Category Archives: Personal Interest

things that interest me in the off- and on-hours

2017 Train Trip #1: Los Angeles – NOLA, Sunset Limited

HOW SOCIAL MEDIA REALLY CHANGED THE TRIP, i.e., So much of the time I was looking at the scenery from the train not with my eyes, but as it looked through the lens of my smartphone (for this trip, that was the Samsung Galaxy 3, way out of date, but that’s another story). It was almost as if I didn’t post it, it wasn’t valid or wasn’t worth looking at.

Sunday April 23. The day I left. Or, the evening I left. Nice thing, the Sunset Limited leaves Los Angeles on its eastward journey at 10 p.m. This is civilized. This gives you all day, literally, to pack and get downtown to the station. And, even better, when I got there, they told me the train was already available to board. So there it was, no hassle, no lines, relaxed and likely a half hour ahead of departure time. Here’s a picture from the train while it was waiting to depart Union Station in Los Angeles.

In the Sunset Limited in LA’s Union Station, waiting for the train to leave.

So, as you can see, it was dark.

It was a dark but clean train. The photo belies that it was surprisingly full — did I say I was in coach? Well, I was, Yes I was — all the passes are for coach. If you want to upgrade to a roomette you can, but it’s not included so you have to pay for it. I did, later in the trip, so see further dispatch posts (look for the Empire Builder).

I sat next to a nervous anxious woman, close to my age, who was visiting her son in Tucson. I think she said she was going to her grandson’s graduation from high school? Seemed kind of early in the year for that, but it’s what I remember. She’s surprisingly candid to me, a total stranger. Maybe this is what comes in the dark as we are propelled hypnotically, rhythmically down the tracks toward the east. She fears there’s a family rift there, but wants to be closer to them. I’m not much help; I offer the usual bromides of “family things can be difficult, I know.” She said she lived in South Pasadena. I say I lived in the valley but nothing beyond that; I didn’t want to really engage her in conversation because she seemed a bit dizzy and who knows what could come of that.

She did not sleep well on the train either (I was a wide awake not-happy camper) and she sighed a lot. Nervous, sad and anxious! When we got to Tucson in the early morning (but late enough to be light out) she almost missed her stop because she didn’t know it was Tucson, even though the announcement said it was, multiple times, and of course there were signs at the depot if you just looked out the window. I finally reminded her: “Didn’t you say you were going to Tucson? We’re here.”

Interior of an Amtrak coach car at night, in station (not moving)

April 24, Monday. On the train roughly from Tucson to Del Rio, Texas. Author notes: I’m not a happy camper as I really can’t sleep on the train. I’m in coach, remember, with the lady that’s fretting.

At Tucson after the lady gets off, and a young guy gets on and has the seat next to me. Weird kind of Mohawk he’s got. Likely early 30s, tattoos, average-looking. I’m thinking ex-con or something but probably just not from a huge city somewhere. BUT — When I got back from the lounge car he had taken my window seat AND he was using my pillow, the pillow that I bought as a camping accessory decades ago which is inflatable. I asked for it back (the pillow that is, not the seat, I moved to an empty seat as there were lots) his excuse was he thought maybe the pillow “was something they gave out on the train.” Um, not likely, not in this universe.

Yet here I had some fun taking videos of the border wall/fence/whatever in El Paso and again as we sped through Marfa, TX, setting for such movies/tv as Giant, The Last Picture Show, and I Love Dick.

El Paso/Juarez
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Marfa

Tuesday, April 25

Author note: Wishing the train trip to NOLA was over. It’s a two-day train ride. My ass hurts, my back hurts, my sciatica is acting up and there’s literally no place on this train where I can stretch.

Long layover in San Antonio with no announcements as to why we’re delayed, although I did ask a conductor and got an answer right away: Tech problems with the toilets, he tells me! We certainly do want them operational.

My mind wanders to sexual realm: Has anyone on the train been fuckable in a traditional sense, like from my past sex life? Why yes — there was kind of a jock/college type on for part of the initial journey. I think he got off at Tucson, probably a U of A student. (As a matter of fact, a tremendous amount of the train pop got off at Tucson.) That day (Monday) was a week after Easter so maybe they were coming back from break? Anyway, he possessed that young manly beauty where it’s effortless, and this guy seemed self-effacing, so that he didn’t even realize how attractive (and really, stunning) he was to an older gay man like me. Or maybe he does, who knows? We had no interaction. We did not exchange looks. I have no reason to think he was either gay or straight or anything.

