Dear Vehicle Adorners

Dear People Who Put Shit On Their Cars:

Your car says something about you, to be sure. Some, however, feel a need to convey something further to their fellow drivers; and there are of course a multitude of ways to do so. From bumper stickers to license plate brackets to those magnet-y things you can stick on the back, there are a multitude of ways to proclaim everything from your support of the troops to you affinity for non-cancer-ridden breasts.

I find acceptable, (as does, in general, The Official Preppy Handbook released in 1980) the following items with which to adorn the outside of your car:

- School Decals. You (or your parents, or dead grandparents) paid six figures for this privilege - why not flaunt it? But only if you are under 30 or if it's for a school your children attend.
- Sports team /athletic affiliation. Home team REPRESENT!
- Those white ovals with black lettering suggesting an affiliation with a specific locus (but only if you actually HAVE an affiliation with it, i.e. property or family with property or a frequency of visitation there - not just that you went there once).
- Something about breast cancer. Normally I'm against references to boobs in traffic, but how can one not rally around support of breast cancer research?!

And THAT'S IT. With the exception of the bumper sticker that says "My other car is a broomstick" - because that one just makes me laugh.

Some examples of INAPPROPRIATE vehicle adornment:

- Any national political candidates. Political discourse need not happen at traffic lights. (Local elections, however, are the exception as they usually smack of a gentler, Lesley Knope-esque quality.)

- Rainbows. Come on, what are you trying to prove? Why don't you just put a sticker on your car that says "I suck dick".

- Supporting of the troops. We all support the troops. Nobody DOESN'T support the troops. They're just doing their thing. Even the people against the war support the troops. End of story.

And this one pisses me off. "I'm going to be tolerant because a Dodge Grand Caravan's dented ASS told me to be:


Some non-traditional examples of adornment no-no's:

Disgusting:


Trashy / Don't get it:


Kitschy / Ridiculous / Driver most likely has a stalk of straw between what few teeth he has:


And The Official Preppy Handbook LA and I agree, you should never hang anything from your rearview mirror, ever. You never want to have anything to do with anyone who hangs something from their rearview mirrors.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a date with your mama.

Sincerely,
Dear Crabby

Dear Puke Green Ottoman

Dear Puke Green Ottoman,

You appeared, biblically, on my front lawn last week; a latter-day Moses-esque relic from the 70s drifting down the Nile of rainwater in the gullies of my street. I don't know if you accidentally fell off a truck bound for the Salvation Army store, or were maliciously cast-off, abandoned and scorned, by a neighbor of mine who no longer required your foot-resting services. I contemplated a course of action. While as a child we opened our home to an adorable kitten who'd had this same fate befall her, somehow I didn't feel that you, Puke Green Ottoman were going to seamlessly blend into the household to the same extent that the cat did, happily dozing and shedding on the guest room bed for the next ten years.



You were pretty generic, puke green ottoman - ripped and stained, the black, scratchy fabric ubiquitously underneath all pieces of furniture torn to shreds. At first I hoped you might just go back from wherever you came, your owner having experienced a change of heart; and in hopes of this, I left you untouched for a couple days, but sadly, you were not reclaimed. Trash day rolled around, and I thought perhaps the benevolent operators of the seemingly five trash trucks rumbling past our house at 6:45am might have disposed of you, perched so expectantly as you were on the curb, so clearly out of place on a front lawn. No luck there either.

Days passed, and you grew increasingly waterlogged, not only from the several hours of pelting rain we experienced on Sunday, but also from the daily drenching you received by our sprinkler system, one of the heads of which I'm pretty sure you were perched immediately on top of. As it purified your nether regions like some sort of some furniture-based douche, I was beside myself, Puke Green Ottoman, concerned that you would soon become a toadstool colony and attract klatches of roving lawn gnomes to dwell in your shadow.

I weighed the options. I thought of donating you to the local homeless hoarder who lives in the bus stop at the foot of the street, but given that he so frequently patrols the neighborhood with his overflowing shopping cart, I assumed he must have already decided against claiming you for his own needs. This to me was foolish on his part, as even as mildewed as you were, he could've at least used you to put his feet up in front of the bus bench. But when even the addled homeless person who occasionally walks around with his butt crack exposed doesn't want it, you know it's no good.

