Of Spectacles and Costco Cars

Three years ago, I leased a Toyota Tundra in Denver. When I went to the dealer I had a Costco card with which, as a valued member of the BNL store, I would be able to buy or lease whatever I wanted for $100 above dealer invoice. No haggling, no bargaining, no shady salesman. You buy a car at $100 over what the dealer paid. Costco? Such a deal.



Fast forward and I have to return the car I leased in Denver but I live in San Jose now so I am looking at a different dealer who has the option to NOT take the car (in which case I would need to drive it back to Denver). Because of this uncertainty I started a mechanical relationship with Stevens Creek Toyota thinking that, when the time came, they would know the car was in great condition (less than 25,000 miles in three years) and would take it without charging me for every little ding.

This month I brought the car in for its check-up and mentioned I was looking to buy a car. The mechanic introduced me to Tom Wilson, car salesman. I had decided it was best for me to buy a new car from Stevens Creek so they would have to take the Toyota back or lose a sale. When I met Tom, I casually mentioned that the car I liked best is the four door Jeep Wrangler although I had had such a wonderful experience with this truck that I was going to buy Toyota again.

I was looking at the Tacoma, a smaller truck that had grown in size over the past three years. Tom brought me back to his office to crunch the numbers. On the wall, I saw a picture of Frank Zappa and a man - the card read Frank Zappa and Tom Wilson. I asked him about it.

My dad. He was a music producer and worked with Zappa. He was one of the producer's of The Velvet Underground & Nico: Tom Wilson. I'm a Junior.

We talked for a while and I found Tom to be non-disposing with no salesman tics, and working this job in his retirement. Over the next few days I started to lean towards the Toyota FJ Cruiser. I checked Costco for a price and was contacted by Sawyer at Piercy Toyota who told me about a new FJ Cruiser they had cheap. I drove to Sawyer feeling as if I was breaking the Tenth commandment with Tom. (It is the tenth, right?)

I asked Sawyer to drive me around in the car because I wanted to feel it as a passenger although psychologically I wanted to keep the upper hand with this young-looking and skinny man with spectacles, and many salesman tics. When we returned to the showroom, I asked what the car would cost. Sawyer brought me back to his office to crunch the numbers.



I sat in a chair across from him as he did some calculations and took off my sunglasses. I looked at Sawyer as my eyes adjusted to the florescence. I began to formulate a question as I noticed something about Sawyer's eyeglasses. Should I ask him? Oh, why not.

Do you have lenses in those frames?

Er...ah...um...huh...

You don't have lenses in those frames.

Ah...um...um...er...

For noticing that you have no lenses in those frames you should give me $5000 off whatever price you write down. I bet no one ever notices that.

For noticing that I have no lenses in these frames I should charge you $5000 more, Sawyer replied as he grabbed the offending accessory through the frame hole and dropped it on the desk. I took his business card with the price (which included no glass - or lack thereof - discount) and left. Two days later I get a call from Tom.

You might want to come in and see this 2008 Jeep Wrangler we just got as a trade-in. 6000 miles. Four door. Brand new. You did mention a Jeep once, didn't you?

I threw George in the Tundra and we went to the dealer, test drove the car and within 12 hours, I owned it. Of course, throughout the buying process, I learned the dealer has nothing whatsoever to do with Toyota Financing, the lease company and legal owner of the Tundra which brought me to Stevens Creek Toyota in the first place. The dealer is just the go-between. But ultimately I got the car that I wanted.

One last thing I learned: Costco doesn't sell used cars.

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Total Eclipse of the Heart - Literally

Check out this excellent lyrical parody of the Bonnie Tyler video for Jim Steinman's epic now sung by...Persephone Maewyn?

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But We Need the Poop Bags

I have been in a literal frenzy around the house these days because we have run out of bags in which to scoop up Max's poop. Safeway bags, The Home Depot, the occasional Ross, Streetlight Records. (Rasputin uses paper bags.) Barnes and Noble - all gone. I am living on the cusp so to speak of having to pick up the stuff with my fingers.

Although there is a history of those who've done worse including Divine famously eating the shit in Pink Flamingos. Although interestingly, I looked up keywords famous scat and got very few links to non-musical scat. Do people use that word anymore?

