Happy Halloween!

This is the scariest picture I have ever taken and I wanted to share it with you.

money town

This picture was taken a couple of years ago, when living in L.A. was a faraway dream.

This bottle of water was in my hotel room and I was in shock over the price of the damn water. $5.50? For water? You mean the clear, tasteless stuff that comes out of taps for free?

I hate to think what that same bottle of water costs now. $7? 10?

Complaining about the cost of living in L.A. is like complaining about the tornado season in Oklahoma. Everyone hates it but if you bitch too much about it, you're at risk for becoming boring. If you can't stand it anymore, accept it or move away. It's as simple as that.

But wait, this is a blog and the purpose IS to bitch AND to whine and probably be boring in the process so let me get my ya-yas out and tell you what it's like to be gouged on a daily basis.

A friend and I recently dined at an Italian restaurant at the Hollywood and Highland complex for LUNCH. It was a Saturday and for some reason, they told us that they don't serve (cheap?) sandwiches on the weekend so we opted for one of the specials. In my mind, a special means something that is CHEAPER than what you would expect; you know, blue plate special and the like. But in this case, there were no prices next to the specials and I told my friend that in L.A., if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it. We decided to order the fish SPECIAL anyway (price be damned). The food was alright. Halibut and Snapper in a red sauce. Potatoes. Nothing I would recommend. The bill came and for ONE meal, it was nearly $30 freakin' dollars. For lunch. For just the meal, not the drinks or the tip. The waiters and waitresses weren't even that hot, which can sometimes be a bonus in an L.A. eatery. Fuck them and their overpriced Italian crap restaurant. If I could remember the name of the place, I would tell you. Warn you. I hate to think what a dinner would cost.

It doesn't end there. I recently paid $80 for a t-shirt and $150 for a pair of jeans. I suppose this is where the sympathy for me ends, right? No one forced me to buy these things and the price tag was there in all its stinging glory. The fact is, though, that these items are available for these outrageous prices. Furthermore, I am VERY sure that there are more expensive t-shirts and jeans out there if you are willing to shop at the stores to the stars. I remember when I thought that $35 was a lot to pay for jeans, but I was willing to do it because I would buy a pair every three or four years. Now, in L.A., I have more jeans than I care to admit. This is not a choice. Good jeans and t-shirts are like formal wear here and EVERYONE wears them. It's a requirement. I figure I could spend a couple hundred dollars on a nice suit elsewhere so the cost of the dressed-down L.A. jeans/t-shirt uniform doesn't seem so bad.

You would think the cost of seeing a movie would be low here but it's like going to Napa and expecting to find cheap wine; sure, you can find it but you're probably not going to be happy with the outcome. Since my favorite movie theaters recently closed down to be converted to the Arclight theaters (which charges $15 a seat), I have gone to the theaters at Universal Studios. A ticket goes for $11.50 but you have to add in $10 for parking (but they give you a rebate for $5) so the grand total is $16.50 to view a screening. That's a lot of moolah. It's no wonder people wait for the DVD and put it on their netflix queue. I recently saw Thirty Days of Night and wished I had done just that.

Other tickets are just as expensive. A recent trip to Disneyland set me back $66 and $10 for parking. That was JUST Disneyland and not the California Adventure. For $76 (which didn't include a dried out turkey sandwich for $8), I should have gotten a bathroom blow job by Cinderella herself. I have to admit the fireworks at the end of the night were pretty cool and they must pay all those happy people something for their time. And Disney had to buy back Pixar so I guess I see their point.

Should I stop complaining? Wait, I have one more thing. My rent. $1400 for a dark apartment in Studio City. Two bedroom so I guess it ain't that bad. But c'mon, my mortgage payment for my house in Las Vegas is $650. My bright, airy, tiled house with a backyard that I left last year costs me less than seven hundred dollars. $1400 could buy a lot of, I don't know, stuff. (How much is that iPhone again?) It's really difficult to write out that check each month.

And yet I stay here. Haha. They say it's only money. Easy come, easy go. Money is the root of all evil. Money can't buy happiness.