One thing definitely different on this trip (than the last train ride, I guess) is I’m more invisible. I feel this. There is less slack given to an older person, and not just in the sexual realm but everywhere. People are just not willing to put up with older people and I can really feel a difference, although it’s not like I’m saying it’s terrible, it’s just different. Cuteness won’t get you anywhere, i.e., because you’re no longer cute and they don’t look at you the way they used to. Or maybe it’s just that I’m crabby. From lack of sleep?

Question for the blogger: When was the last time I was actually cruised, as in real life, and not on an “app?” I will have to think about that one.

But I did take some stills, so here’s a few for you.

Blogger on train

Tucson station

El Paso station

Alpine, TX

Alpine, TX

Can You Believe We’ve Had Almost a Year of This Crap?

Neither can I. And of course by that I mean Trump as president or president-elect. Anyway, he is and we haven’t forgotten or gotten used to it. The sooner it ends, the better. For all of us! In the meantime, here’s one of my favorite photos from the myriad protests and marches from the past year. I think this one was on tax day, April 15. A glorious sunny day in DTLA.

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In case there was any question, the UGH and the FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK refer to 45.

Student Video from a Long Long Time Ago (well, 1978)

My nephew recently found this and had it converted from the original super 8 film to digital. The woman in the short film is my sister, Pati Arnold. The baby is my nephew, Joe Wantoch. This film was taken in the fall of 1978 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Streets were Bartlett Avenue and North Avenue and Oakland Avenue.

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Oh, it’s silent, so there’s nothing wrong with your speakers.

When Blogging Takes a Holiday

Sometimes, you can’t think of a thing to write. I know this happens to me.

Sometimes, you can’t think of something worthwhile for a long time, and this happened to me and this blog. Not really one thing in particular, but rather a cascading series of events in the past year or so left me exhausted and uninspired, at least as far as blog posts go.

I thought I should acknowledge that if not explain it away, because nobody wants to hear specifics.

Good news is that I’m back! I took a train trip in late spring this year; a 30 day rail pass. I have some pix and some video which I’ll share from those, so look for them. Soon! I promise.

Here’s a tease, I thought this was an arty shot:

In the Sunset Limited in LA’s Union Station, waiting for the train to leave.

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Protected: Terrace Avenue Breast Cancer Showhouse Photos

Los Angeles Gay Pride #ResistMarch 2017

I need a new phone!

I was going to bring my camera to this event but I forgot it, what with the sign and all. So, my apologies, the phone ran out of juice about halfway through. I couldn’t even call a Lyft to go back to the subway once it was over. Yes, I know, #Firstworldproblems. I have failed today.

I did love that the Pride Celebration in LA returned to its protest roots. Energizing and energetic, it was great to see the 100,000 people come out to march in the streets in resistance to the “not normal in any way” times we find ourselves in, to reaffirm our equal rights as gay, lesbian, trans, bi, queer, unsure, whatever. We’ve fought very hard for a very long time and honey, we’re not giving an inch. Not. one. inch.

Enjoy the photos and the one video I did manage to take.

this was my sign.

the flip side of my sign.

Early arrival.

49 Balloons to remember the 49 victims at #Pulse

Another selfie.

Recruiting for protesters that day.

Blogger selfie. Like my #ITMFA hat?

And a video snippet:

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Tax Day Protest: April 15, 2017

Never got a chance to post these to the blog, since I left on the month-long train trip just a week after this event. (hint – I have lots of photos and video of the trip, coming in subsequent posts).

What this was: Trying to keep Trump honest. A task in and of itself, to be sure. I’m not certain that’s even possible, but we Angelenos, and thousands of our compatriots around the country, the Resistance to this Pompous Ass, tried to remind him of his promises to release tax returns. So far, bupkis. Anyway, enjoy the photos and the one video. DTLA, April 15. See me in my red ITMFA hat (Impeach the Motherfucker Already)? Normally red’s not my color but I made an exception.