The pure and simple fact is that we no longer have a stash o' those grocery-type sacks. So, I trundle around searching through the pockets of an unused winter coat (snagged two), running out the front door to catch a sack I see blowing by the window, and using the special bag we got at the Feline Conservation Center in Rosemond, CA from the bottom of the stash box. (I had wanted to keep this bag for eternity just because it was a bag from the Feline Conservation Center in Rosemond, CA. That's my mother in me.)



Georjet and I even brought home a doggie bag of horrible food we ate at a Japanese diner. I asked our waitress if I could get my plate to go and when she left Georjet spoke.

Why would you ask for that? This food was horrible.

I know but we need the poop bags.

I've recently come across a stash of the plastic packing material from our recent move to California. I was going to throw it out but then I realized it came in sheets, like paper towels. I've been picking up poop for eleven years. I can do it with a paper towel; I've done it with a paper towel. These plastic sheets have pulled me out of a few poopie binds.

It's not that I don't know that one can buy poop bags. In fact, the aforementioned mother sent me a box of biodegradable poop bags a while back that is somewhere in the house - if I could only find it. But put out money for the purchase of bags to pick up shit when there are millions of these grocery-type sacks produced that blow around the neighborhood and kill seagulls in landfills? I refuse to buy into this theory of mass consumerism. And its not that I can't afford it. Believe you me, I can afford poop bags.

Soon there will be a few shopping trips in a row - for the right items - and we'll have enough poop bags to keep going for a bit. It's like a drug. But in the meantime I'll be searching for the temporary poop gloves unless I can remember where the biodegradable...OMG, they're in the car for emergencies. I believe this is one.

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I've Been Bozzed!

Being bozzed means simply that the wonders of the Boswell Sisters, a harmonic jazz vocal trio from the 20s and 30s, have been indelibly etched in my mind, body and soul. The Boswells were the Andrews Sisters ten years before the Andrews Sisters were the Andrews Sisters. Connie, Martha and Vet made music that still sounds fresh today. Check out Heebie Jeebies and try to stop shaking your fanny.



I realized I'd been bozzed when I saw Heebie Jeebies and my emotions started to swell. I have a couple of CD compilations that I had been listening to voraciously but when I watched the girls singing, the depth of what I had previously just heard bubbled to the top. There's a lot of love, a lot of family, and a lot of history behind the smiling faces in the video. For instance, lead vocalist Connee (who also played the cello) lost the use of her legs from a bout of polio when she was three years old but the sisters still went on to become performing legends.

Martha played the piano for the trio, so Connee would be carried out and placed on the piano bench...When the curtain rose the audience would see Martha and Connee seated, and their sister Vet [who played the violin] behind them with her hands on their shoulders. They even took their bows from this position.



The italicized words above the video of Sleepy Time Down South are just some of the history of the Boswell Sisters I found on the wonderfully informative web site, bozzies.com. Check out Rock and Roll below (it's very likely they invented the term despite the difference in it's use here) and then head over to bozzies.com to get yourself bozzed!



(Jean Sargent whom I had never heard of, opens the Rock and Roll video.)

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My Facebook Cheerleader Dis

Whatever the reason (my nerdiness or their snobbishness) I was never approached in a friendly manner by any cheerleader in any school that I have attended. They just paid me no mind. I find it fascinating that this dis continues through the Facebook years.



I found this picture of my 5th grade teacher and her team of cheerleaders on Facebook. It had been so long since I had seen her I commented on the photo - the first to write a comment for this particular photo - asking:

Is that Miss Kendall?

For a month I received notifications that cheerleaders in the picture were commenting on the picture but not one of them answered my question. Finally, in the seventh comment, a non-cheerleading male answered in the affirmative.

And life goes on.

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For an interesting story about Miss Kendall, see Miss Kendall.

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Actor. Physical Therapist. Actor. Physical Therapist

Before he turned his back on the world of theatre for the world of physical therapy, Steven Sklar was an actor - acclaimed for his portrayal of scenery 3 in our 5th grade production in The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.


Click to enlarge

(My mother undoubtedly kept this program because I wrote the ditto master from which it was produced.)