Whatever.

I guess I'm not desitute yet, so now is my time to shut the hell up.

Lessons learned in Cancun

Just got back from a week in Cancun, Mexico. And I went from there directly to a doctor's office. He said I don't have anything that a couple of antibiotics won't cure. (I've got a lower respiratory infection, in case you thought differently.)

So, hmmm, let's see. I really did learn a few things on vacation and here they are.

• If you finally give up the fight and let a bar girl pour a shot down your throat, then you will have had at least six more dumped down your gullet before you know what happened. (And the $2 dollar shot has now become $20).


• If you participate in any games at an adult-only resort, then prepare to get naked or really drunk.


• Seeing fat, middle-aged topless women is still better than seeing mothers change their babys' diapers by the pool.


• Buying all-you-drink Hurricanes at Pat O'Brian's for $25 was a good idea at the time. The next morning, not so much.


• If you insult the Irish, you might get kicked in the fluffy.


• Seeing ChichenItza, the amazing ruins of the Mayans, was a great experience although I can't ever remember being in such hot weather (and I lived in Vegas for 12 years).


• Singing What a Feeling (the Flashdance song) for a karaoke contest after slamming down three Vodka/Redbulls and two shots of Tequila was an embarrassing disaster waiting to happen.


• A $350 Canon camera can be dropped on a stone floor in a bar and still work quite well.


• Tequila will pretty much make me do anything, including stripping down to my underwear and dry-humping a girl on stage.


• Cancun is really just an American city located in Mexico. They take American dollars, you can eat at Burger King, KFC or McDonalds and you can shop at Harley Davidson, Diesel, and the Hardrock cafe.


• There is nothing faster in Cancun than a bus going along the main drag at 1 am.


• Every price in the market is negotiable, but if you don't buy a product and they don't chase you down, then you've either pissed them off or your asking price is way too low.


• Offensive t-shirts are an underappreciated art-form. Diet Cock; only one big calorie. I'm shy but I have a big dick. This isn't a beer belly; it's a fuel tank for a sex machine.


• You are what people perceive you to be. Accept it. No matter how much it hurts.


• Falling asleep in the sun is a great feeling, as long as you have 45 spf lotion.

Hopefully I can go back sometime soon. I think there are more lessons to be learned!

Why I write

I write because I have an abundance of useless words floating around in my head. They torture me and they want to get out. Someday, I hope they have meaning.

Kitties and Condoms

Most of my life is unfortunately quite boring but every now and then, I get tossed a few surprises.

Last week, a talent agency called and they were looking for young vets who could audition for a major dog food commercial. At first, I thought, "Hell no" because that is my usual response to something in front of a camera but I changed my mind and said, "Why the hell not?".

They called three days before the audition so that left me three days to fuss, stress and anguish over my television debut. I have no control over such emotions: I worry, therefore I am. The night before, I even made some crude head shots. I figured that my writing hadn't made me one red cent so I was going to give this acting thing a good try.

The day of the audition, I had the most hellacious work day of the past year. Everything that came in was sick or dying and needed major work-ups. No one was poor. All the owners had money to afford bloodwork and xrays and the necessary treatment. Rich bastards! As the day wore on, I became more and more frazzled. My screen time was set for 6:45 and by 6:00, it became clear that I was going to be late. This caused me even more grief and I began to utter expletives over things that normally I would have taken in stride. Thankfully, the casting center was literally a couple of blocks from my clinic but I still needed time to run home, change clothes, regain my super polished professional self and find parking. Parking is always a factor in L.A. I wish we had hover craft and we could just park above each other. Until that time, there is street parking. This is the devil's invention.

I ran into the office at 6:50 and my mouth was as dry as a bone. I had taken an antihistamine/decongestant for my allergies and while it cleared up my sinuses nicely, it had taken its toll on my mouth. Cotton mouth was not a fair description. I felt like my mouth was the highest-grade chalk and my tongue stuck to my upper palate. I talked like a ret--, ahem, a mentally challenged person. Thankfully, there was a water fountain and I sucked down a gallon of moisture before making my way over to the casting area. I brought along Dusty (we were encouraged to bring our pets) and he seemed completely clueless and uninterested about everything. I was very jealous of him.