Dedicated followers of this blog will already be familiar with my across-the-street neighbors, the dumpy Orthodox Jews, many generations of which reside in the same 1313 Mockingbird Lane-esque dwelling, in addition to their giant van / rolling storage unit which resides in the street and is moved only once a week on street-sweeping day. After a weekend of listening to their screaming children and Yiddish hollered on the sidewalk in front of their house, not to mention an ever-growing number of close calls when backing out of the driveway (our reversing cars hidden to by their giant van parked at the curb), my patience with them has grown thin.

Monday night I was in a terrible mood. And as I drove up and spied you once more, Puke Green Ottoman, my frustration with you somehow aligned in my head with my frustration at my aggressively shabby neighbors. Somehow you were THEIR fault - I was sure of it. So I picked you up, walked you across the street, in all your waterlogged splendor, and dropped you on the Jews' front lawn, their giant van now conveniently shielding you from view.

While this thumb in the eye of my neighbors was obviously as Quixotic as it was terrible, I chose to look beyond that. As I also was able to justify it as a request for their assistance, indeed, a cry for help. "Please, help me dispose of this unwanted piece of furniture, kind neighbors!" As people who seem to have no other occupation other than actively trading in junk and crap, they seemed somehow better equipped than yours truly to deal with an errant stool... either the location of a local dumpster, the proper number to call to have it hauled away, or perhaps some extra space in the back of their van full of shit in which to place it. Or, I even thought, perhaps some pathological hoarding impetus might kick in with them and they'd take it to some great, holy Hebrew hassock mikvah and rehabilitate it to is once great splendor, giving it a place of honor in their living room right under the menorah so all the young Moishes and Shoshanahs could play on it. Inside. Quietly. And if not, at the very least, it was off my fucking lawn. For the time being.

"I've dealt with the ottoman situation," I told my roommate when I walked inside.

"What'd you do with it?" He asked.

"The less you know, the better."

Imagine my frustration the next night when I returned home, and, the ottoman was in fact back EXACTLY where it had been! Clearly the Jews had not seen my gesture as the polite request for assistance that I had intended it to be, but more as the slightly drunken, rage-fueled act that it had in actuality been.

"How the FUCK is the ottoman back?" My roommate asked when he got home.

"I'm dealing with it!" I shouted.

"I don't understand how this happened," he very legitimately said.

"It was the damn Jews," I responded through gritted teeth.

"Right. The Jews." He shook his head and walked away.

I'll deal with you later, Orthodox Jews... I'll figure out how to bust you and your giant van full of shit yet. Meanwhile, Puke Green Ottoman, our date with destiny continues to elude us.

I ruminated on my options. I though of just putting the ottoman into the middle of the street, rendering it the city of Los Angeles's problem. Or better yet, dousing it in lighter fluid, setting it on fire, then putting it in the middle of the street, and making an anonymous phone call to the police. "There's a flaming ottoman in the street, and the people who put it there had peyas!"

Another trash day rolled around, and I tried actually placing you, Puke Green Ottoman, on TOP of the trash barrels the night before, rendering you unmissable by the waste professionals. But when I walked into the living room this morning, there you were, still on the lawn, they had just knocked you off the top and left you on your side, a clear referendum that this Rasputin of a footrest wasn't trash, but was indeed, something more: it was my own, personal Golem - fiendish, otherworldly, doomed to haunt both me and my lawn forever more.



So I did what I had been avoiding doing, but what I should have done when you first appeared. I put on some rubber gloves, put you in the car, drove you to the closest dumpster I could find, and PITCHED you the FUCK in. I'm sure I violated all sorts of private property dumpster-dumping laws by doing this, however this particular dumpster happened to be behind a local American Apparel, so I wouldn't be surprised if some enterprising, be-headbanded 87 lb. hipster employee stumbles on it and decides to haul it inside and use it to display their spring Casio watch collection, or a series of coffee table books about mullets. Ironically. Regardless, I hope that if they do have security cameras out back that captured footage of me ditching the ottoman, both my face and license plate number highly visible, the very apathy they feign when you ask them a question while shopping in their store will prevent them from making the effort to take any legal action.



