So if I transfer to another city with the same company, it counts as a separate job. I had this happen two other times in my life. Those jobs will be coming up later. (I'm glad I didn't work for someplace like McDonald's. If you move up the ladder in that chain, it's not uncommon to wind up working at several different stores in the span of a few years.)
I was both looking forward to and dreading helping Landmark open a new movie theatre. I wanted to experience the excitement surrounding a brand new venue for films in such a large market, meeting new people, showing my chops as a supervisor and possibly moving up to become a House Manager. In Denver, there were only two theatres, but there would be five in San Diego. And since they just replaced three House Managers in the previous six months, my chances were looking pretty good.
The part I was dreading was that I had heard stories about how Landmark had a tendency to rush theatres into opening when they were not fully ready. One of the tales involved the Mayan and how crews were sweeping garbage out the back door just as paying customers were walking in the front door. However, this was a theatre that had been built from the ground up. Landmark typically would restore older movie palaces, but they were getting in the business of creating new multi-plexes. They had built the Goldwyn Pavilions in Los Angeles from the ground up just a few years before. (The original manager of the Mayan opened that theatre.) I had hoped that Landmark had figured out what needed to be done when opening up a new place.
I was wrong on both counts. SO VERY WRONG.
When I first toured the construction of the new theatre, I was expecting it to be near completion. I thought that most of the work had been done and it was just going to be a matter of installing the projection and concession equipment and we would be able to do dry runs and train our new staff in the next few weeks. I was shocked to see that the walls hadn't been painted, the screens hadn't been set up, there were no seats in the auditoriums and they hadn't even started constructing the concession stand. This was when I knew that we would also be sweeping stuff out the back door as customers were coming in.
In the meantime, Anz the Manager started interviewing applicants for our staff. When I was Assistant Manager at the Mayan, I had an active role in helping determine who we hired. However, Anz had no interest in allowing me to be part of this process, even though I asked if I could assist. This would become the first clue that I was not going to have as friendly a relationship as I'd had with my previous Managers, Mr. M, Mr. W and Mr. R. In the meantime, Ved had me working on other projects associated with opening the theatre.
One of the things I did was manage a few shifts at the Park Theatre, which was a single screen. I did a little bit of training beforehand. I had met the House Manager when Kird and I came to see "Barton Fink." When I trained with him, I noticed it took him two hours to count all the money from the box office and concession. At the Mayan, it usually took about an hour on a busy night. I wondered why it was taking him so long. What I saw he was doing was counting, re-counting and counting again. I guess he got stung really bad once by a deposit and became OCD about making certain everything balanced. When I closed up my first shift, it only took me 15 minutes.
During one of the shifts that I managed, we had simultaneous problems with the concession stand, the box office and the projector. I was able to make quick decisions and instruct the staff what to do. The person working the box office at the time would be coming to Hillcrest. I later told him that kind of situation comes up at a multi-plex ALL THE TIME! I'm pretty certain their regular manager would have had a nervous break-down at that point.
Two weeks before the theatre opened, Anz had called for a staff meeting. She invited everyone she hired to come over to the Park Theatre. As everyone was arriving and helping themselves to the coffee, juice and donuts we had provided, Anz had them pair off into groups of two. A few minutes after the meeting was supposed to start, we had one employee who didn't have a partner. Anz had me pair up with her. I didn't like this because it was presenting me as a member of the crew when I felt I needed to be recognized as authority. She could have just formed one group of three people. I don't know why she didn't do that. After we started, the last employee finally showed up. I thought Anz would either have that employee team up with the one she put me with or pair up herself. However, what she did was put that person with an existing pair to create a group of three. I know I tried hard not to show it, but I was absolutely FUMING.
The meeting went okay and Anz told everyone she would be in touch about training. But there were issues on the construction side. The crew was going to need assistance. Anz called up a few of the employees to come help out at the theatre and put me in charge of them. Basically, we had to take care of a lot of minor cleaning details and taking out the trash. However, we also had to construct the lockers for the employee room and help load concession supplies. We paid the employees $5 an hour for doing this, which was above the standard minimum wage. But I was getting resentful our employees were getting paid $5 an hour to do what the construction crew members were getting paid $15 an hour NOT to do.
When I worked at the Mayan Theatre, Pacific Concessions was our concession supplier. If there was something we needed in addition to popcorn, soda, coffee and candy, they would make sure we got it. This included napkin dispensers, straw holders, etc. Anz and Ved were discussing getting these items and where she could go to buy them. I chimed in and asked, "Doesn't Pacific Concessions supply that?" They both looked at me for a second and went back to talking like what I said had no impact on their conversation. This happened a couple of other times in which I mentioned Pacific Concessions. Anz and Ved ignored me and continued their discussion without giving me any additional information. The night before we opened the theatre, a couple of the other House Managers were discussing concessions. One of them asked if we were dealing with Pacific Concessions. The other one said that Landmark was providing the concessions for the Hillcrest Cinemas. The other four theatres in San Diego were still dealing with Pacific until the end of the contract, which would be terminated in the coming year. My thought was, "WHY DIDN'T ANZ AND VED SIMPLY TELL ME THAT?"
This would have explained a lot of issues I'd had with Pacific Concessions while working at the Mayan. We were aware that the contract was about to end and we were getting really cruddy service from them. I was wondering why they would do that. Weren't they interested in renewing our contract? Apparently, the contract did not extend when Landmark opened the Goldwyn Pavilions in Los Angeles. This meant that Pacific Concessions realized at the time that the contract was never going to be renewed for all the theatres in the chain. In fact, the Cove Theatre had sent one of its registers back to Pacific Concessions to be repaired. When the contract was about to end, the manager called them up to see if they were going to get the register sent back. Pacific Concessions told him no, they weren't going to fix it or send it back. This left them with only one working register, which caused problems when they were busy.
