace it and use the disruption to create something new and better, kind of what our new president is trying to do.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Valentine's Day and the Last Lobster



We celebrated Valentine's Day the way we usually do, at home. The last time we went out we were disgusted when we went to our favorite steak place, The Sportsman, and they had a limited menu with jacked-up prices. And it's super-crowded everywhere else, which is far from romantic IMO (I love little abbreviations, no matter how precious they may be). Besides I can always make our favorite dishes better than we can get them out.

This year, I wanted spiny lobster. I'm doing Atkins again after having gained way too much weight as the result of the surgeries and over the holidays. One of the good things about Atkins is you can eat such decadent meals as a steak dinner or lobster or crab and it's OK, just so long as you stay away from bread and potatoes.

Spiny lobster is only in season here from the middle of October to the middle of March. Then there's a moratorium on fishing for the lobsters, which BTW I found our are not, in fact, lobsters, but rather giant cousins of crawfish. I haven't had one in years and really love the taste of the sweet meat that's in the large tails. I think spiny lobster is actually tastier than Maine Lobster.

So I had to get up early on Saturday -- Valentine's Day -- and head to the fisherman's market at Ventura Harbor. If you're not there early, you miss out on the best stuff. I was a little worried at first because there only seemed to be lots and lots of crabs, but we found the lobster guy and picked out a big old lobster, which they packed in a frozen bananas box and then wrapped in saltwater-soaked newspaper.

The last time I got a lobster, I felt bad and tried to make some salt water by pouring salt into tap water in the sink. I put the poor lobster in there and I swear to God he screamed, arched his back and tried to jump out before he died, which he did immediately, so this time no trying to make a saltwater bath.

Rob had come with me and was asking the fishermen about the spider crabs, which I had been told were not very tasty. These guys say, however, that it's hard to crack the thick shells, but the meat under the top shell of the body is delicious. Spider crabs are really cool and grow to be huge giving them this primordial feel. They have one on the wall at The Sportsmen and it's cool-looking, in a creepy way.

After the fisherman's market, we headed to the Ventura farmers market because I had to take pictures and get information for the farmers market column (Have I mentioned before how much I LOVE writing that column? The very first pictures I ever took with my camera were of the Santa Barbara farmers market. I love love love farmers markets.)

We shopped around, finding the artichokes I needed for my meal. We also got blueberries, which they're just starting to grow around here, and some garlic grass, which I realized as soon as we got home, I have growing in my garden. But I get caught up in my own enthusiasm when I'm there and it was only a buck and a half.

On the way home Rob wanted to stop by our neighborhood flower guy to get roses. He ended up with 21 roses for $40. One phenomenon I found interesting when I came to Southern California was the practice of many Mexicans of selling flowers on such holidays as Mother's Day and Valentine's Day -- those are the big ones out on the streets. On Valentine's Day the entire length of Ventura Avenue is lined with tables featuring roses, stuffed animals and red, heart-shaped balloons. I love how cheerful they look, even though business seemed slow this year.

Even though the flowers were beautiful, especially after I added some baby's breath, but I felt guilty about eating the lobster all day. I've made lobsters before, but as I get older my twinges of guilt over eating animals grow. Actually killing one is even harder on my conscience. When it came time, I just wanted to get it over. I checked the size of the lobster to make sure it would fit in the pot and when I was going to put the lobster in to measure it, it started flipping its whole body back and forth violently, apparently knowing full-well what I was doing.

Rob started yelling about how cruel and evil I was and I did feel pretty bad. I briefly entertained the notion of going back to the harbor and dumping the poor lobster there and letting him fend for himself. But the thought of the $27 I had paid, along with my strong desire to eat some sweet lobster meat allowed me to put my qualms aside.

After all, the beef I'd bought for Rob's Swiss steak -- his favorite meal, with mashed potatoes and canned sweet peas -- had probably been as upset about his death. The thought of a cow -- eyes rimmed with white in sheer panic, being led into one of those killing boxes where they drive a charge into its skull didn't me feel less guilty, unfortunately.

