Bits and Pieces

Some days are action packed and some days are slow. The fact is, not every day in Los Angeles has been one strange adventure after another. Sure, there's plenty of freaks here and there's plenty to see and do but life has to go on and sometimes you just need to get groceries or some other mundane activity. The following is a compilation of events which would have otherwise gone unreported as they were on relatively uneventful days.

El Mongo: Gardener Off The Top Rope

On day two of my time in Los Angeles I was still crotch deep in a search for an apartment. There were a tonne of listings and I was still trying to hold to the ideal of finding a house rather than an apartment or condo. I wrangled a listing out of Westside Rentals and made the call. The voice on the other end obviously belonged to one of California's Mexican-American residents. I'll cut the details short on the
utter shitbox I went to see afterward as it is covered in an earlier blog entry (blentry?). The juice of this tale lies in what I before finding the address.

With time to kill before the appointment I decided to take a drive around the back streets surrounding Culver Studios which is where I now work. I slowly wound my way through the residential neighborhoods of sleepy Culver City. Each street had beautiful homes with carefully manicured lawns and shrubbery. The Mexican gardeners could often be seen working in the sun and performing the labor which would make whitey simply wilt like convenience store carnation. It lulled me into a state of relaxation and comfort with the area. Surely, peace and quiet could be found in such a neighborhood.

I turned the corner onto East Carson Street and made my way down it's quiet lanes. I spotted a group of gardeners working the patch of lawn which lay between the sidewalk and road in front of a nice rancher. As I approached the two gardeners with rakes kept working while the largest one standing directly behind them raised something above his head. He simply was the largest Mexican I've seen in a long, long time. His garb struck me as rather strange. On closer inspection I realized he was wearing tight fitting pajamas. They stretched themselves over his massive six foot plus, three hundred pound frame. As I closed in and drew directly parallel with the threesome he raised the objects above his head and started to pump them like Leatherface would his chainsaw. The two with rakes looked up sleepily and apologetically as the large one behind growled loudly and feigned a charge at the car.

"Sweet mother of shit!" I thought. Who is this madman? What sort of gardener is this? I then realized he was probably the older mentally handicapped brother of the two with rakes and those were wrestling belts he was holding up over his head. Imean, these were what looked like real friggin' WWF wrestling belts. Huge dinner plate sized inscribed buckles and all. I knew right then and there that El Mongo was challenging me to a cage match. I stepped on the gas and sped down the road.

Oh oh. Dead end.

I turned the car around in the cul-de-sac. I would have to take another run past El Mongo. His ebony slicked back hair and the stressed seams of his XXXL pajamas taunted me, nay dared me to run the gauntlet yet again. That big bastard would crush the Camry if he went off the top rope. I would have to pass at speed.

On the gas and down the road. I thought for sure he would refrain from another challenge. I was wrong. El Mongo, enraged that I hadn't simply driven the car through the barrier and chain link fence at the end of the road roared his most terrible roar. Time slowed. My drive by was in slo-mo as my eyes drank in every last detail of this amazing display of simple-minded bravado. El Mongo, like a Tijuana born silverback beat the shining wrestling belts against his chest.

You are the champ, El Mongo. You are the champ. Thank you for sparing me and my Japanese automobile from certain destruction.

Social Security Mutants Epilogue.

I received my social security card in the mail today after waiting two weeks. Work was getting impatient and so it couldn't have come at a better time. For a moment I doubted the incompetency of the American government but alas, they restored my faith in their ineptitude.

Not to knock them more than the Canadian government. I mean, let's be fair. They all suck. Working for the government is some sort of equivalent to mental retirement. I'm pretty sure they could take people from the ICU who have been declared brain dead and sit them at a desk and have them perform on par. I know with a certainty that Chimp could rise through the ranks if seniority had nothing with advancement.

So what made it so evident that they are functioning at a moronic capacity? I received the letter which tells the applicant that the social security card has been approved and that should I not receive it within ten days of the letter to call a certain number. The letter was sent in a separate envelope from the same address as the social security card and post marked the same day and of course, arrived the same day. Hell, it was probably sent by the same person. Stupid and wasteful.

Someone should tell President Obama that he need not make the tax cut put forth by the Republicans. He should just get the assholes at the Social Security Administration to stop doubling up on letters.