The people in charge had expected the theatre to be completed enough that the crews wouldn't be around on a certain date, so Anz put out the call to employees to show up for training. As it turned out, we still had a lot of construction workers doing things. We weren't even close. We had to send everyone away and had them come back to work the ceremonial soft open that had been planned for the night before we opened to the public.
Leading up to the grand opening, our theatre got a lot of publicity. Several members of the local media came by, interviewed Ved and Anz and took photos of them and of the construction in progress. I was left out of all that and had to supervise our employees while it was going on.
On top of all that, we had District Managers and a few House Managers from across California come in to take part and help out with the open. One of those who came was Maud from Denver. If I was starting to feel irrelevant before, her presence cemented that feeling for me. We just returned to the old dynamic we had at the Mayan and she joined in with Anz in telling me what to do. They would both tell me separate things that needed to be done. While I know Anz was busy with a lot of stuff, the things Maud was telling me to do were projects she could have done herself, but she seem more interested in socializing with the District and House Managers than actually helping us.
I recall when the safe had been delivered to the manager's office. It had two compartments with two separate combinations. There was the main compartment and a smaller one for quick drops. I fiddled around with the doors a couple of times. Later that day, Anz sheepishly came up to me and asked me if I remembered the combination to the safe. She apparently tried fiddling with it and wound up locking the piece of paper with the combinations inside. Fortunately, I remembered. The funny thing is that if that happened today, I might not remember the combination so easily.
The day we had our ceremonial Grand Opening for select city dignitaries was the day they were finally laying down the carpeting. FOR THE ENTIRE THEATRE! I was in the manager's office and needed to go downstairs. However, the Vice President of Landmark told me I couldn't leave while they were putting down the carpet. I waited a few minutes, but I really had to leave because I had to go home and get dressed. I figured they were done and walked down the stairs. The Vice President angrily stared at me and shouted, "THANKS FOR PAYING ATTENTION!" I shrugged my shoulders and walked off.
I went home, took a shower and got dressed for the big event. When I returned there, they had set up this large balloon arch and spotlights. There was going to be a big presentation before we let people in. While the speeches were going on, Maud had me and an employee (whom we will know later as Abed) go up to the third floor of the shopping center where the Hillcrest Cinemas was located to throw down confetti when they started letting people in. I felt like Maud was just shoving me away from the action. She could have picked any other employee to do it with Abed. We went up to the third floor. After a couple of minutes, a security guard approached us and told us no one was supposed to be up there. I told him we were instructed to come up, but it was fine because I didn't want to be up there anyway. Abed and I went down and threw the confetti all over the place.
Even though we were showing three movies that night, there were two auditoriums that didn't even have their screens up. (I'm glad they didn't plan five movies.) After an hour of people helping themselves to wine, soda and hors d'oeurves, we started the films. Once the lobby was cleared out, we attempted to train all the employees on the popcorn machine. It didn't go well, because the person who was charged with setting the automatic oil delivery system had put the level too high. By the time we figured out the problem, it was time for everyone to go home. SO THAT MEANS THAT NO ONE RECEIVED ANY REAL TRAINING. WE WERE OPENING THE NEXT DAY WITH A STAFF WHO HAD NO IDEA WHAT THEY WERE DOING.
While we were all getting ready to leave, Anz appeared slightly inebriated from the wine. She told me that she was impressed by the way I was able to handle so many things at once. It would turn out to be the only time she would pay me an unsolicited compliment.
I went to bed that night and expected the worst for the next day. More on that tomorrow.
Monday, February 8, 2016
Friday, February 5, 2016
Too much of a good thing?
Around my house, watching TV can become a little, uh, tedious.
Even though I hold the remote, I do not have complete control over it.
Even though I hold the remote, I do not have complete control over it.
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Real Life Roommate #1: Ped
After I had moved to San Diego, I really didn't want to spend a lot of time trying to find a place to live. Looking for a place I could afford on my own wasn't working out. (I mean, I couldn't find a studio for about $200 a month like I had in Denver.) I knew I was going to have to find a roommate as I was getting on my feet.
I didn't really know what I wanted in a roommate. I knew I didn't want a female. I was aware of the pitfalls associated with that. If I found her attractive, I would fall in love with her, but she wouldn't feel that way about me. But if she wasn't attractive, she would fall in love with me and I would feel that way about her. That was just too much potential drama for me to handle.
I also wasn't too certain I wanted a roommate close to my own age. I was afraid I'd wind up with some party animal who would have people coming and going all the time. That was just not the lifestyle I wanted. I was just used to doing things on my own all the time, so I wanted the closest thing to solitude that I could get.
It appeared that I found that in Ped. He was a 39-year-old man. He walked around on crutches, but was able to work and drive himself. He said that when he was first born, he stopped breathing for about 30 seconds and this somehow impacted his brain's ability to control his legs. He had been married and divorced and had two sons, but they were in another part of the country. When we first met, we seemed to get along okay and we decided that I would pay the deposit and move in after I was done with my stay at the residential hotel.
He worked as a substitute school teacher. He was hoping that it would lead to him becoming a full-time teacher. In the meantime, he would wake up Monday through Friday around 5am and wait for a phone call from the school district. If a teacher called out, he would get a call to inform him where he needed to report for work. If he didn't get a call, he didn't work that day.
He also did some volunteer work for the Canine Companions program. He helped to train dogs who would be used to assist disabled people.
Ped had served in Navy Intelligence. He told me that he was once given a bunch of military files to shred. Among those files was Lee Harvey Oswald's military record. He said that while he was shredding the other files, he read that record from front to back. The information in file included the fact that Oswald was terrible at shooting (which was actually a well-known fact). It was for this reason that he thought that the Kennedy assassination was a conspiracy.
