For those of you who don’t know, things have been excruciatingly hot out here in Southern California lately with temperatures cresting at 119F in the balmier zones of the San Fernando Valley. The over-taxed power in my aging hipster Hollywood Hills neighborhood (replete with its old Spanish homes and smattering of celebs) has been out since yesterday and looks to stay out for a while, so I am writing this over at my friend David’s house above the Sunset Strip where the WiFi, if not the air conditioning, is functioning. But as Sheryl reminds me: “We should stop feeling sorry for ourselves. We’re not in Haifa.”
Indeed, she’s right. But it there’s one thing that helps you survive war and heat waves, it’s a sense of humor, so for your amusement I will provide this anecdote of my hood in extreme times. A couple of hours ago I returned home to see if the power was back (it wasn’t) and to pick up a few things. I turned the corner on my street, suddenly to be confronted by a woman with her hand up, indicating for me to stop my car. I noticed nearly a dozen other vehicles parked along the sidewalk. What? Was somebody actually having a party with no power, no air conditioning and temperatures in triple digits?!
Next thing I saw was a camera – well, a digital video camera. Someone was making a movie in the heat and it turned out it was one of my more celebrated neighbors – Ben Stiller (a rather friendly guy, on those rare occasions when he’s not on location and we see him) doing the shooting himself, videoing a van approaching from the next street. With no public electricity, he was obviously on a generator. Several other neighbors were standing around observing the proceedings, gossiping and laughing. In fact, it had the festive air of the Brooklyn block parties I remember from my childhood with everybody out on their stoops. The heat had done it.
Ben finished the take and the woman waved me on. I drove down the fifty yards or so to my house, got out and parked. I started talking with another (not famous) neighbor about the power outage and what he had learned from the DWP, when a Tour Bus to the Stars Homes (the over-sized vans that are ubiquitous in the Hollywood Hills) came cruising up the street toward us. The neighbor and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes. These tourists were in fat city – for once they were actually going to see a star in front of his house! I tried to catch their surprised faces as the van drove past me.
But just then, as if an alarm went off, everyone on the block scattered, including Ben. (They must have seen the van.) They were gone so fast, it was hard to tell where they went. By the time the van reached the Stillers, the street was back to normal – completely empty… And even more silent than usual because you couldn’t hear the incessant whir of the air conditioners. The bus lingered in front of Ben’s house for a moment, as they always do, before preceding on, its passengers completely oblivious.
Geez, Roger – you make your neighborhood sound almost normal. ;-p
Hope you get your power back soon. I was without power for 5 days after Hurricane Isabel – which was a total bitch – and the temperatures weren’t nearly so high. My sympathy.
Roger:
This would be a good week to bring up the fact that the enviromental lobby is trying to get the Hetch Hetchy Dam removed in California. Since it provides a large percentage of power to the Bay Area and would further strain our already pressing water needs during times of drought the current brownouts would provide a lovely backdrop for Arnold killing this idea for good.
While you and your friends are having blackouts, while our country is paying over $70 per barrel for oil, China has started drilling in the Gulf of Mexico only 60 miles off of the Florida coast according to the Washington Times, http://www.washingtontimes.com/business/20060724-122242-7824r.htm I wrote a letter to two of our Senators who have both voted against drilling there. Both of our Senators, Boxer and Feinstein have voted against drilling in this area but have said nothing about China and Cuba putting in some wells, guess we will be buying our oil from Communist countries who have given the finger to our two Senators. Here is my letter to these two ladies: “This is from today’s paper. Has our federal government gone completely crazy with Political Correctness. Just who has voted against the drilling here, do they perhaps work clandestinly for China or Cuba? While our county is envolved in wars because of energy needs, our enemies drill in our waters. Sometimes I feel that our Federal Government is our biggest enemy.”
“Cuba drills for oil off Florida
By Patrice Hill
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 24, 2006
Cuba is drilling for oil 60 miles off the coast of Florida with help from China, Canada and Spain even as Congress struggles to end years of deadlock over drilling for what could be a treasure trove of offshore oil and gas.”
Sounds like our tornado parties in Oklahoma…the only time we socialized with our neighbors in the hot summer was when the tornadoes went thru and we would visit them in their celler…
RON — “While our county is envolved in wars because of energy needs, our enemies drill in our waters.”
How DARE you insinuate that Operation Iraqi Freedom has something to do with the need for oil! Did you forget to add “No Blood for Oil!” You must be a closet Deaniac!
The main reason that Cuba is looking to drill, not in “our waters”, as you put it, but within internationally recognized boundaries, is that a) it is a dictatorship, not a democracy, and therefore doesn’t have to worry about voters opposed to offshore drilling, including appeasing communists like Jeb Bush and every Republican congressman in Florida (and coastal California).
It’s too bad Prof. Bainbridge couldn’t have found someone with a more positive attitude… he’s ready to throw in the towel and agree with Gore on Global Warming because, “something is wrong with the weather” in Southern Cal. He must be too young to remember similar times in the 30′s, 40′s and 50′s.
Something about this story was bothering me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it for a bit, then it dawned on me:
Are you saying that Ben Stiller is the only one on your street with generator back-up power? That just doesn’t compute, especially given the street includes the west coast headquarters of PJM!
P.S. I bet the generator salesman in the area is swamped now though. BTW, they’re running generator ads on NYC radio stations now for those in Queens to ponder, “less than a plasma TV,” it goes