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Liar in chief.

blogger in the red ITMFA hat

one of my favorites.

flag and trumpet

yes! photobomber!

exactly.

https://youtu.be/w2r7DkMSRaY

Trump Lies feature and “I am not a Bro” Rant

‘splaining the anti-bro

OK, well sometimes you just try things that don’t work. Like the “Trump Lies” feature I had going for a few weeks here on the blog. Honestly. I can’t keep up with the consummate lying professional. That, plus there are many many people whose job it is is to keep track of what the President says and decide on the truthfulness (or lack of it) and then write it up.

So I’m gonna bail on that idea. I’ll leave the posts already done up; pretty much you can read any newspaper in the country to catch Trump’s lie of the day. Pretty much everything he says 24/7.

The other part of this post is my “I am not a bro” rant, which I wrote the other day and thought to put at the head of my LinkedIn bio. But I haven’t as yet. I wrote this after reading this article about bro culture at startup companies.

I am not a bro. Far from it; you could call me the anti-bro. In fact, I am a 62-year-old single gay male with 50 years in the workforce, if you count my first paper route at 12—and why wouldn’t you—as it was work (so there, you have answers to those nagging questions that came up when you saw my head shot).

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I’m just really sick of ageism; hence the rant before the qualifications. I do believe, however, there are companies out there that value the experience, competence and wisdom a lifetime of work will give to someone.

I don’t want to retire; I like being busy and I’m most like my aunt, who died at 92 still an active employee of a huge bookstore chain. Would consider relocation. Now on to the qualifications:

But, I didn’t post it. Wonder if I should. Too petulant? Or is it funny?

My Obamacare Experience, or Why is it that Republicans Hate Small Business/Entrepreneurs?

Obamacare, the ACA (Affordable Care Act) has been a godsend to me.

Republicans Hate Entrepreneurs. Sad!

Alas, the Republicans think it’s bad (even though it was their plan) and so they’re going to replace it with something cheaper and much better (according to their new leader). I can only think this will be Medicare for All. Yeah, I wish, and don’t we all?
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Just looked up some old stats: In 2007, when I was freelancing full time, I was paying a $502 per month premium for Kaiser HMO coverage. I was (and am) a single man in Los Angeles, aged 52 in 2007.

This past year, I had an ACA (Obamacare) policy through Covered California, again it was a Kaiser HMO plan, and I paid $180 per month. I got a significant subsidy because of my income level. The actual monthly premium was $663. For this year (2017) the premium is $734/month, of which I’ll pay $200. (The same plan — it went up 11%.) The subsidy goes directly to Kaiser Permanente. I never see a penny of it. So for those who hate the subsidy idea, please be reminded that the funds go to overpriced insurance companies, big Pharma, medical device companies, and doctors. The subsidies don’t go to the patients. Your tax dollars are going to support those megaindustries, not for actual healthcare for Americans.

So I’ll be 62 this year.

As a freelancer (I write B2B copy and am an author) with pre-existing conditions (including glaucoma and a history of cancer) I could not get insurance with the system we had before. Or, if I could (like the example above, from 2007), it was a catastrophic plan with high premiums and high deductibles and co-pays, which means basically that I was just insuring my assets against a catastrophic health care loss. Those assets were a condo (since sold) and an IRA retirement account. I wasn’t getting any actual health care for the insurance premiums.

That catastrophic plan also did not cover any prescriptions, which I paid for out-of-pocket.

My current Obamacare Silver-level plan does cover prescriptions, and the co-pays for visits and lab work are affordable (I think I pay about $8-10 per a visit to either; scripts are $10-20 for a 90 day supply.)

If the Republican zeal to roll back things like pre-existing conditions becomes reality, I will again be unable to find insurance. Who, at age 50 or better, does not have a pre-existing condition? Life is a pre-existing condition. This is absurd.

There’s a couple of other issues that I want to touch on. One is Ageism – and the near impossibility of finding an appropriate full time job with health insurance at my age. I haven’t been able to find a full time job in my field since 2010, hence the part-time work and freelancing. Also, employers are moving away from providing benefits in large part due to the ACA and the ability for an individual to buy a policy on the exchange. Decoupling health care from employment, isn’t that the direction we wanted to go? Do we really want to go back to that?