Pretty soon after I moved in, Ped got really sick. He would stay in bed all day long. I guess if he got up and did anything, he did it while I was at work. Things were like this for the first three weeks that I lived there. It was almost like I was living alone.
Ped had his quirks. One of the things he would do is rent porn and watch it in the living room while I was in my bedroom. If I came out of the bedroom, he would immediately stop the VCR. I never said anything to him. I just thought it was funny he was acting like his father came into the room and was about to catch him in the act.
The only time Ped and I did something together was when we went to La Jolla to see "Bugsy" at Landmark's Cove Theatre. We were able to hang out at the house and watch TV from time to time, but it wasn't very frequent.
Around 4:30am one day, I woke up to hear him talking on the phone. He was saying, "I think I'm having a heart attack!" I then heard him give our address. At the time, I thought I was dreaming this was taking place. I was really tired and quickly fell back asleep. I woke up about 30 minutes later to the sound of emergency personnel in our living room. I got up and saw that paramedics had surrounded him and placed an oxygen mask on him. They took him out into the ambulance. I asked where he was being taken to. They told me he would be at the UCSD Medical Center.
Before I went to work that night, I gathered some of his clothes and other belongings and went over to see him in the hospital. He told me what he was diagnosed with. I don't remember now what the problem was, but he didn't think he was going to be in the hospital more than a couple of days. However, things got worse later on as he got some kind of staph infection in his leg and had to stay a lot longer, almost a whole month.
When he came back home, he had a serious talk with me. He didn't think he was going to be able to get around much on crutches anymore and soon may be confined to a wheelchair. He didn't know when that was going to happen, but he was going to have to prepare for it. One of the things he was going to be able to do was get a dog from Canine Companions that would come live with us.
He got the dog. It was a golden retriever and was a really good dog. She had a couple of accidents, but those were few and far between. It didn't matter, because I wasn't responsible for her care of her or taking her out for walks.
However, I didn't like the idea that I might wind up serving as a kind of nurse to Ped. I decided that I had gotten my feet on the ground and no longer needed a roommate. I wanted to be on my own. I found a small studio for just a little more than what I was paying for rent at the time and decided to move in a week later. When I told him, he didn't get upset about me moving out, but he got mad because I hadn't planned to pay the rent for the next month. He expected at least that much. I realized he was right and managed to get him the rent I owed him.
I did stop by to see him a couple of times after that to collect any mail that happened to come for me. He never did get another roommate to replace me. Eventually, he moved out of that apartment. A few years later, I saw him interviewed on the TV news regarding Canine Companions.
I recently found him on Facebook. According to his profile, he had moved to Santee, which is in the metropolitan area on the east side. He appeared to have lost a lot of weight since I knew him. However, he hadn't posted anything since 2011. Up to that point, he had posted photos of a cruise he took to China. I also found he had written letters to the editor for the San Diego Union-Tribune regarding education issues around 2008. One of those letters mentioned that he was retired from teaching. I wasn't able to find an obituary, so he's probably still alive.
So, my relationship with him was like so many of my college roommates. I don't think we had any kind of real impact on each others' lives.
I didn't really know what I wanted in a roommate. I knew I didn't want a female. I was aware of the pitfalls associated with that. If I found her attractive, I would fall in love with her, but she wouldn't feel that way about me. But if she wasn't attractive, she would fall in love with me and I would feel that way about her. That was just too much potential drama for me to handle.
I also wasn't too certain I wanted a roommate close to my own age. I was afraid I'd wind up with some party animal who would have people coming and going all the time. That was just not the lifestyle I wanted. I was just used to doing things on my own all the time, so I wanted the closest thing to solitude that I could get.
It appeared that I found that in Ped. He was a 39-year-old man. He walked around on crutches, but was able to work and drive himself. He said that when he was first born, he stopped breathing for about 30 seconds and this somehow impacted his brain's ability to control his legs. He had been married and divorced and had two sons, but they were in another part of the country. When we first met, we seemed to get along okay and we decided that I would pay the deposit and move in after I was done with my stay at the residential hotel.
He worked as a substitute school teacher. He was hoping that it would lead to him becoming a full-time teacher. In the meantime, he would wake up Monday through Friday around 5am and wait for a phone call from the school district. If a teacher called out, he would get a call to inform him where he needed to report for work. If he didn't get a call, he didn't work that day.
He also did some volunteer work for the Canine Companions program. He helped to train dogs who would be used to assist disabled people.
Ped had served in Navy Intelligence. He told me that he was once given a bunch of military files to shred. Among those files was Lee Harvey Oswald's military record. He said that while he was shredding the other files, he read that record from front to back. The information in file included the fact that Oswald was terrible at shooting (which was actually a well-known fact). It was for this reason that he thought that the Kennedy assassination was a conspiracy.
Pretty soon after I moved in, Ped got really sick. He would stay in bed all day long. I guess if he got up and did anything, he did it while I was at work. Things were like this for the first three weeks that I lived there. It was almost like I was living alone.
Ped had his quirks. One of the things he would do is rent porn and watch it in the living room while I was in my bedroom. If I came out of the bedroom, he would immediately stop the VCR. I never said anything to him. I just thought it was funny he was acting like his father came into the room and was about to catch him in the act.
The only time Ped and I did something together was when we went to La Jolla to see "Bugsy" at Landmark's Cove Theatre. We were able to hang out at the house and watch TV from time to time, but it wasn't very frequent.
Around 4:30am one day, I woke up to hear him talking on the phone. He was saying, "I think I'm having a heart attack!" I then heard him give our address. At the time, I thought I was dreaming this was taking place. I was really tired and quickly fell back asleep. I woke up about 30 minutes later to the sound of emergency personnel in our living room. I got up and saw that paramedics had surrounded him and placed an oxygen mask on him. They took him out into the ambulance. I asked where he was being taken to. They told me he would be at the UCSD Medical Center.