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Standing Cool

When my older brother Andy saw this picture of the three siblings, two cousins and one aunt he said that even back then he stood cool...so I decided to prove (or disprove) the theory.



Standing bland on the first day at the 1964 World's Fair but we had to get the Unisphere in.



Standing cool on the second day at the 1964 World's Fair.



Standing cool at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.



If the position of my leg precludes me from standing cool at the National Archives, the position of Andy's leg precludes him from standing cool in Puerto Rico.

But I'm standing cool in Puerto Rico! And Lisa is mesmerized.



The nuclear family: 1965/1998

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Celebrating 49 and 50

Amy, George, Michael (50), Steven (49), Michelle, Phil, Annie, Larry, Judy

January 30, 2009 at One Market, San Francisco.

Click the pic.

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Facebook Photos #2

The first day of school



Who remembers The Jolly Roger? (amusement park and restaurant in Bethpage)



Andy, Peg, Lisa, Meta, Eric, Michael - mid 70s



Brenda (with the blonde bubble hair), Lorraine and Michael doing exhausting press after The Harbor Green Shore Club presentation of You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown. 1968



The Harbor Green Shore Club - mid 70s

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Miss Kendall, My Fifth Grade Teacher

David Goldwyn and I were in the same 5th grade class. David lived on Shelly Drive and I used to go over his house to play. One Friday sleepover night David and I took it upon ourselves to make a phony phone call to our teacher. We looked up her name in the white pages and amazingly it was there: Jean Kendall



Michael (in una voce buffa*): Hello, is Jean Kendall there?

Old Man (hoarse and coughing): Hold on a minute I'll get her.

David and I started laughing at the brilliance of the practical joke. A LOT of time passes as we wait for her to pick up the telephone.

Miss Kendall: Hello

David and I passed the phone back and forth spewing inanities of a sort that 5th grade boys might do in una voce buffa. Finally...

Miss Kendall: Is this Michael Teger and David Goldwyn? What are you boys doing calling me like this on a Friday night? I am going to hang up now but we WILL discuss this on Monday.

Miss Kendall hung up the phone and David and I looked at each other, stunned. We shook in our boots all weekend long but didn't tell a soul of our ordeal. We rightfully assumed that our lives would be over on Monday and wanted to cherish the last remaining time before our descent into a chasm.

On Monday, Miss Kendall said nothing to either of us all day long. When school ended and the classroom was dismissed to line up in the hallway, she asked us to stay a moment. Miss Kendall very nicely but firmly explained to us that what we had done was wrong in many ways, but particularly because she lived with her father and he had just had open-heart surgery. After he had picked up the phone, her father had walked up the stairs to tell Jean that she had a phone call. He was out of breath and Miss Kendall had to sit him down and wait until he was breathing easier. Only then did she come down to pick up the phone and find we were playing games.

Miss Kendall explained to us that any number of things might have happened because of our prank: her father could have fallen on the stairs or possibly exerted himself back into the hospital. She told us that people shouldn't do things like that to each other. Miss Kendall then added the pièce de résistance: she would not tell our parents. In return, she hoped we would remember that every action has a reaction and that we should think before we act. She walked us to the end of the line in the hallway and then walked with the line outside to the buses. David and I got on our neighborhood's bus and I watched Miss Kendall as we accelerated out of the parking lot. Miss Kendall never mentioned the incident again.

David Goldwyn moved away that summer, I have yet to dial another phony phone call, and this is the first time that anyone outside of the three participants knows of this tale. Miss Kendall was a wonderful teacher and, to this day, I think of her words when I need to take action.

Thank you, Miss Kendall.

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* in a funny voice

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Facebook Photos #1

The Harbor Green Shore Club presents You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown. The one in the orange shirt (posing like America's Next Top Model) is yours truly. 1968



Sister Lisa (and her beautiful smile) in what I refer to as Boing Boing Park on Sunset Blvd. - 1967?



Michael, Aunt Sabina (lookin' hot), Lisa, Cousin Myla at 10 Tanwood Drive, Massapequa, NY 11758 - mid 70s



Michael and Steven - early 90s?



