The old coffee house finally shut down and we had a proper wake. Some people showed up the afternoon of the day before, and a lot more showed up last night when the doors finally closed. I didn’t get shots of everyone, but there are photos here of people I never got on camera before.
Goodbye, patio! This is the place where I made my best mistakes.
More photos in this set on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ch/sets/72157594396389485/
Mother’s Market is now carrying nearly the full line of Los Chileros de Nuevo Mexico! Whole and powdered chiles, herbs, and other delights. Now I don’t have to order them on the internet. And they’re so good.
If you used a check card to buy gasoline in Costa Mesa, and you have an account at WaMu or Wells Fargo, check your account activity. At least 440 people have had their accounts compromised, and at least $100,000 has been stolen so far.
Article from the LA Times at topix.net at this link. Sadly the article does not say which two gas stations were involved.
Either the bro dudes have noticed that the housing boom and their easy money days are ending, or someone just dumped a lot of cheap cocaine on the market around here. I have seen more coked-out 25-40 year old mortgage bro guys this week than in the six months previously. I mean really fucking HIGH AS A KITE, flying, twitchy and loud, eyeballs making Ren & Stimpy noises, inappropriate affect, sweating, jaw clenching, everything.
The last one I saw tonight was standing on Newport Blvd near 17th with a couple of other guys. He had that overly-tanned and haggard skin, sunglasses pushed up on hiss spiked hair, a coating of sweat on his face, and office dress shirt and pants. As I waited at the stoplight he suddenly tugged sharply on his shirt so that he seemed to rip a couple of buttons off, exposing the top part of his chest. Then he yelled at them: “Revenue. Revenue, revenue. REVENUE!” And then the light turned green and I drove away.
Attention all who are eligible to vote in Costa Mesa:
Your city council election is of international importance.
Please vote for Garlich and Scheafer and against Mansoor and Leece.
The choice is between typical Costa Mesa small-business conservatives, who are concerned with things like where to put roads and how many more athletic fields the city might need, and insane power-hungry racist demagogues who hang around with Minutemen and white supremacists and want to wage war on Mexicans.
Garlich and Scheafer are backed by the police and fire departments, the newspaper, the ex chiefs of the police and fire departments, and business people all over town. Mansoor and Leece are backed by Minutemen nuts, local neo-nazi Martin Millard, and lots of dubious out-of-town money.
Please vote. I don’t need a race war in the town next door. Thanks.
When they came in, Executive Slacks was skating. He wanted me to know that Spiky Blond Hair was “the weirdo Screech.” They were flying.
I didn’t go to klikitak‘s thing tonight, partly because I am a social anxiety poster child lately and partly because I didn’t want to get extruded through my own car by drunk people going to L.A. and back. Instead I ended up at realitylost‘s where she and Craig stuffed me with really great food and their dogs sat on me. One of the many reasons to like Craig is that he is serious about food. O garlic bread, O cobbler.
I meant to go over and hang with burntcurtis for a few later but a quick trip across the boulevard revealed that his entire neighborhood had been parked upon by partiers. Tonight is official Adult Halloween Party Night, and everyone was getting smashed, with pumpkins. A couple of his neighbors were incompetently necking in the condo complex and I nearly ran them down. She was wearing a slutty noun costume and he was in a rapist costume (pirate, soldier, Haidl, dunno). He was trying to paw her while simultaneously bracing a 24 pack of beer on his hip and she was trying to do the coy push-away-only-not but instead stumbling in front of my car. Two cheers for Halloween; it’s now Daterapemas!
Part of the time at Susie & Craig’s tonight the TV was on. I hadn’t seen the History Channel in a long time. Wow is it dumb! The supposed academic guy referred to the “Cape of Africa” (?) and they spelled Gibraltar wrong, and the show about the history of dragons spent a full segment talking to a couple of lunatics who believed that dragons existed and waved broadswords while saying they were druids.
One of their neighbors has a license plate holder that says “Foamer Forever.” Anyone know what that means?
Halloween time is funny nowadays.
Businesses desperately need Halloween, since holidays mean spending, so they want to make anything they sell somehow orange, spooky, or candy-related. The boom in “adult” Halloween celebrations means that slutty costumes and spooky alcohol are a huge money deal now.
The children’s holiday of my childhood continues, which means big money selling candy and party favors and pumpkin-oriented merchandise. And less slutty costumes, although some parents seem to have forgotten that pimp ‘n’ ho outfits or slutty nurse costumes aren’t too great for the little ones.
But then we have the Christians. There are a lot of very conservative evangelicals around here, and they’re wealthy too. If you get too spooky and devilish, they complain and you can lose their business. Since they’re stuck with the evangelical ghetto version of the holiday you can sell them stuff too, but it has to be for some neutered “harvest” holiday: squash, orange things, candy corn, centerpieces made from um sheaves or something. They’ll have a party and eat pumpkin pie and pray a lot and talk about Fall, and no demons allowed. It’s goofy but I understand. If I really believed in demons and evil witches, I wouldn’t want to play around about it and have my kids dressing up that way.
So, a lot of stores talk about “the season!” or “fall” or just have orange things, and it’s funny to see which ones do this and how they get around using the H word. The combination of hypocrisy and greed is always good for a laugh.
I saw a hilarious example at one of our local churches this week. They’re having a fun celebration for the kids and there was a big sign and display outside for it. They wisely sidestepped both “Halloween” and “harvest” but their choice was, wait for it… pirates. So there was a big pirate ship display and a “Pirate Fun Party” sign.
I agree with them that demons, devils, lost souls, ghosts, witches, and the Undead are not cool in their world and shouldn’t be celebrated. But what exactly is the difference between trivializing the terrors of Hell and whitewashing the rape, murder, pillaging, alcoholism, prison-sex sodomy, Vitamin C deficiency, and sociopathic greed of piracy? Maybe you guys should just go back to the sheaves-as-centerpieces thing and have some pumpkin seeds. Pumpkin seeds are tasty.
According to the Register, a Mr. Joseph Garcia is currently in jail here on a million dollars bail for rape and sexual assault of at least three women. Mr. Garcia’s M.O. was to go on a date, take her home, and jump her. This is apparently not recommended in that he could get up to 45 years if convicted. And where did he get his dates? One just at the post office, and the others at MillionaireMatch.com!
Don’t worry, gals. Not all of the local real estate millionaires are rapists.
Edit: From the millionaire dating service site itself: “If the site is slow at this moment, come back early morning or late night. It may be due to the recent publicity about a major Hollywood celebrity having found a match here.” Yes, or…
Register story is here:
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1328764.php
But this job ad in “Squeeze OC” is convincing. Speaking of Squeeze OC, they were having a fashion show in the strip-mall denim store next to Kean as I left there tonight. It was just starting to roll as I fled. They were blasting “Lust for Life” and the DJ was instructing everyone to “gather round the runway.” Bro and ho types were sipping wine from plastic cups and gazing across the street at… the other strip mall. I left before America’s Next Medium To Low Models began striding about in $500 jeans.
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