We will fight them in the air

My dog Skipper, using the armrest of his chair. He has been in the family two years, but I had never seen him do this before. It brought to mind Winston Churchill somehow. The casual yet resolute pose. "We will fight them on the beaches, and we will never surrendah." All he needs is a cigar to chomp. Who does he remind you of? What might he say as that person?

MJ 4ever

I carefully cut this record off a box of Rice Krinkles around 1970 or 1971. It played pretty well as I recall, although the cardboard did not lay flat like as vinyl, so I had to set a penny on top of the record player's stylus to give it some weight. I didn't eat the Rice Krinkles. And now I think I never shall.

Unknown puffy reveler

A typical scene in our local Independence Day parade.

Put this in the dictionary under the phrase "Freedom of expression." Or in the yellow pages under "Plumbers, tutu-wearing, inflated."

Writers conference

Last weekend I attended the annual conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists (hereinafter referred to as "The Unemployed"). This year it was held in Ventura, which is apparently the Spanish word for "arctic." Whoever famously said that the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco clearly never strolled out the Ventura Pier in June. Gangs of sea gulls were sizing me up like comfort food.

Luckily, most of my time was spent in the hotel, rubbing shoulders with columnists from around the country who had sadly been suckered by the false promise inspired by the words "California" and "June."

I like free hotel goodies, so I was intrigued when I found in my room a little mesh bag promoting itself as a "Sleep Advantage" system, which consisted of earplugs, an eye mask and lavender "linen spray." Maybe most people find the scent of lavender soothing, but all I could picture was me bolting wide awake at 3 a.m. with the vague feeling I had gone to bed with somebody's grandma. So I passed.

The first evening, we were invited to a lovely reception in the shady courtyard of the 227-year-old Spanish Mission San Buenaventura, where we partook of wines and appetizers from local restaurants while being serenaded by a leggy blonde violinist in spike heels, as is customary in these coastal cities.

I sampled a tiny meatloaf which the chef swore consisted of ground buffalo, antelope, quail and duck. I joked to him that it sounded like a little "mammal party on a cracker." He didn't really laugh, so I held back on my other joke, which was "Well, I'm game if they are."

The conference had some good speakers and topics which columnists are very interested in these days, like how to brand yourself as a writer, how to find your writing "voice," and how to make soup using only ketchup and pepper. But the biggest star of the weekend, believe it or not, was Twitter; how to market yourself using Twitter.

I didn't really understand how sending out little 20-word instant messages to people's phones could bring me great success, but I signed up anyway (You can "follow" my micro-humor at http://twitter.com/GeoWaters). I figured there was no use arguing, especially since the buffet line was already forming for dinner.

At conferences, the socializing is just as great as the prepared presentations, and a highlight of my weekend was assisting four out-of-staters to partake in their very first In-N-Out burger, of which they had only ever heard tall tales from afar. They were excited. They ordered. They took a bite...

Well, if you have ever seen a sunrise on a soft summer morning, when the pink of the sky brings a heartwarming glow to the entire landscape, and the world feels full of possibility…this was nothing like that. This was just a burger. But they all seemed to like it.

Our last night in the hotel's "hospitality suite" generated a little excitement when a famous female columnist cornered another (married) columnist against the wall and seemed unwilling to let him go. After a half hour, a pool sprang up, with bets being taken as to the exact time he would escape. (Dave from Fort Worth won, with "10:35").

Anyway, it made for a good story, one which will be retold for years, and to columnists that stuff is gold. I came away from the conference re-inspired by just how dedicated many writers are to the passionate exploration of what really matters most to people.

Now if only I can figure out how to win a Pulitzer 20 words at a time.

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Pictures from the weekend (click any to enlarge)

Ventura Highway...in the sunshine. (For the record, the nights are not stronger than moonshine, but the wind off the ocean is).

San Buenaventura Mission, founded in 1782. Where sex was invented. Look it up.


The violinist. She played her heart out, but I am pretty sure her heels sunk into the grass. I bet she is still there.


Columnists watching the unveiling of a commemorative plaque honoring the late John T. Kanaley, who was the life of the party at past conferences for many years. Look at their expressions. I should be so loved after I kick off.