It's been a wild ride, Puke Green Ottoman. We have traveled an epic, indeed, biblical, path together - but now I can only hope our journey has drawn to a close. I hope to never meet the chair or any part of the living room set from which you sprung. I won't be held responsible for my actions if I do.

Best Regards,
Dear Crabby

Dear ABC Network

Dear ABC Network:

Los Angeles's vast network of bus stops (primarily used as low, nay, lowest income housing - or at least the one at the bottom of my street is), and the busses themselves are screaming advertisements for your newest show, GCB. Krtstin Chenoweth and her leering visage lord over the city; her shapely legs stretched out of her skimpy, be-crucifixed choir robe. Many a morning I've almost had an accident caused by the sun reflecting off the sparkly logo of the rooftop billboard at the corner of Fountain and LaBrea, nearly blinding drivers and causing them to run off the road and crash into a bus stop, ironically, with another ad for GCB in it - quite literally adding insult to injury.



ABC, I'm here to tell you that, unless steeped in the entertainment industry, next to NOBODY knows what your new show is, or what its title refers to. One needs to have followed the progression of the title of the script from the original GOOD CHRISTIAN BITCHES to the watered-down GOOD CHRISTIAN BELLES to the opaque and essentially meaningless GCB, its logo complete with drooping crucifix, to understand its eventual title. Is the strategy of the good people of the ABC marketing department to merely lure viewers to the show so they can find out what its title actually refers to, driving them bonkers with confusion in the meantime? Or does the ambiguous title and (admittedly slutty) Christianity displayed aspire to snag some wholesome red-staters? And frankly, unless you clearly spy the alphabet logo at the bottom right of the billboard, you might not essentially infer that the picture of the leggy woman in the come-hither pose with the phrase "love thy neighbor" over it even necessarily refers to a television show! This has undoubtedly caused some horny, commuting men across America to frantically Google the new strip club in town and find out what road out by the airport it's located on.

Clearly, ABC, between GCB and DON'T TRUST THE B- IN APARTMENT 23 (also premiering soon), you're flirting with disaster. Having a mid-season programming slate where multiple shows have an obfuscated version of the word 'bitch' in the title is a dangerous game. (And yet, conversely, what an age we live in that this is the case... No doubt Norman Lear is turning over in his grave.) (Correction: upon further investigation, Norman Lear, in fact, not dead.) But between those two titles, you're dangerously close to having yourselves dragged through the muck as "bitch network." Regardless, good luck entrapping the unsuspecting with your covert "ambiguous name" scheme, ABC... between that and the crucfix, you just might snag some Good Christian Viewership.



Poor name aside, for any show written by Robert Harling, the screenwriter of Steel Magnolias, Soapdish and The First Wives Club, I may just have to tune in. In the meantime, I'll spread the gospel of what the show's title actually means... that is if I'm not blinded by a billboard for it.

Sincerely,
Dear Crabby

Dear Hollywood Tourists

Dear Tourists in Hollywood:

I see you, some weekday mornings, making your way down Highland Avenue from the Renaissance, or, more often the Holiday Inn, excited for your day on the town; Hollywood, USA! "HOOray for HOLLywood..." (as my late grandfather used to greet me after my Angeleno relocation).

Hollywood isn't the shithole that it used to be, but it's not exactly the newly PG, Giuliani-ized Times Square either. I always feel bad for the tourists who don't understand this, don't know what they're getting into - the good folks who have come from somewhere in the Republican Party's "real" America - Missouri or Oklahoma, bringing their high-waisted, light blue denim and oversized t-shirts with them, expecting glitz, magic, sparkle - or at least NOT a recently shuttered Borders and the BCBG at the Hollywood and Highland mall as its flagship attractions. What they encounter, sadly, is dinge. Dinge and smut - not necessarily of the pornographic kind, but of the cheap, touristy kind - capitalizing on an image that is as stale as the bread at the still-chugging Musso and Frank's.