Before I went to work that night, I gathered some of his clothes and other belongings and went over to see him in the hospital. He told me what he was diagnosed with. I don't remember now what the problem was, but he didn't think he was going to be in the hospital more than a couple of days. However, things got worse later on as he got some kind of staph infection in his leg and had to stay a lot longer, almost a whole month.
When he came back home, he had a serious talk with me. He didn't think he was going to be able to get around much on crutches anymore and soon may be confined to a wheelchair. He didn't know when that was going to happen, but he was going to have to prepare for it. One of the things he was going to be able to do was get a dog from Canine Companions that would come live with us.
He got the dog. It was a golden retriever and was a really good dog. She had a couple of accidents, but those were few and far between. It didn't matter, because I wasn't responsible for her care of her or taking her out for walks.
However, I didn't like the idea that I might wind up serving as a kind of nurse to Ped. I decided that I had gotten my feet on the ground and no longer needed a roommate. I wanted to be on my own. I found a small studio for just a little more than what I was paying for rent at the time and decided to move in a week later. When I told him, he didn't get upset about me moving out, but he got mad because I hadn't planned to pay the rent for the next month. He expected at least that much. I realized he was right and managed to get him the rent I owed him.
I did stop by to see him a couple of times after that to collect any mail that happened to come for me. He never did get another roommate to replace me. Eventually, he moved out of that apartment. A few years later, I saw him interviewed on the TV news regarding Canine Companions.
I recently found him on Facebook. According to his profile, he had moved to Santee, which is in the metropolitan area on the east side. He appeared to have lost a lot of weight since I knew him. However, he hadn't posted anything since 2011. Up to that point, he had posted photos of a cruise he took to China. I also found he had written letters to the editor for the San Diego Union-Tribune regarding education issues around 2008. One of those letters mentioned that he was retired from teaching. I wasn't able to find an obituary, so he's probably still alive.
So, my relationship with him was like so many of my college roommates. I don't think we had any kind of real impact on each others' lives.
Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Apartment #3: 3952 Florida St., San Diego, CA (1991 - 1992)
Very soon after arriving in San Diego, I set about looking for a place to live. I was only going to be at the residential hotel for two weeks, so that didn't really give me much time to find an apartment. I was rather shocked to find out that studio apartments in San Diego were renting for more than double what I was paying in Denver. The only problem with that was that I wasn't getting PAID double, so I was going to have to set my sights a little lower and maybe even move in with a roommate.
I set about on my search. I remember driving by one location and didn't like the neighborhood. I didn't even bother getting out of my car. Then, I found a studio close to Downtown San Diego and was told I could just walk inside and look at the apartment without an appointment. I went in and found it was a rather small room with a kitchen. I thought it wasn't too bad. Then, I heard a loud noise. It was an airplane coming in for a landing at the airport nearby. I contemplated whether this was something I could live with. At the back of the apartment, I found a door. I wondered what it led to. On the other side of the door was a hallway. At the end of the hallway was the bathroom. OH, MY GOSH! That meant that everybody in this hallway had to use the same bathroom, AND it only appeared to have one toilet and one shower. There was no way I was going to be able to tolerate this. I left the apartment and never looked back.
I started looking for roommate ads. I found this one in the North Park neighborhood for $275 a month. I called up the person who had placed the ad and arranged to meet him that night. We both appeared to get along and he agreed to take me in as a roommate. I paid the deposit and told him I would be moving my stuff in about two weeks.
This was a two-bedroom apartment with one bathroom and was on the ground floor. It was part of a four-plex. In the kitchen was a back door that led to small outdoor area next to a hillside. Next to our apartment was a gate. This gate also led to the outdoor area and to a flight of stairs up the hillside. One day, I climbed the stairs to see what was up there. It was another four-plex. However, when I went up, one of the residents there started giving me the evil eye, like I was going to get him arrested or something. I decided to never climb those stairs again.
The one problem with this was that the gate was locked and the address up there was listed as being on Florida Street. I had a key to the gate, but it wasn't something I really needed. There was a way to drive to the other fourplex that involved going north a little ways, making the first left up a steep hill and making another left through the narrow alley. But the people who lived on top of the hill had a tendency to order certain kinds of labor services and they would almost NEVER tell the people coming how to get to their apartment.
We had people pounding on our door at least once every two weeks trying to get into the gate. Usually, Ped opened the door and would give them directions. Most of the time, we'd never see them again. Sometimes, they would come back a few minutes later demanding to be let in the gate. Ped wouldn't do it. I guess he was aware of the kind of people who lived there. I remember one woman who was absolutely panicked because she was supposed to work there and didn't want to miss getting paid. (And I can also assume that she was already late.) It was clear she couldn't speak English very well. She kept screaming while Ped was trying to give her directions and wouldn't stop screaming long enough to calm down.
By this point, I'd had enough of this nonsense. I mean, really. Everybody who lives back there knows they're in a secluded location and enjoys not being bothered by the types of people who go door-to-door soliciting. You'd think that they would know to give everyone explicit directions on how to find them. But all they would give out is the street address. One day, I was in the house alone and someone knocked on the door. It was a man wearing a white shirt and carrying a bag. He said he needed me to open the gate. I was thinking, "Really? The people back there have health issues that require a home visit and they're STILL not going to give out directions?" I told him, "If the people back there didn't tell you how to get there, then they don't want you there." He said, "I am a nurse. Trust me, they want me back there." I said, "Some time ago, I had some guy come here telling me he was a doctor and I let him in. It turned out he was a collector and the resident came down here, showed me his gun and told me that was the last time I would be letting anyone come through that gate." "I assure you I am a nurse!" "Well, there is a way to get back there without going through that gate, and if you're smart enough to complete nurse training, then you're smart enough to figure out how to get there." And I closed the door in his face. I had made up that story about the collector, but I guess I made it seem real enough that he didn't question it any further and I didn't hear him going to any of the other apartments to gain admittance. I don't know what happened, but I never had to deal with another person trying to get in the gate after that.