I started to eye the competition. They all appeared to be younger AND better looking than I was. And more professional. And more caring. And more "vet-like". And they probably made more money than I did and they were probably HAPPY that they were vets. I started to foreshadow disaster.

By 7:15, a very perky lady ushered me into "the room" and gave me a place to stand with Dusty. Then they loosened me up and asked me to talk about myself. I was okay with that. I knew that they were going to ask me those type of things so I was prepared. Then they hit me with "okay, now tell us something funny that has happened to you at your clinic".

Funny shit happens all the time at a vet clinic. In fact, they should make a reality show about vet clinics and I'm sure it would be a hit. But could I think of something off the top of my head? My mind was reeling. I had to run through 13 years of being a vet and come up with something that was going to BLOW them away. Of course, I'm not a fast thinker and my mind tends to live in the gutter SO ...

I told them the very short story about a woman who brought in a litter of orphaned kittens. She didn't know how to nurse them so she filled a condom with milk replacer and fed them that way. She didn't appear embarrassed or shy, just very matter-of-fact. I suppose she was being resourceful. Give credit when it is due.

At the time of my audition, it was such a "D'oh!" moment. Condoms and cute kitties. It just wasn't a pretty picture and the ladies who were running the audition were more shocked than entertained. They didn't want to hear any more of my "stories". That was a good thing because the only other story I could think of was the one about a client having sex with her dog. I'm sure THAT would have gone over real well.

I wish I could control my mind. Or maybe I just need to control my mouth. Actually, think I need to control both because they are definitely in cahoots with each other.

At the end of the audition, the ladies thanked me and told me they would be calling me the next week to let me know. One of those, "don't call us, we'll call you" comments.

Rejection. It made me feel like a real bona-fide actor!

Please eat me.

I am soooo tired of my own cooking that I have decided to eat out more.

This is all fine and dandy except that I eat alone. Not by choice. I don't choose to be a loser; I just am. But that's for another column.

My dilemma is this; what to do while I'm eating in my lonely little corner of misery?

Here are the options:

• Read the menu over and over. I try to memorize the prices and make a mental note to look up weird foodie terms like "fricassee" and "tartare".


• Stare at people. If they stare back, I pick another table, preferably with a baby. Or, if I'm in a particularly weird mood, I'll narrow my eyes to slits and pretend that something doesn't look right on someone's face. Staring at the waitstaff is no fun; they'll think I want something and then when I do, they'll ignore me.


• Bring a book and read it. This always seems so studious. If I wanted to look that way, I should just sneak a sandwich into a library.


• Pretend I'm thinking about something, anything. My mind is usually quite blank so this gets boring very quickly. I end up staring at a table next to me, even if it's empty.


• Eat. I suppose this is one option. But it's kinda like sitting on the toilet to take a shit.


• Snort cocaine. This never goes over very well. In L.A. everyone wants their share.


• Practice writing your name with your left hand backwards on the paper covering the table. This only goes over if you're in a pseudo-Italian restaurant with annoying opera singers.


• Call someone on my cell phone. This is frowned upon by the waitstaff as well as by other diners. I don't know why. It makes me feel important and social.
• Talk to myself. I suppose this is alright in this day and age. People tend to think you have a cell phone attached somewhere.
• Play solitaire on the cell phone. This is even more pathetic than eating alone. However, if I'm really tired and all of the above just ain't working, this may be the only option.

I'm planning on eating out tomorrow night by myself. I can't wait to try out some new ideas!

His whole life flashed before his eye

Veterinary medicine is so unpredictable.

Dusty nearly died after having blood taken for some routine tests. He has one eye, degenerating kidneys, a bad back, a heart murmur but I didn't expect him to meet his maker after drawing out some blood.

That just ain't right.

He is back to normal now. Normal for him, of course.

Thanks for asking.