The truth is we live in the heart of what's locally known as The Gay Ghetto.

It's interesting with the Long Beach area: rich neighborhoods are wedged in beside poor neighborhoods beside touristy neighborhoods beside industry beside beach beside city beside awful beside beautiful. It's all a stone's throw away in Long Beach. Safe as houses one minute... walk fifty feet and you're suddenly somewhere you really wouldn't want to be. Carey and I live on what I guess is sort of a "transition" block. Our neighborhood and the people in it are fairly nice, but certainly not care-free or wealthy. Safety is so-so. We're very close to places that are quite all right to be in at night and places that one should really avoid.

We're a block north of Broadway, though, where the roudiest in gay Long Beach come to roost. The Gay Ghetto. Now, make no mistake: The Gay Ghetto is by no means the Will and Grace / fab hair-dresser / Give-My-Regards-To-Broadway / coffee-house poet / California Wine Country / multi-colored-pigtail-lesbian crowd. No no no no no. This is the hard stuff, baby, no cream no sugar. This is the haven of the pushers and punks. The Queens and Trannies. The S&M dykes and gender pretenders. The leather doms. The strung-out bum-boys with habits to feed.

It's the true grit and, honestly, it's a slight culture shock.

We're a few houses up from The Falcon: a gay bar in which we've seen some of the most... well, what's the word? I don't know. "Desperate" maybe. Some of the most desperate individuals I've ever witnessed stream in and out of there at night. When Care and I first arrived, we were a bit frightened. If you'd have asked us what, precisely, we were frightened of... I doubt we'd have been able to tell you. People are still people, no matter which culture.

But, these days I get a little sad. It's not a fear really at all anymore. I'm not really even talking about moral decline or Sodom & Gomorrah or anything like that. Mostly, I've just looked a bit closer at the patrons of the Falcon and... well... they look burdened. Have you ever lost your car keys right before work and, after all the frantic running about and cursing and rummaging... that rueful despair and resignation just sort of overtakes you and you find yourself saying aloud, "well, I'm screwed. I just don't know where they are and I've looked everywhere I can look. I'm completely and in every way Out Of Luck." Well, THAT'S the look I see on the faces of the Falcon patrons. It's a profound heaviness that seems to be more than just alcohol.

And, when I see many of them... my heart is heavy for them. I really don't know their situations and I'm certain they don't want my pity. But I see what I see.

And it looks like it's been a long, hard way down.

Oh, and big news for me: dude, I’m gettin’ a Dell.

After haggling and price-matching and comparing and learning the lingo… I’m finally going to be able to hang up the Gateway that’s served me so well (mostly) for the past 4.5 years and move onto bigger and better things. 80 big fat GB of space, 512 glorious MB of RAM, a CD burner, USB ports… it’s about time.

No more reading a few pages of whatever book I’m into while waiting for Photoshop to render a gradient!

No more saving my work to a ZIP disk, scrounging for room on my hard drive, then transferring my work back to the computer!

No more crashes when I dare to have email AND Freehand AND Photoshop open at the same time!

No more Windows 98!

No more keeping important documents on my hard drive, praying that nothing crashes because I have no method of back-up for personal files! (if you’re a client, don’t worry, I do find other ways to back your stuff up… I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid)

No more waiting for minutes upon minutes for something simple to print or scan or render or load or open or close or run!

So, needless to say, I’m very excited. In all honesty, my design work will probably go about 50% faster now, freeing me to have tighter turn-arounds and more confident quotes for those who need my expertise. The old Gateway was actually a graduation gift from Mom and Dad (and have I really been out of school that long? Sheesh.), but it’s time to play with some fancier toys.

I’m paying for my Dell over the course of a couple months, though, because funds are tight. In order to do this, I took advantage of Dell’s Preferred Financing, in which they run a credit check and ask you a series of strange questions about your life to make sure it’s you:

DELL GUY: Hi, I’m Chuck, and thanks for holding. Is this Jeremy Bear of Long Beach, California?

JER: Yes, it is. Hi, Chuck.

DELL GUY: Hi. Thanks for holding. I’m going to ask you a series of multiple choice questions. Please answer to the best of your ability, okay?

JER: Go ahead.

DELL GUY: Thank you. First of all, which of these streets have you ever made your residence, if any: A) Bronson B) Crocus C) 32nd D) None of the above

JER: Well, I used to live on, uh, B, Crocus.