I never really got to know my immediate neighbors. There was a man about my age who lived in the apartment next to us. I only ever got to talk to him a few times, mostly coming and going. I also remember some police activity going on across the street and we chatted a little bit about that. I would compare this guy to Kevin Kline in "The Big Chill." In that film, Kline's character only allows music from the 1960s to be played in his house. This guy was a lot like that, but he played music from the 1980s. The problem was that he only appeared to own two albums. Very frequently, I would hear A Flock of Seagulls' debut album in its entirety and the first two songs from Dexy's Midnight Runners' "Too-Rye-Ay" album: "Come on Eileen" and their cover of "Jackie Wilson Said." I would hear those at least once a week. So he wasn't so much stuck in the 1980s as he was stuck specifically in March of 1983. This guy clearly was NOT about to get into Nirvana.
For reasons that I will detail tomorrow, I moved out of the apartment in September of 1992. Like a lot of the places I lived in San Diego, I never really felt like that was my home. It was more like I was a guest or housesitter who had to pay money for that privilege. This would be the first of 11 apartments I would live in during the time I was in San Diego.
I remember driving by the apartment a few years later and noticing that they had wired that gate to stay open all the time. I guess the residents who were giving everyone the evil eye finally moved out (or were arrested) and it was safe to start letting people up there again.
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
Classic Road Trip to San Diego
I came home to Artesia on 10/30/91 during my move from Denver to San Diego. I stopped and saw Mom first. Then I went to see Dad. We went over to the apartments and I started taking stuff off the truck. Since I had labeled all the boxes "Take" and "Leave," it was amazingly quick to figure out what I was going to put in storage.
Then my Dad showed me my "new" car, which would turn out to be Car #4 for me. It was a 1975 Chevy Nova hatchback. I was able to load up all the stuff I was going to take to San Diego inside. Dad told me this was the car he wanted me to have instead of the Pinto, which had been the source of so may problems in the 10 months I had been driving it. The strange thing about this car was that it was a standard with only three gears. I didn't know how I was going to adjust to not being able to shift into fourth. However, it turned out not to be that hard to get used to.
The next morning, I took the U-Haul truck and turned it over to the rental center there. It was alto the location of a gas station, but they didn't have diesel fuel pumps, so that meant I had to drive down the street to fill up at another station. As it turned out, I went 40 miles over my limit and had to pay extra. But that didn't matter because Landmark was footing the bill for that.
Before I had left Denver, I called and told Kird that I was going to be moving to San Diego and would be driving through Alamogordo on my way out. He said he wanted to go with me and hang out for a few days. I agreed. He would take a Greyhound bus back home.
Before I left Artesia, his wife called my mother and expressed concern that there had been snowfall in Cloudcroft, which I had to drive through to get to Alamogordo. However, I had left late enough in the day that most of the snow had already melted by the time I drove through the area. I arrived at Kird's house and saw his wife and child. He quickly said goodbye to them and we were on our way. He had us stop in Las Cruces to see a few people at NMSU. One of them was in a band and gave us a few cassette copies of their album. I remember it had the title "Is God in Show Business Too?" (Great, a "Zardoz" reference.) He wanted us to drop them by the alternative radio stations. (Somehow, we never got around to that.)
After leaving Las Cruces, we drove past a prison facility. There were signs on the highway warning people not to pick up hitchhikers. So, we did the obvious thing: We stopped the car. Kird got out and posed next to the sign with his thumb sticking out. Then we left and were on our way.
And of course, this isn't a classic road trip without some run-in with law enforcement. Kird wanted to drive the car for a while, so I let him. While he was driving, we got pulled over. I guess one of the taillights was out. The officer asked to see his license and insurance. I knew my Dad had insured the car, so I furiously searched through the glove compartment. I found several pieces of paper that indicated insurance, but they were all for the previous owner. It was also dark and I couldn't see anything very well. After about five minutes of this, the officer said, "Never mind, I'll just take your word for it that you've got insurance." Kird still got a ticket for the taillight. After we were back on the road, I finally found the insurance card.
We stopped at Tuscon and checked in at a Motel 6. We then spent the next two hours trying to figure out what we were going to do in town that night. As it turned out, we wound up doing nothing but getting something to eat, hanging out in the motel room and watching TV. We still had a good time, but I guess Kird was really missing his daughter. This was Halloween and he didn't get to go trick or treating with her. I didn't realize that was weighing heavily on his mind at the time.
We got up the next day and ate breakfast. Before we left Tuscon, I decided that we needed to stop by the Greyhound station to buy Kird's ticket back. If you buy the ticket a week in advance, you're supposed to get a cheaper rate. On our way to the bus station, we saw a truck try to turn a corner and run over a street sign, which got stuck in its rear tire. We were laughing so hard, I had forgotten I had my camera there. I wish I had taken a picture of that.
Inside the bus station, we went to the ticket counter and asked to buy a ticket from San Diego to Alamogordo to be valid on November 8th, a week later. It took the guy a half hour to get us the ticket. I was getting nervous because it was apparent that a bus was about to depart and people were lining up behind us. Fortunately, no one started causing a fuss. We finally got the ticket and headed out.