Jerome Teger's piece d'automobile, the Excalibur - mid 70s

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Battle of the Bans - Commercials That Is

If someone can explain to me why this PETA ad was banned yet the Paris Hilton ad below it was not I would be most appreciative.


'Veggie Love': PETA's Banned Super Bowl Ad



The hypocrisy in this country is mind-boggling.

UPDATE 1/28/09: I had to add Whoopi's version from The View.

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Max...Sit. An Amuse Bouche Video.

Who says a Jack Russell Terrier can't sit still for longer than a minute?

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Free TV on the Internet

Here are some of the ways I have watched free television over the internet.

Hulu is not only a destination where I went to watch television. It is also a hub from which NBC Universal and News Corporation distribute content either by allowing users to embed video or by partnering with other web sites. Due to the former, I can embed video in my blog for free. Because of the latter, there are a number of web sites on which I can watch the same content.

OPENHulu uses the embed code from Hulu just like I could on my blog.

Veoh works just like OPENHulu; that is, it uses the embed code just like I could on my blog.

Fancast aggregates content from CBS, USA Network, Sci-Fi, and from Hulu. (So is Hulu a competitor or a wholesaler?)

ABC has a great site for their own shows. You have to download a plug-in but it was painless and the player has great controls.

TV4U is a strange-looking little site replete with episodes of rare classic television shows from the fifties and sixties, commercials and movies. I think it is all public domain and very well done.

Public Domain Movies is another site for the titular films. Well-organized and official-looking.

TV @ AOL Video is similar to Hulu and, in fact, carries their content. The difference between them all is getting murky though - maybe this site carries Warner stuff in addition?

Joost is one I just discovered and haven't delved too deeply into BUT it has Divorce His/Divorce Hers, the ABC Movie of the Week starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Lookin' good.

Metacafe is similar to YouTube.

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Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

Go west on Route 66, take a few pictures and turn right.


Goodbye, Porpoise Spit!

Since that right turn, I've been driving around San Jose, California in my leased-for-Denver Toyota Tundra, a big honkin' truck with Colorado plates. It was never my intention to drive this big honkin' truck with Colorado plates in California which is why it was leased rather than bought. But here I am driving this big honkin' truck with Colorado plates on little Bailey Avenue with its one little driving lane and its one little parking lane. I'm the California cowboy.


GeorJet with whom I share an insurance plan.
We're pinned.

Walk proudly into Fry's (my least favorite store in the Bay Area) with my new moniker to return the Bluetooth ear phone I had bought to adhere to California's Hands Free Cellphone Law. As a technical writer I am applauded for my electronic acuity but the attempt to connect these two pieces of electronicity was so frustrating that the frustration soon eclipsed my desire to speak on the telephone while driving. So I am returning the earphone and calling from the side of the road (as others sociopathically flaunt their own law-breaking activities).


Excellent 1945 B-movie still playing in Barstow, CA in 2008
Watch it online here for free.

I had to give my telephone number to the sales clerk at Fry's to get my money back for the ear phone. After she punched it in the register, she spews names from the database.

Eduardo Caldez. Is that you?

No.

Nancy Miranda.

No but her name comes up when I use my telephone number at Safeway also.

She looks at me.

Robert Prince.

No but your closer. He's an old roommate.

michael teger.

That looks right but it should be capitalized.

I said this jokingly but she clicked one more forward.

Michael Teger?

There you go.



Feline Conservation Center Rosamond, CA
with brilliant end-of-clip commentary...simply brilliant.

On the list of things I will miss in Denver is the Denver Public Library. This library system is Blockbuster and Netflix in one. You go online, reserve what you want, and it is transferred to your local branch. I would then pick them up and drop them off on one of my walks with Max. The only DVD I recall them not having was the 7 disc box set of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's German television series Berlin Alexanderplatz. And I'm not being high-falutin'.

Now I go to the San Jose Public Library. When I try to reserve something online I can't. After searching the site I found this answer to a Frequently Asked Question:

Due to staffing budget cuts, Library staff are not able to search for and hold entertainment videos (DVD, VHS or VCD) or music CDs for you.