DELL GUY: Okay! Next, in the past 3 years, which of these cars have you made payments on, if any: A) Nissan Altima B) Honda Civic C) Volkswagen Jetta D) None of the above

JER: The answer’s A, Chuck! Nissan Altima!

DELL GUY: Okay! Next, Please state the address of your last place of residence.

JER: Well, that would be 5669 Cabot Cove Dr. Hilliard, OH.

DELL GUY: Okay! And before that?

JER: Let’s see, I guess that was North Canton. 97 Everhard Rd.

DELL GUY: Okay! Thank you!

JER: You want me to go back farther, Chuck?

DELL GUY: Uh.

JER: 13275 Crocus Ave, Hartville Ohio! Boo-yah! You want more?

DELL GUY: I think that’s all I—

JER: 1707 Park Avenue, Winona Lake, Indiana. Shared a place with Dave Pacheco. Kabam! More?

DELL GUY: Ah…if… you’d like, I suppose.

JER: Okay, that was college: 200 Seminary Drive, Winona Lake, Indiana. Before that, Uniontown, Ohio: 1102 Meandering Creek Street. Then, Marietta, Georgia: 2200 Chimney Springs Drive. Then, of course, Akron, Ohio: 740 Westview Drive. Before that… uh… shoot… starts with a B… ah…

DELL GUY: That’s really more than enough.

JER: No, wait, tip of my tongue…

DELL GUY: No no, you’re approved, thankyouforchoosingDellgoodbye.

*Click*

After barking threats and disparaging remarks into the company’s owner’s voicemail, I can happily report that, indeed, we’ve been reimbursed for the cost of our Beetle’s key. We will, however, never do business with those folks again. Onward and upward.
…

Carey and I are always quick to point out to others that we live about 3 blocks away from the beach. “Walking distance,” we say. Well, that’s jim-dandy, but it doesn’t mean a thing unless we take it upon ourselves to actually walk to the beach. So, a couple of nights ago, we did.

I cannot be bothered to lie: Long Beach is far from the most beautiful beach one could hope for. It has an odd smell and it’s far from litter-free. Breakers inhibit the waves that would otherwise thunder into the sand, as they do on other nearby beaches. City lights and heavy industry obscure what would otherwise be a glorious sea sky at night.

But, man, it’s still the beach. And it’s still beautiful.

We’re, at this point, more nervous than ever about our decision about moving out here. The harder we look for steady work, the more elusive that goal becomes. The competition is crazy-fierce. But for one hour at the beach, under the stars, sitting in the sand, watching the brine, listening to the sloosh of the tide… we had to wonder why we’d ever questioned our desire to make a go of the west coast.

It’s not home yet… not really. And we don’t really belong. But, we like it. And it’ll feel like home soon enough.

Every time I read my email, I'm reminded of the same question from a few different folks: "what the Sam Hill happened to Carey's car?" I always mean to post it here, but for some reason it always slips my noggin when I'm on the Blogger.

Carey's car was its own fiasco. After waiting day after day for our possessions to arrive, we received a call from the car-moving company: "Er. We've, er. We seem to have lost your keys. Which is a problem. We need to change trucks with your car and without the key... eh..." I'll say it's a problem, brother.

Sadly, the keys to Carey's 2000 VW Beetle are not of the standard stickem-in-and-turnem variety. Specially calibrated electronic keys, oh yes. Nothing's ever easy. Fortunately, Carey had the foresight to keep a stickem-in-and-turnem key with her, which she promptly overnighted to the car-moving company... but, alas, we were still out one electronic key.

Eventually the car arrived at about 7:00 one morning. To our bleary-eyed chagrin, little dents were all over it.

DRIVER: Okay, here's your beetle. Sorry about the key thing. Sign here.

CAREY: You are going to replace the key, right? Because, you know...

DRIVER: Sure. We lost it, we're responsible for it. Just go get another key made, pay for it, and we'll reimburse you.

CAREY: What's with all these dents all over the car?

DRIVER: They were already there when you gave it to us. Sign here.

CAREY: No, these certainly weren't here. Look, there's a bad one. There's another. And there. And right there. See? And over here.

DRIVER: No, look here at the pick-up sheet [pulls out sheet with postage-stamp-sized drawing of a generic car, with about 20 hand-drawn arrows pointing to different sides of the car... all so small it could mean... well... anything].