We got into San Diego around 3pm. We high-fived each other as we passed a sign that said "San Diego City Limits." The first thing we did was go to the Park Theatre. I hoped that Ved, Landmark's City Manager, would be there so I could meet him before going to the residential hotel where I would be staying for the first couple of weeks. He was in the lobby talking to someone when we arrived. We introduced ourselves. After the general pleasantries, he said that Anz, the woman who would be the House Manager of the Hillcrest Cinemas had just arrived as well. He gave me her phone number to contact her. He said he would try to make plans for us all to get together for dinner that evening and he would show Kird and me around.
We then found our way to the residential hotel where I would be living for the next two weeks. It was just a couple of blocks from the Hillcrest Cinemas, where I would be working as the Assistant Manager. When we checked in, the front desk told me I needed to pay upfront. I told them that it was supposed to already be paid for. He said it wasn't, so I had to pull out my credit card and pay for the room. I figured I would just get the money back when I was reimbursed by Landmark. Later, the manager came up and told me that he had found the information about who was paying for my room and canceled my charge.
One thing we weren't aware of was that the Hillcrest neighborhood was considered the center of the LGBT community. We had seen this young Asian man out in the courtyard and hanging around the front office. Kird came up to me and said, "Fayd! This is a gay hotel! That guy is a gay prostitute! I just heard him talking about it!" Since I had gotten over my homophobia about a year earlier, this didn't really bother me. I told him not to worry about it.
I knew what Anz looked like because Denver City Manager Maud used to have a photo of her in her office. In the picture, she had long, dark, curly hair and glasses that feature what I call a cat's eye rim. She was next to a poster for the Claire Denis film "Chocolat" and was pouting her lips like the actress in the poster. After Maud had gotten romantically involved with the Esquire's House Manager, Mr. M warned me not to get involved with Anz. The thought of dating my boss kind of appealed to me and I wondered if things would head that direction. I called Angz and introduced myself as her new Assistant Manager. She told me that she and her husband were in the process of moving into their apartment. Her HUSBAND? Any fantasies I had about us hooking up were immediately doused. I mentioned that Ved said that we were going out for dinner that evening and she said she would meet me then.
After we had settled in, Kird and I walked up the street a little bit. We found a record store called "Off the Record." Kird went crazy in there and bought $200 worth of CDs. We came back to the hotel and he started listening to his new music. Ved showed up a little later and we walked down the street to Anz' apartment. She and her husband were still unpacking. She looked quite different from the photo I had seen before. Her hair was still long, but it was straight and a strawberry blonde color. She wore a similar pair of glasses. I remember their apartment was very small and that all the unpacked boxes they had seemed to crowd the apartment.
We then walked over to an Italian restaurant nearby. Kird dominated the conversation. He told them about how he and his wife held a garage sale. He had been surprised at how many people came up and bought stuff they would have otherwise thrown away. He said this one guy who looked homeless came up and bought an old pair of socks. Later on, they had gone somewhere in Alamogordo and saw that guy. He was wearing the socks on his hands. He recognized them and waved "Hello" with the sock on his hand. Kird had everyone laughing real hard about that. I kind of felt overshadowed and almost regretted bringing him along.
After dinner, Ved took Kird and me walking around Hillcrest. He knew a lot of people in the business district. Then we walked by the site of the Hillcrest Cinemas. It was still under construction. He then drove us into the Downtown area and through Balboa Park. The first thing that struck me were the yellow street lights. They all looked like the yellow lights on traffic signals. I could see myself getting confused. Ved explained that the lights were yellow to cut down on glare for the nearby observatory.
Kird wanted to see a couple of movies that were showing at the Landmark theatres there in San Diego. He had been reading all about "My Own Private Idaho" and was really dying to see it. Ved arranged for us to go see it that night at the Guild Theatre. But at this point, I was really tired. I hadn't slept since we left Tuscon that morning and we were going to be up until midnight watching this movie. Kird turned out to be really disappointed.
The next few days, we did some running around San Diego and considered driving up to LA to see Chud. However, we couldn't catch him at home. At the time, I thought LA was a four hour drive from San Diego (which it can be, but I found out a few months later that he was only about 135 miles away). At one point, while I was touring the new theatre under construction, Kird borrowed my car and went out to the beach. He talked about putting his hand in the ocean.
We went out and saw a couple more movies over the next few days, including "Dead Again" and "Barton Fink." I was worried that after he was dissatisfied with "My Own Private Idaho," he wasn't going to think much of "Barton Fink, either. However, he stood up and applauded at the end of the film.
After that, we decided we were getting on each other's nerves and didn't know if we could last a full week with each other. I looked at the bus ticket and found that they had not sold us an advance ticket. It was good for right then and there. I was mad because the ticket guy in Tuscon overcharged me when I specifically asked for an advance ticket, but somewhat relieved that Kird could just take the next bus to Alamogordo. He packed his things, we went to the bus station and said our goodbyes. He got back home about 24 hours later. I can only imagine the stories he had to tell about that experience.
So that was it. I was on my own again in another large metropolitan area. There were plenty of adventures waiting for me.
Then my Dad showed me my "new" car, which would turn out to be Car #4 for me. It was a 1975 Chevy Nova hatchback. I was able to load up all the stuff I was going to take to San Diego inside. Dad told me this was the car he wanted me to have instead of the Pinto, which had been the source of so may problems in the 10 months I had been driving it. The strange thing about this car was that it was a standard with only three gears. I didn't know how I was going to adjust to not being able to shift into fourth. However, it turned out not to be that hard to get used to.
The next morning, I took the U-Haul truck and turned it over to the rental center there. It was alto the location of a gas station, but they didn't have diesel fuel pumps, so that meant I had to drive down the street to fill up at another station. As it turned out, I went 40 miles over my limit and had to pay extra. But that didn't matter because Landmark was footing the bill for that.