What must you think of us, Real Americans? As you troll the boulevard, yearning for your Shape Ups to tone your sizable behinds? You probably have some conception that celebrities aren't going to just be out walking on the street, but what you don't know is that no celebrities will ever actually BE in Hollywood proper - other than for the Oscars - as it is essentially one of the dingiest, non-ghetto neighborhoods in the city. They are squirreled away in Brentwood or Santa Monica or Ojai - not out for a quick trip to the Chick-Fli-A at Sunset and La Brea.

What you just might be able to tap into in Hollywood is the energy. In a city where so many want so much and so few will attain it, the yearning and the posturing is as potent today as it was in the days of the Locust - and although Hollywood might not be the nexus of showbiz anymore, it will forever be an emblem of it. The truth is, Hollywood is a state of mind; a moveable feast - But a difficult one to access while wearing Skechers.

Sincerely,
Dear Crabby

Dear Shoeless Man At The Movies

Dear Shoeless Man,

It's Saturday night! Meryl Streep has her teeth askew and her hair in a huge bouffant! I don't know about you, but this calls for a trip to the cinema for a good old-fashioned moving picture.

The Landmark Theater feels that is the pinnacle of the civilized movie-going experience, which must be why they have an employee "introduce" the movie. Does anybody else HATE that they do this? "If you have any questions or concerns during the movie, please find one of us in the burgundy shirts." My CONCERN is that you won't shut the hell up! People have been going to the movies chaperone-free for a century, no help is requrired from the living embodiment of the warbling, be-pimpled retail clerk from The Simpsons. The worst part is the few abject morons in the audience who always applaud when they're done with their announcement. "Now sit back, and enjoy "The Iron Lady." What are we applauding this pinhead for? He didn't do anything other than get a job at a movie theater and point to the exit signs as his paunchy gut strains the buttons on his burgundy shirt.

Although frankly, I would have taken the Landmark employees actually sitting down in the audience next to us in lieu of the two dunderheads who sat there instead. This middle-aged man and his wife had, in addition to stopping at the concessions stand AND a Coffee Bean, brought the majority of their pantry with them, and proceeded to chomp on popcorn, candy bars, and trail mix.

"That jacket makes you look like a Nazi," the wife said. "Everyone says that to me," the husband responds. "That's always the first thing people say to me when they see this jacket." I don't see you with the jacket on, so I'm not sure exactly what they mean, these "everyone".

"Where'd you get it?" the wife asks? "Century City," he says. "Ko-Han? Kohan? I don't remember the name of the store. Ironic though, right?"

The wife looks at the label. "Cole HAAN," she says. "Oh, yeah, that's it," he says back. This conversation could NOT have been made up.

Then, this happens:


I mean, Wow. This is pretty unabashed. The temptation to lean over and just say "I'm so sorry, can you help me? I think I'm lost. I've suddenly wound up in your living room" tugs mightily at my vocal chords.

The man then proceeds to snuffle and snort and clear his throat and readjust his position every thrity-seven goddamned seconds for the next two hours, interrupting his routine occasionally to shush his wife when she asks, as she did multiple times, a question about the movie at full volume. I shoot them death glares so virulent I think Meryl Streep might interrupt her drag queen-esque performance of Margaret Thatcher and give a diplomatic address on this husband and wife - as the movie continues I begin to contemplate planting a bomb in their car and blaming it on the IRA.

Shoeless man, have you no decency?! Never mind the fact that I purchased senior tickets for the $3 discount, and never mind that I will also occasionally take my shoes off in a movie theater, but not in the front row! And certainly not while the lights are on! We are living in a society, people! Keep your shoes on accordingly. And if you don't, I hope the same thing happens to you as it did to Margaret Thatcher's fleet in the Falkland Islands. Meanwhile, I have some socks to darn - I'm going to the movies later and sitting in the back.