CAREY: Hhh... but I know my car. The dents here and here were already there... all the others are brand new.

DRIVER: Ma'am. We didn't cause them. Our trucks don't cause those kinds of dents. In these cases, it's your word against mine and, let me save you the trouble, they're going to believe me every time. Now, if you don't sign this, I can't release the car to you.

---

She signed it.

Upon getting into the actual car, we found greasy smudge-stains all over it, fingerprint-sized. It was really gross. Apparently, Pigpen from The Peanuts Gang had taken our Beetle out for a spin as some point. Grr.

The next day, we went to a VW dealership in north Long Beach who told us, in 20 minute increments, "it'll just be about 5, 10 more minutes". After spending over an hour and a half, our new key was finally made. The old alarm system had to be wiped to accomodate a new key (programmed and laser-cut, apparently), and the whole process ended up costing around $220. For a KEY.

We called them on the cell and they told us, "just pay for it and we'll reimburse you." No, I said. No, I don't want to screw around with that. We'll just have them bill you for it. "No, no," they said, "much less complicated if we can just reimburse you." Not less complicated for us, I said, which is the main point. You people lost our key. We've had to, essentially, fart away 1/2 our day to accomodate this blunder. We're not really concerned with how complicated this gets for you. We've got practically no money in the bank and we're not going to gamble $220 that you'll 'pay us back.'

"Sir, there's really no other way to do it. We can reimburse you TO-DAY. Just fax us the receipt. Really. Today."

"We'll get credited today. This is your word. Today."

"Just fax us the receipt. Absolutely."

That was nearly a week and a half ago. We've yet to be reimbursed.

Clowns.

There's a very funny scene in the movie Funny Farm where, upon moving out to the country, Chevy Chase and his wife are forced to deal with an insane mailman, who destroys property, rages down the road at 70 mph, and chucks their mail out the window in the general vicinity of their mailbox. Carey and I have decided that the thing that makes this scene so funny is that it's happening to someone else and not to us.

Until now.

Unfortunately, our mailperson is hellbent on cramming our mail into our little 4" X 8" box, caveman-style, with what seems to be a billy club. Every piece of mail we've received thusfar has been mangled, crammed, crunched, tattered, battered, and nearly unsalvagable. Carey and I are the sort of lazy twerps who will sometimes go several days without checking the mailbox. Not these days, professor. More mail in the box means more two-fisted abuse, so we keep fairly dilligent.

But this begs the question: what does one do with an abusive mailperson? Do we report this to the post office? These people are operating on a hair trigger as it is.

I'm sure this'll all come to an eventual head, but.. who knows how or when.

It's 122 pages long, it's sitting on my nightstand, it says "Intolerable Cruelty" on the cover.

Tuesday night, Carey and I went to visit a friend of ours in Burbank, Ben Bays. (Some guy with whom we used to go to school in years past. Directed a film awhile back.) Now, Ben is all about movies. No, really, he's ALL ABOUT MOVIES. He's out there raising the money, borrowing the equipment, making the deals, meeting the right people, writing, plotting, directing now and then. Ben's a filmmaker. The man bleeds celluloid.

So, we battled through about an hour and a half of LA rush-hour traffic (which is its own story), to finally arrive at Ben's humble apartment on Elm St., in Burbank. Near Studio City. We caught up for a bit... talked movies, jobs, commute times, life in Southern California... and so on. We decided to go to Bob's Big Boy in town (which, for those who didn't know, happens to be the historical very first Bob's Big Boy ever. Apparently, it's a big screaming deal and a local favorite among Burbank folks and the occassional celebrity).

On the way there, Ben told us the story of The Time He Saw Tom Hanks At Big Boy. Aparently, Tom enjoys a burger, fries, and cherry pie as much as the next guy. As it turns out, we ended up sitting in the very booth where the Hanks had sat (Carey sitting in Tom's seat, which delighted her to no end). After a delightful dinner, Ben graciously picked up the tab and took us on a short driving tour of the studios.

And it's really amazing, if you've never done it: Scrubs, ER, Friends, Frazier... all shot in the same little building off to the left. A block away was the Warner Bros. lot, where movie magic was being made. Across the street, ABC. Another block, Disney studios and the Disney Channel. There's Paramount. There's Universal. All right there, wedged in together. It was all terribly fascinating. Probably the most influential 4 block radius in the world. To be perfectly frank, I'm surprised it wasn't the #1 target on 9-11.