Before I had left Denver, I called and told Kird that I was going to be moving to San Diego and would be driving through Alamogordo on my way out. He said he wanted to go with me and hang out for a few days. I agreed. He would take a Greyhound bus back home.
Before I left Artesia, his wife called my mother and expressed concern that there had been snowfall in Cloudcroft, which I had to drive through to get to Alamogordo. However, I had left late enough in the day that most of the snow had already melted by the time I drove through the area. I arrived at Kird's house and saw his wife and child. He quickly said goodbye to them and we were on our way. He had us stop in Las Cruces to see a few people at NMSU. One of them was in a band and gave us a few cassette copies of their album. I remember it had the title "Is God in Show Business Too?" (Great, a "Zardoz" reference.) He wanted us to drop them by the alternative radio stations. (Somehow, we never got around to that.)
After leaving Las Cruces, we drove past a prison facility. There were signs on the highway warning people not to pick up hitchhikers. So, we did the obvious thing: We stopped the car. Kird got out and posed next to the sign with his thumb sticking out. Then we left and were on our way.
And of course, this isn't a classic road trip without some run-in with law enforcement. Kird wanted to drive the car for a while, so I let him. While he was driving, we got pulled over. I guess one of the taillights was out. The officer asked to see his license and insurance. I knew my Dad had insured the car, so I furiously searched through the glove compartment. I found several pieces of paper that indicated insurance, but they were all for the previous owner. It was also dark and I couldn't see anything very well. After about five minutes of this, the officer said, "Never mind, I'll just take your word for it that you've got insurance." Kird still got a ticket for the taillight. After we were back on the road, I finally found the insurance card.
We stopped at Tuscon and checked in at a Motel 6. We then spent the next two hours trying to figure out what we were going to do in town that night. As it turned out, we wound up doing nothing but getting something to eat, hanging out in the motel room and watching TV. We still had a good time, but I guess Kird was really missing his daughter. This was Halloween and he didn't get to go trick or treating with her. I didn't realize that was weighing heavily on his mind at the time.
We got up the next day and ate breakfast. Before we left Tuscon, I decided that we needed to stop by the Greyhound station to buy Kird's ticket back. If you buy the ticket a week in advance, you're supposed to get a cheaper rate. On our way to the bus station, we saw a truck try to turn a corner and run over a street sign, which got stuck in its rear tire. We were laughing so hard, I had forgotten I had my camera there. I wish I had taken a picture of that.
Inside the bus station, we went to the ticket counter and asked to buy a ticket from San Diego to Alamogordo to be valid on November 8th, a week later. It took the guy a half hour to get us the ticket. I was getting nervous because it was apparent that a bus was about to depart and people were lining up behind us. Fortunately, no one started causing a fuss. We finally got the ticket and headed out.
We got into San Diego around 3pm. We high-fived each other as we passed a sign that said "San Diego City Limits." The first thing we did was go to the Park Theatre. I hoped that Ved, Landmark's City Manager, would be there so I could meet him before going to the residential hotel where I would be staying for the first couple of weeks. He was in the lobby talking to someone when we arrived. We introduced ourselves. After the general pleasantries, he said that Anz, the woman who would be the House Manager of the Hillcrest Cinemas had just arrived as well. He gave me her phone number to contact her. He said he would try to make plans for us all to get together for dinner that evening and he would show Kird and me around.
We then found our way to the residential hotel where I would be living for the next two weeks. It was just a couple of blocks from the Hillcrest Cinemas, where I would be working as the Assistant Manager. When we checked in, the front desk told me I needed to pay upfront. I told them that it was supposed to already be paid for. He said it wasn't, so I had to pull out my credit card and pay for the room. I figured I would just get the money back when I was reimbursed by Landmark. Later, the manager came up and told me that he had found the information about who was paying for my room and canceled my charge.
One thing we weren't aware of was that the Hillcrest neighborhood was considered the center of the LGBT community. We had seen this young Asian man out in the courtyard and hanging around the front office. Kird came up to me and said, "Fayd! This is a gay hotel! That guy is a gay prostitute! I just heard him talking about it!" Since I had gotten over my homophobia about a year earlier, this didn't really bother me. I told him not to worry about it.
I knew what Anz looked like because Denver City Manager Maud used to have a photo of her in her office. In the picture, she had long, dark, curly hair and glasses that feature what I call a cat's eye rim. She was next to a poster for the Claire Denis film "Chocolat" and was pouting her lips like the actress in the poster. After Maud had gotten romantically involved with the Esquire's House Manager, Mr. M warned me not to get involved with Anz. The thought of dating my boss kind of appealed to me and I wondered if things would head that direction. I called Angz and introduced myself as her new Assistant Manager. She told me that she and her husband were in the process of moving into their apartment. Her HUSBAND? Any fantasies I had about us hooking up were immediately doused. I mentioned that Ved said that we were going out for dinner that evening and she said she would meet me then.
After we had settled in, Kird and I walked up the street a little bit. We found a record store called "Off the Record." Kird went crazy in there and bought $200 worth of CDs. We came back to the hotel and he started listening to his new music. Ved showed up a little later and we walked down the street to Anz' apartment. She and her husband were still unpacking. She looked quite different from the photo I had seen before. Her hair was still long, but it was straight and a strawberry blonde color. She wore a similar pair of glasses. I remember their apartment was very small and that all the unpacked boxes they had seemed to crowd the apartment.
We then walked over to an Italian restaurant nearby. Kird dominated the conversation. He told them about how he and his wife held a garage sale. He had been surprised at how many people came up and bought stuff they would have otherwise thrown away. He said this one guy who looked homeless came up and bought an old pair of socks. Later on, they had gone somewhere in Alamogordo and saw that guy. He was wearing the socks on his hands. He recognized them and waved "Hello" with the sock on his hand. Kird had everyone laughing real hard about that. I kind of felt overshadowed and almost regretted bringing him along.