Sincerely,
Dear Crabby

Dear Hilary Clinton

Dear Secretary Clinton:

I applaud you on not only your recent trip to Myanmar, but also your newly grown-out hairdo. How, however, awkward was this:


"Why yes, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, it DOES look a little like your outfit, doesn't it? I mean, this just happened to be the pants suit, barrette and earrings I pulled out of my suitcase... What's that? Well, now that you mention it, I guess it's a little Oriental looking... No, of course I'm not trying to patronize you! I just thought, y'know... when in Burma... ha! Ha. Whoops."

Sincerely,
Dear Crabby

Dear Today's Headlines in the LA Times:

Dear LA Times headlines, and their various subjects:

It's a variegated news day today in the Southland - and I felt that some of the day's stories needed to be recognized.

Occupy LA, in keeping with its counterpart in New York, celebrated the movement's two month anniversary (two months is, very appropriately, the port-a-john anniversary) and staged a march/rally/protest/brouhaha in downtown Los Angeles. As per usual, anything LA does plays second fiddle to most things that occur in New York. However, I would imagine that LA's chapter of the Occupy movement is a boon to the vast, pervasive homeless population of Downtown, who have now found themselves in the midst of a sudden cohort... a cohort with food. And laptops. For many in LA, the Occupy movement is just yet another reason not to go Downtown. ("Downtown? I haven't gone downtown in years!")

More interesting than LA's righteous and jobless storming the Bank of America tower (Ask them how I can get one of those debit cards with my picture on it!), were the OTHER, non-sequitir headlines:


Good on you, LA Times, for not letting these important stories fall through the cracks!

First of all, the tomfoolery with the goats and the pitbulls is just tragic. In some godforsaken part of town called Lake Los Angeles (where, upon a cursory Google Maps inspection, there appears to be no lake), some pitbulls did damage. "Animal control officers Wednesday were still looking for a fourth pit bull involved in the deadly mauling of 42 goats in the Lake Los Angeles area," says the LA Times. I, for one, demand an autopsy, because how cute are these pit bulls?


They look like they wouldn't harm a fly. Even if it was a fly on 42 live goats.

According to the article, the "mauling" occurred "at a property at 164th Street and Avenue Q." Perhaps the pit bulls, confused by the address, thought that goats were actually puppets. I know my childhood Spaniel used to eat my stuffed animals, too.

The next headline worth looking at is the one about the motivational speaker who got shot by the police... in Berkeley of all places. This is practically a line from an Alanis Morisette song. This story to me is just a further invalidation of the entire career of life coach. "Envision yourself as a strong, confident, evolved, sentient being... as you refuse to put down a gun when the police tell you to." All jokes aside, this is obviously tragic. Although I still don't know how it was related to the Occupy LA story.

And last but not least, what is to me a story of what makes America great: An effete Jew with a sibiliant 's' who attends an Ivy League school and isn't old enough to drink has almost won a school board election in the California city where two years ago he graduated from its high school. You might try to butch it up with your un-ironed shirt and unbuttoned collar buttons, but we're onto you:



What a nightmare for the La Canada High Phys. Ed. teacher - ("not 'gym', gym's the building!" spaketh Mr. White, my high school P.E. teacher) - to have the kid you terrorized because he was terrible at football only two years later effectively become your boss. This is every 98-pound weakling's fantasy.

Never mind the fact that I would think being a full-time student three thousand miles away and not being a full-time resident of your community might invalidate one's eligibility, but presumably going abroad, getting wasted at frat parties and other collegiate activities might at the very least interfere with regular attendance at school board meetings. (Not to mention, the last thing most people want to think about in college is high school.) But good on you, Andrew Blumenfeld, for committing to this civic-minded task! And at this point, you trail three-term incumbent Jeanne Broberg in an extremely close race by only two votes in a recount. You clearly are smarter and more ambitious than I... I can't even figure out how to put a tilde symbol over the 'n' to properly spell La Canada. First order of business if he wins? Speech therapy for all elementary school students with a sibilant 's'.

I always say, LA Times, that local news in the un-unified LA sprawl pales in comparison to the news of my more provincial home state Massachusetts, but today proves the exception to the rule. Tomorrow, I'm sure we're back to gang shootings and car chases. I can't wait.

Sincerely,
Dear Crabby