What is this, Rent?

I've lived in Los Angeles for 10 years, now. It took a good 3 years just for me to figure out exactly where in the city I was at any given minute. Somewhere in year 4, I found out there was a man-made lake in the city called "Silver Lake" and, after college graduation, several of the cool kids defected there. Myself not including, not only because I am uncool, but also because I don't like to be around hipsters and hipster priviledge. Right now, there is a specific hipster bee in my bonnet: calling Silver Lake "the Eastside" and calling anything uncouth enough to be west of Vine "the Westside." I only started hearing this phraseology over the past couple of years and it struck me as wrong and stupid immediatly but I couldn't exactly figure out why. Except that it did seem to me that with the with all the money those kids were saving on soap and shampoo, they could buy a frakking map and notice that right next to Downtown is a little thing I, and probably a million other people, like to call East Los Angeles or the infinitely more poetic "East Los." For the record, I've only heard this jokingly refered to as "East LA" by people who know the area from living there and not just seeing the moving "Born in East LA." Point is: it exists. And it seems incredibly anglocentric to pretend it doesn't. So I figured the reason I was reacting so poorly to these pastey hipsters calling their home turf "the Eastside" was because it seemed to whitewash an entire region and culture that they were not, and never going to be, a part of.

But this morning, I got another reason. A columnist in the LA Times wrote about being born in Hollywood and how in his young adulthood, "started telling people I was born in East Hollywood. I liked the gritty feel "East" added to its name." Bingo. If you have neither the talent nor the lack of family money to actually be a starving artist, add "East" to where you live and presto chango: you just got yourself some street cred!

Furthermore, if you travel south on Vermont to Jefferson, you are in "South Central," so if you then go north on Vermont to Sunset, I think you are in "North Central." BOOYAH!

And you got me all hot and bothered in The State of Annoyance.

My New BFF Chip

For the past 3 months I have been sharing a cubicle with a guy named Chip. That's not his real name. His real name is Andrew, or at least I think it is. You see, he moves around every few years, and every time he moves he changes his name. Chip is his favorite so far, "because it is easy for people to remember". I know that I will never forget Chip. We both started working for a winery on the same day, and since we both had a half hour commute Chip suggested that we carpool. Chip didn't seem like the most reliable person I had ever met, but I am a sucker for environmentally friendly transportation, and if that meant carpooling with Chip I was willing to give it a shot. I volunteered to drive the first day and it wasn't so bad, although I quickly realized that politics were off limits when Chip said that he hoped McCain would win the election because his family makes parts for submarines and wars are really profitable for them. But as long as I stayed away from talking about anything real, it was fine. He even invited me to go camping with him and his friends. I thought it was a little weird since I had met him the day before, but now that I know more about him I kick myself every day for not accepting that offer. It's not that I think camping with Chip's friends would have been a lot of fun, but I know I would have come away from that trip with some stories to tell. Anyway, the next morning I was waiting for Chip to pick me up for work. I waited...and waited...and tried calling Chip...and waited. When the time came that I was going to be ten minutes late for work, I decided to just drive myself. Chip showed up to work two hours later and explained that his phone died in the middle of the night so his alarm didn't go off and he didn't get my call that morning. He also asked me to give him a second chance and, since I am a pushover, I agreed. So the next morning Chip called at 6:15 like he said he would. The only problem was that he wasn't there to pick me up. He had misplaced his keys and he was going to keep looking for them for another 5 minutes and then call me back. A couple minutes later he called back and said "yeah, I can't find my keys, and actually...my car". So I had to go pick him up, and he spent the whole commute calling his friends and asking them if his car was at their house. I was already really annoyed, and the one thing that really got to me was that he never called any of his friends by an actual name. They all had ridiculous nicknames like Butters and Big O, or if he was calling a girl he would just say "hey baby". Needless to say, carpooling with Chip didn't work out. The only thing Chip was good for was a good story. Every afternoon, one of our other coworkers or I would say "tell us a story Chip", and Chip could always deliver. Or you could just ask him what him and his frat brothers were going to be up to that night. One night, Chip and his roommates had a party and at some point during the party someone stole Chip's bed. Seems impossible right? Not for Chip. One day Chip came to work with all of the skin on his left arm torn off, and he explained that he was trying to skate board down the side of a mountain to impress a girl when he fell and since he was only wearing his "new overalls" his arms got all scraped up. I could probably tell you a million stories about this guy, but I think I will just let you look at his business card. Enjoy!

I Never Thought Anything Could Make Me Miss Comcast

So apparently, when you make an appointment for cable and internet installation through Time Warner's website, "sometimes it goes through and sometimes it doesn't." That would be a direct quote frmo the customer service lady I spoke to over the phone. After taking yesterday off work to wait during what I THOUGHT was my installation window of 10am-7pm, I called to double check that someone was going to come out and was told "oh yeah, no." When I pointed out that since it was their mistake that my order didn't go through (the one I made online on Dec 22), they should send someone out that same day, I was given a 5 min lecture on why it would be unfair to other customers if they offered same day installation, "because then appointments would be meaningless." As opposed to those meaningful online appointments which were just lost somewhere in the internets?

So I had to re-make an appointment for Sunday, which is seriously going to cut into my brunch time. She asked how many tvs I had and I said one and then she asked if I was sure. Yeah, pretty sure.

At the end of the conversation, the lady asked me to rate her customer service 1-10 and I gave her a 6. She asked what she could have done to improve the service she gave me and I told her she could have made sure that someone was sent out on the day I was told (by the internet) that someone would be sent out. She then said well I would if I could but I can't... so what could I have done to improve my service? So I told her nothing and she said ok well when the customer service survey people call you just remember that their questions only reflect the service I gave you and my ability to answer your questions. Yeah yeah, I'll keep that in mind.

Upon further reflection, I should have told her she could have sent me some lunch, cause I had been waiting inside my foodless apartment, afeared to leave in case the Time Warner guy came by and I was starving.