Columnist Dan St. Yves of Calgary, Alberta, tastes his first In-N-Out burger. With more fortitude than I would have had for resisting a lame joke, he did not proclaim: "Tastes like chicken."


The Pacific Ocean, as seen from Ventura Pier. I know, huh. It could be Long Island in December.


When I'm walking around a new town, I like to seek out interesting old buildings and signs. It would be hard to top my pics from last year's New Orleans posts, but Ventura certainly has its own charm. This ad is directly across the street from the mission, which kind of says to me "Sure, faith is important, but let's talk about chocolate."


I like the textures you get with old brick walls. Here I especially appreciate the very "California" vibe, which combines the shade of a palm tree with the little steel earthquake-retrofit squares to keep the whole thing from going down in a shaker.


I tweaked this picture with a mild Photoshop filter to make it look a little like a painting. Enlarge it for better effect. I guess a psychoanalyst would have a few words to say to me about my thing for bricks.


This was an art piece mounted in the ground near my hotel. There was also one with a mouth and a nose and eyes too, I think, with similar wordplay. I don't really get art. I will admit, though, I had to fight off an almost unbearable urge to kneel and place my ear to this.


This was the logo for a thrift store on Main St. Much like the ear art above, I wonder what the process was to pick this particular design over the others which must have been suggested. I picture the guy pitching it: "Broken homes, get it? I can see it now. This will be huge." Either that, or this is the store people come to to buy furnishings after the Big One hits. I wasn't sure.


"Common decency!" it cries. I couldn't resist. It's the kind of thing I imagine Barbara Stanwyck or somebody yelling in an old movie. This is in the restroom of a pizza place on Main St. After I shot it, I wondered what the guy who knocked on the door a minute earlier, and who might have seen the flash from under the door crack, was imagining was going on in there. "Wow," he may have thought to himself, "maybe I ought to rethink getting pizza here if it produces that effect."


There is this beautiful mural on a kind of plaza which leads up past a park to the mission. This shows only about 1/4th of it. It illustrates the story of immigrant Chinese to California a century or more ago.


I love this detail of the mural, because I like to imagine the dad saying "O.K., little chef, go forth and invent Panda Inn."


Beach towns the world over have their dives. Top Hat burger was built in 1966, so the sign says, on the corner of Main St. and Palm. A couple of years ago, I read about how a developer had bought the land which includes this joint and the parking lot to the left, and how the community rallied to support this old institution, this shack. Its future is still uncertain, though. The friendly, well-tattooed burger jockey inside said it's all in litigation. So I had to have me a chili burger just in case. It was good. I could feel my arteries harden in real time. I also loved the stylish name of the place, which is ironic yet strangely endearing at the same time.


Dan St. Yves and his wife Ruth, whose visit to In-N-Out the day before had clearly only piqued their interest in Southern California burger icons. Here they sample a Top Hat hot dog around the side of the building. (The counter guy asked "For here or to go?" "For here." "O.K.," he said. "If it seems safe enough to you, it seems safe enough to me"). Those fries you see on the counter were good too. Thick. Visiting a real Ventura burger institution was a nice way to cap the weekend before heading home.

Next year's NSNC conference will be in Bloomington, Indiana. I hope in June it is actually summer there.

True American

We took the kids to Disneyland and California Adventure recently, and stayed after dark to see the Electrical Parade. It was a bit of a nostalgic journey for me, because I performed in the parade, all lit up as a toy soldier, back when Carter was still president.

It was crowded. We ended up sitting on the ground, as most people did where we were. Except this lady. She planted herself a few minutes before the parade started, and ignored cries of "Down in front!" from people farther back. I held my tongue. A person who lacks sensitivity to this degree is a jerk at a level verging on professional.

Instead, I offer up Parade Blockin' Gal here on this Independence Day as a prime example of what built our country. Imagine the "Down in front!" squealers as King George and the British, saying, in effect, "Hey you, stop blocking my view of the Americas and their exploitable resources and be a good little colony," and imagine the lady here representing the colonists turning their backs and saying "Make me." I know. It's a bit of a stretch. But strange as it sounds, on that June night in Anaheim, this lady showed true American spirit.

Just as I, in similar spirit, hid my ice cream cone in her purse.