At this point the lobster's alien extruded eyes were drilling me. I mean I swear I can feel it when my plants are thirsty. I can hear them scream for water, so this lobster's buggy eyes following me around the room made me feel even more guilty. Not guilty enough, however, not to plunge the poor guy headfirst into the boiling water when the time came.

I cooked him up, alongside the artichoke and sat down to savor a meal of lemon butter-drenched food. But I swear the meat didn't taste right and I couldn't get too much of it down. I devoured the artichoke, which didn't seem to object to being boiled as much as the lobster had.

Later that evening, I'm not sure if it was the lobster or the malitol from eating a million sugar-free chocolates, but I had an attack of colic to end all attacks. Rob said he thought the house was going to shake off its foundations with the volume of gas bursting from my body. He said the lobster was getting its revenge.

Now the story should ended there, but today I ate some of the leftover lobster cold, and it tasted delicious and so far I'm not doubled over. So we'll see, but I think my days of buying live animals to eat are probably over.

Oh for anyone wondering, the way to make artichokes is to trim the stem almost off -- it's fibrous and almost inedible. Pick off the smallest leaves and trim the artichoke by cutting the tips of the leaves off. You don't have to do this, but the leave tips have thorns and you can prick your finger, which hurts when you're dipping your artichoke in lemon butter.

Bring about 2 inches of salted water to a boil in a large covered pot. Add the artichoke and cook for about 18 to 20 minutes or until a fork pierces the stem end easily. Serve with lemon butter, which you make by melting a half stick of butter in the microwave in 20 second increments. Mix with the juice of half a lemon.

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Seashells and seances


A few months back my friend Kim decided it would be great fun if we all went to a seance. It was scheduled for Dia de los Muertos at 11 p.m. at the Olivas Adobe, which is this really old rancho from the 1800s -- what passes for historical in California. I was game, even though I had to talk Rob into it. "You're scared," I said. "It will be lame," he countered. We sucked up the $40 per person fee for the spooky event, which was conducted by our local historical raconteur.

I've lived in a number of communities over the years, and each one has a self-designated guy -- it always seems to be a guy -- who's rather rotund and has a whole schtick about the history of the area, complete with ghost tales. I'm not sure why the rotund part, but it seems to go with the whole dramatic effect. Ventura's local guy specializes in Perry Mason stuff and ghost stories that seem to revolve around Ventura's City Hall and the adobe.

He wasn't the medium for the seance, though, the medium was his wife. Their daughter, who appeared sad and lonely, also was along for the ride. We showed up at the adobe at the appointed time and were given the standard lecture about the place. We went over how the Olivas family had 24 kids -- take that Duggars -- born from the same woman. Our local historian talked about how the family made its money supplying beef to the Gold Rush speculators to the north.

It was all stuff I knew already. One thing I do when I move to a new place is try to find out about its history. I love old historical stuff, and I'd put together a talk that I gave about the history of food in Ventura County awhile back, so I'd studied a lot of this before.

We were then given tours of the adobe and were allowed to go upstairs, but not all at once because the floors aren't very sturdy. Lindsay had been wrangled at the last minute to come along after someone else canceled, so it was Kim, Dennis, Rob, me and a friend of Kim's, Teresa Rochester, a reporter for the Star. We all agreed afterward that the tour, especially late at night, was the best part.

The seance itself was laughable. I'd gotten into it with the medium right before the seance about a local park that had once been a cemetery, but had been bulldozed years ago. Now it's a dog park, where hundreds of people a day come with their dogs to enjoy the sunshine and let the dogs frolic and socialize. There is a small, vocal group of fanatics that's all up in arms about "dogs defecating" on the graves of the people buried in what has become known as Cemetery Park -- it's actually named Memorial Park.