Online or in branch. So I either search the online, see which branch has the DVD, drive to that branch and hope that, in the time it takes to drive, it was not checked out by another member of the public OR just go to my branch and hope for the best. Sure they have the 7 disc box set of Rainer Fassbinder's German television series Berlin Alexanderplatz in rotation but who has the energy? Thanks Governor Schwarzenegger.


Be it ever so humble

Further down the list, we had a 2900 square foot house, three printers, and a dishwasher in Denver. In San Jose we have 900 square feet, three printers in boxes sitting in the carriage house (and I'm not being high-falutin' - it's a carriage house) and are considering the purchase of a portable dishwasher because it's really hard to go back to using your hands. I now feel that one of the last vestiges of uncivilized behavior is washing dishes by hand. And I am being high-falutin'!


There's no place like home

I think the infamous season-ending episode of the 1980s drama Dallas illustrated it best when, it turns out, Bobby Ewing woke up and discovered that he had dreamt everything that had happened during the year. I feel that sensation as I walk Max around our San Jose neighborhood again and think of Denver. Who knew the Dallas writers were on the cutting edge of clinical psychology?

I won't be the California cowboy much longer. I have to register the big honkin' truck in California come January. After that I'll be just another California resident driving a gas guzzler to his home in San Jose. What a feeling.

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Bad DVD Cover Art: Day of the Dead Edition

When I first reviewed the 2008 reimagining of Day of the Dead, I had found the DVD in rotation at the Denver Public Library with this DVD cover art.



I investigated further and found out about the movie's straight-to-DVD status. Fast forward to San Jose, I decide to buy the movie (sometimes you have to) but the copy I bought had this DVD cover.



It also came complete with a slip case that simulates the motion of the zombie vomiting.



I knew something was amiss but didn't put together that this was not the same cover I had previously seen until I went to the Day of the Dead page on Amazon and found the movie advertised with this cover.



Further investigation unearthed this Kiwi version I found at the Day of the Dead Bad DVD Cover Art board.



Why bother?

Harbor Green Goes to Biltmore Shores

A reunion of sorts for some of the kids from the subject Massapequa neighborhoods.

George Zhen Releases Dust of the American Pixel CD

My brother-in-law George Zhen is releasing his new CD, Dust of the American Pixel. Here's the first video for the song The American Pixel Part Two. It features my nephews Jeremy and Cameron and a nod back to music history.



Here's the 80s history - INXS's Need You Tonight/Mediate.



Here's the 60s history - Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues.

Separated at Birth: Tom Cruise and Chris

Tom Cruise and Chris from Team America: World Police.

Michelle O Meets Chrissie H

When I saw this picture of Michelle O...



...I thought of the iconic photo of another lady in red, Chrissie H.



Too bad W. and his aunt are not positioned differently - that subtle touch of irony would have been classic.

Keith Olbermann's Flag at Half Mast

I like Keith Olbermann but...couldn't he have handled the flag just a smidge differently in this picture?

Get Out of Denver

The invasion of the POD was Monday. The day on which the POD finished swallowing all our belongings was Wednesday. (That's 6600 pounds of food.)



The day on which the POD was met by it's keeper was Thursday.



Today is Friday. George and I signed the papers and deposited the check. Now we return to no-longer-our home, pile Max and Lucy into the truck and well, I guess Bob Seger said it best.



We'll be driving to San Jose, California, where it all began, via route...well, I guess Nat King Cole said that best.



With Election Day and Moving Day, this has been quite a week.

John McCain Gracious?

A gracious man would have said more than Please in an attempt to calm his supporters when they booed the mention of Senator Barack Obama's name during his concession speech. A gracious man would've stopped his speech and directly addressed the haters in his audience that night and at his previous campaign stops. A gracious man would have said that the type of derision they were demonstrating towards the next President of the United States will not be tolerated. A gracious man would've used words to that effect and the real Americans in his audience would've cheered loudest, drowning out the cries of negativity from the likes of him and her.



Instead, John McCain read his words as written - words that, in any other context, might be considered gracious. But, by not directly addressing the fundamental failures of a core section of his supporters, McCain displayed the same failure he referred to in his speech - and I quote - The failure is mine.

John McCain, you are no Barack Obama.