We returned to Ben's crib to find his roommate, Aaron (who also happens to be in showbiz, as a freelance production assistant). While Aaron may not be rich, he's hobnobbed with some of the bigger names in The Industry. (He had a conversation last week with Frances McDormand and a few months ago, Michelle Pfeiffer bought him a beer.) Over the last few weeks, though, he's been working on the set of a Coen Brothers film.

It's difficult to describe how much envy I have for Aaron right now. If he weren't such a nice guy, I'd probably punch him in the neck. Joel and Ethan Coen are easily my very favorite filmmakers of all time. Fargo. O Brother Where Art Thou? The Big Lebowski. Raising Arizona. Anyhow, he was giving me the skinny on the latest Coen flick, starring George Clooney and Catherine Zeta Jones. He mentioned, in passing, "oh, and I have the screenplay in my bedroom. Do you want it?"

I don't usually blubber, but this was an original on-set copy of an in-production Coen Brothers Movie. I managed to finally stammer out that, yes, I really would like to have it. Aaron handed it to me and also gave me a call sheet and several storyboards drawn by Joel Coen himself. It's difficult to describe how exciting this is for me.

And, I've read it. And, of course, it's absolutely hilarious. I can't reveal any details, however, or I'm sure the Hollywood mafia would somehow descend upon me. It's called "Intolerable Cruelty" and it'll be out Christmas time of 2003.

And it's sitting on my nightstand.

Hah.

I'm looking at my arms right now and the word "lobster" comes to mind.

Yesterday (Saturday) Carey and I went to the Huntington Beach surf competition. Apparently, this is one of the premiere surfing events in the United States. I have to confess that I'm not entirely sure how one judges a surfing competition (duration? wave selection? trickiness? board design?), but you have to respect anyone who has the gumption to make a career out of hanging ten. These surfers made their craft appear effortless.

We were invited to the show by a good friend of our dear old pastor back in Hilliard, Tom Bennardo. Tom hooked us up with a tremendous chap by the name of Michael Bischof, an Orange County pastor and church-planter, and his family. Michael was kind enough to take us to lunch and give us the skinny on his current masterpiece: a cell-based church plant here in So-Cal. After chili-fries and vanilla cokes on the Huntington Beach pier, we checked out the surfing competitions and strolled the boardwalk.

This place was insane. As far as California surf culture goes... believe the hype, baby. The entire beach was a living, breathing, MTV-spring-break-grind-dance-n-surf-party-bonanza. Shake your money-maker till dawn. Both Carey and I were pretty awed by the whole display. "Wait, so, we live here? Is that the story? This is our home?"

At the end of the day, we were fried in every sense of the word. Most immediately, our respective skins were burnt like summer brats. It was Aloe and early bedtimes all 'round, but, make no mistake: this is what we signed up for.

And you know? It was a lot of fun.
...

So, we live near a Thai restaurant called "Phuket Thai". I'm not making this up. But, I digress.
...

Our apartment is still a shambles. We're inching closer to having the place squared away, but it's taking time. It's strange: there's something about having a clean and organized casa that makes one feel as if they have more time for more important things. Even our respective job searches seem to be hindered by the Ragnarok state of every room in our home. But, we're getting there.
...

Tonight, we attended Ekklesia (sp?). It's Michael Bischof's cell-church and I can honestly say that I've never met a warmer group of folks. Carey and I were heartily welcomed by these dear brothers and it's obvious that each and every member has a sincere heart for others.

Since this cell-church bit is a start-up, they were very interested in the details of our cell-church back in Hilliard. We told them what we could and filled them in on how, yes, a cell-group-based church really can work and let-me-just-tell-you-about-how-much-we-miss-our-own-group and on and on.

The group was very committed to praying for our transition and our job situations and, you know, it's really really great to have people that care about you when you're in a strange place alone.
...

Still looking for work. Things are going all right on the freelance end, though, and I've met several people in my particular industry, so I hope we're on the cusp of something fabulous. Thanks again for the prayers.
...

Oh, and Wednesday is the big day. I'll finally be able to reply to emails and, oh, all sorts of wonderful things because, hurrah, we'll finally be connected to the internet. It's been a long time coming and the hour is finally very nearly here. Again: thanks for your email. I really will reply soon.