Frankly I don't give a shit about the old moldering bones (yup I did it, I had to go there). When I'm dead and gone and my remains are decaying I pray someone will have the sense to allow picnics on my grave. I hope lovers fornicate on my grave and certainly hope the entire dog population makes its doodies on top of me, with a few tinkles sprinkled in. I want life to happen on the earth. I want people to be happy frolicking in the grass. I'm dead. Gone. Every time a baby laughs and every time a dog wags his tail up there, it's a salute to my life, or at least what I want the memory of my life to be. After all, that's really all that's left after you die, the memories of your life. I want my memories to be happy ones.

The medium was of the dogs-defecating-on-the-graves side of the argument and when she started going on about it, I had to say something (Seriously. Some of the most dangerous words in my lexicon are "I had to do/say something.") The seance was held shortly after that.

We were led inside and sat in a large circle. There were a bunch of people there, maybe 35-plus. I wondered how many of them believed, really believed, in this stuff and how many were skeptical curiosity seekers, like us. I'm not saying I don't believe in afterlife or spirits, because I believe there are a lot of things we don't understand and that there is an essential energy that makes us all who we are, so it's possible. But, as Dennis said, if there were any energy from the otherworld, it wasn't in that room.

The medium did her schtick, which included some lovely displays of, by turns, phlegmatic clearing of the throat (dubbed by Theresa as Lugie boy), simulated childbirth, which seemed especially creepy given that pants-clad legs of the medium were splayed, and I kept thinking if I see a wet spot, I'm outta here. Then she popped up and looked with pop-eyes at Lindsay, who was giggling uncontrollably by now. She tried to catch my gaze, but I was having none of it, and peered intently at the rug pattern. We were all tempted to throw our hands in the air because she'd warned us that if we broke the circle, she could go into shock and die, which sounded really interesting.

"Respect me," she rasped, all dramatic and spooky. I thought Lindsay was going to leave a wet stain, she was laughing so hard. This went on for a while. Then the medium tried calling out random names of people who could be close to any of us. No dice there. She spoke in what she said was Chinese, but sounded like what I would have made up if I were pretending to speak Chinese. Good thing we didn't have any Chinese people there.

We were all glad when it was finally over with some really silly "readings." The medium talked about Lindsay's sex life, probably to embarrass her to get back at her for giggling.

After, we all talked about the experience. We all agreed the tour was the best part. Before the seance, during the tour of the house, we went upstairs into the bedrooms the Olivas family used. In one of the rooms was a box covered with seashells. We were told that the box was probably made by one of the Olivas daughters.

I was transfixed by the box. The seashells had been carefully collected and separated according to size. Then, whomever had made the box glued the shells on in very careful patterns. It was the coolest thing. The shells are exactly the same kinds of shells I find when I go to the harbor for my daily walk with my defecating dogs (Yes, we clean up after them). When the anonymous Olivas girl had made her box, all filled with the romantic yearning that absorbs the adolescent girl psyche. She had to have walked the same beach I walk each day. Of course, in her time, there was no harbor and no jetties.

Now when I walk along the beach I try to imagine how it looked back when some attention-deprived middle child of 24 children would run down the road to the beach, where she'd chuck her shoes and stockings and wade by the Santa Clara rivermouth. I wonder if she was as enthralled as I am by the dance of the pelicans as they drift under the breaking waves in patterns that evoke the theme from Apocalypse Now when the copters flew over the rice paddies.

Of course shellgirl would never have thought of rice paddies and helicopters, so I wonder if she had a crush on a handsome ranch hand and if she was collecting the shells for a box to put her dowry in. Not her official dowry, but the dowry of young girls of that time, which would have been the little knick-knacks girls collected back before we were inundated with plastic crap from the mall. But then I realize the box is still at the house, so whoever made it never made it outside the home with her dreams. That makes me a little sad.

While we were touring the house, we stopped to look for ghosts. We all stood there in the dark peering as hard as we could. But there were no ghosts that night, except perhaps in that shell box, glimmering in the streetlights by the front window of the Olivas Adobe.