Which brings me to my last point —

Why do Republicans hate small business and entrepreneurs? I always thought they were the party of personal responsibility and commerce. Keeping health insurance tied to employment is 1) arbitrary, and 2) stupid. How many people keep their jobs JUST because they get their healthcare insurance through that job? How many Apples or Facebooks or Starbucks never come into being because people can’t afford to gamble with their health coverage to become entrepreneurs?

So, no, Paul Ryan, you’re wrong, again. Obamacare isn’t a nightmare or a disaster. It’s a lifesaver. It has problems, easily fixed. Why don’t you just do the easy thing and try to fix it instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Oh, right, it’s named after that black president, isn’t it, and we certainly can’t have that. That is the real issue, the whole country knows it.

So This Happened: Car Free to Car Lite, and Why

About three and 1/2 years ago (June 7, 2013), I sold my car and decided (after much thought and research) to live a life that was car free. I lost some weight and saw a different side of my city. I saved a lot of money. My stress level became palpably lower. I proved that despite all the cliches (which are class-based cliches, by the way), one does not need a car to survive in L.A.

Yes, I found that it’s possible to get anywhere in the L.A. area by bus, train, bike, walking, Uber, Lyft, taxi, Amtrak and the kindness of strangers. But here’s the thing: possible does not always mean convenient.

So this happened:

Blogger in front of the red Chevy Spark.

I moved to L.A. originally in 1981, and this is the lifestyle we led: Say I lived in Pasadena, which was true for awhile. A friend a few miles away would suggest how nice it would be to go to Hollywood for a few drinks and then later on go down to the beach for a while, play in the dark waves, etc, or go bar-hopping out in Santa Monica. Or have a bite to eat there. We’d often do things like this — which actually involve a 40 or 50 mile round trip in a car. It was common then and it was nothing, really. Gas cheap. We were young and energetic. Traffic was not in any way as bad as it is now, especially at night. This is part of that Southern California Car Culture you hear about, ski in the morning, surf in the afternoon (which I suppose somebody did, not that this kind of activity was EVER anything you would call convenient).

Anyway, my point is, some of this lives on. At least in our minds, at least we’d like to think this is our coastal “lifestyle,” though age and especially traffic has made this all but impossible. I do think there is a bona fide Millennial movement to embrace an L.A. car free existence. But here’s the thing: I’m not a Millennial. Not even close. And I guess although it’s great to be a pioneer or a trailblazer in some way, it’s kind of lonely if you’re the only one.

I was the only one (in my age and class cohorts) who habitually rode the bus or the train and it was honestly getting a bit old and lonely.

Another thing is isolation. While my facility navigating L.A. without a car grew tremendously the longer I did it, my desire to be out and about actually diminished. While I could take an Uber to a hotspot at 10 at night from my home location in the Valley, say to somewhere “over the hill” in Silver Lake or West Hollywood, my desire to do that plummeted. My desire to do that on the bus plummeted even further. And this was not just hotspots, but things like events and other gatherings where the distance and inconvenience just made it too difficult. I didn’t want to be a hermit.

There’s something different about having your own transportation that’s about more than getting to point B from point A, and it has to do with comfort and safety and the ability to be totally spontaneous. I realized that I was willing to pay again for this occasional luxury.

So — I’m not abandoning public transport or my bike or my beloved walks, especially those in the quiet of the near dawn. I really liked contributing to a less polluted city in a really small way and will continue. But I will occasionally use the new car, for things like:

Socializing at night, i.e., seeing friends, dating and other activities
Road trips – Palm Springs and local places like that, especially where trains don’t go.
Camping! I still want to find a partner in crime for this.
The occasional event or possibly a job opportunity, like an interview, like tutoring, like background acting on a location (think Santa Clarita, where I used to have frequent gigs). Although for commuting to work, I’ll still use public transport.
Going to the Gym – sometimes that’s just easier to drive and I would work out more, quite frankly ,if it was easier to get there.
Shopping, sometimes. Sometimes you just want to do that Target run and get your own 30 roll packs of TP rather than have Amazon deliver them.

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So there you have it. I’m grateful to have the luxury of the occasional car at my disposal again. I realize how lucky I am to have it. And I know, should it turn out that I really don’t use the car for much, I can always turn around and sell it. Again!