After dinner, Ved took Kird and me walking around Hillcrest. He knew a lot of people in the business district. Then we walked by the site of the Hillcrest Cinemas. It was still under construction. He then drove us into the Downtown area and through Balboa Park. The first thing that struck me were the yellow street lights. They all looked like the yellow lights on traffic signals. I could see myself getting confused. Ved explained that the lights were yellow to cut down on glare for the nearby observatory.
Kird wanted to see a couple of movies that were showing at the Landmark theatres there in San Diego. He had been reading all about "My Own Private Idaho" and was really dying to see it. Ved arranged for us to go see it that night at the Guild Theatre. But at this point, I was really tired. I hadn't slept since we left Tuscon that morning and we were going to be up until midnight watching this movie. Kird turned out to be really disappointed.
The next few days, we did some running around San Diego and considered driving up to LA to see Chud. However, we couldn't catch him at home. At the time, I thought LA was a four hour drive from San Diego (which it can be, but I found out a few months later that he was only about 135 miles away). At one point, while I was touring the new theatre under construction, Kird borrowed my car and went out to the beach. He talked about putting his hand in the ocean.
We went out and saw a couple more movies over the next few days, including "Dead Again" and "Barton Fink." I was worried that after he was dissatisfied with "My Own Private Idaho," he wasn't going to think much of "Barton Fink, either. However, he stood up and applauded at the end of the film.
After that, we decided we were getting on each other's nerves and didn't know if we could last a full week with each other. I looked at the bus ticket and found that they had not sold us an advance ticket. It was good for right then and there. I was mad because the ticket guy in Tuscon overcharged me when I specifically asked for an advance ticket, but somewhat relieved that Kird could just take the next bus to Alamogordo. He packed his things, we went to the bus station and said our goodbyes. He got back home about 24 hours later. I can only imagine the stories he had to tell about that experience.
So that was it. I was on my own again in another large metropolitan area. There were plenty of adventures waiting for me.
Monday, February 1, 2016
The things I miss most about Denver
Now that I'm back to blogging, I thought I'd take one more final look at the time I spent in Denver before moving on to San Diego in November of 1991. As the title suggests, these are the places and things I enjoyed most during the three years I lived there and was never able to properly replace them in the cities I moved to later on in life.
1. The Rocky Mountain News
This was the BEST newspaper I've ever come across. I enjoyed going out every day to either a vending machine on the corner or a nearby convenience store, bringing the paper back to my apartment, sitting there and reading it before starting my day. I could practically read the whole thing from cover to cover. It was tabloid-style in its format, but not its content. This made it a lot easier to sit down and read. I was working at newsradio station in San Jose in 2009 when our network news reported that the paper was going to cease publication. I told the anchor/news director that the news was hard to hear because it was my favorite newspaper while I was living in Denver. He agreed that it was a good publication.
2. Westword
Since I'm on the subject of newspapers, I also have to give a shout out to my favorite alternative weekly of all time. Like The Rocky Mountain News, I enjoyed reading just about all the articles. It was this publication through which I found my apartment and attempted to find girlfriends. I liked it so much, I tried to get a job in their want ad department. When I interviewed, the person in charge said she was trying to move the want ad department from its appearance as a dorm room to that of a professional place of business. Well, gee, that was the whole I wanted to work there. I didn't get that job and I never saw any other opportunities for employment there.
3. Angelo's Pizza
This place was just a couple of blocks away from my apartment and they took credit cards. Anytime I got a craving for pizza and I didn't have any cash (which was often), I could go over there, get an individual-sized pizza and walk it back to my place while it was still hot. Every time I returned to Denver in the years after I had moved to San Diego, I would go there and eat. I just wasn't able to take it back to my apartment. It has since become Angelo's Taverna and now features an oyster bar. They still have pizza. But I'm not going to order an oyster pizza if I ever go back there again.
4. Senor Burritos
This place was right across the street from the Mayan Theatre. They had amazing burritos that you could order plain or smothered in verde sauce. The only problem was if you bit into a plain burrito, you would sometimes have butter shoot out the other end and it would drip past your hand, down your arm and mess up your shirt sleeve. When it first opened, it was just a little hole-in-the-wall to-go counter and just had a couple of people on staff. I went over there one day when everybody had left for some unknown reason. I went inside and waited about five minutes. Finally, they came running back in. When I paid for my burrito, I saw they had several hundred dollars in the register. With the amount of time I was there alone, someone could have easily come in and taken all their cash.
After I moved away, they were able to expand it to include a dining room. The last time I went was in December of 2009. I was in Denver for the funeral of my cousin Jend. Loyd and I stopped by the Mayan Theatre. I had originally planned to eat a breakfast burrito there the next morning. However, Loyd was hungry, so we decided to grab a quick snack of fries while we were there. I wasn't hungry enough for a full burrito at the time (they are very large), so I didn't order one. Come the next morning, all of our family decided to go have breakfast at Denny's across from the motel, so I couldn't have a burrito for breakfast. While Loyd and I were contemplating going to see a movie at 10am, we planned to eat at Senor Burritos afterward before he drove me to the airport. I really wanted that burrito. But right before we left, I got a call from Knod. I had been trying to reach her the night before so Loyd and I could visit her, but she never picked up her phone. It turned out her youngest daughter was sick at the time and was hallucinating, so she was not able to have company. We were at her apartment in Arvada for a couple of hours until it was time to go. We didn't have enough time to go to Central Denver and eat, so we drove straight to the airport. After going through security and the shuttle, I found out my flight was being delayed several hours. It was not because of snow in Denver. No, it had been pretty clear that day. It was because there was snow in Houston and everybody was freaking out at the airport over there. But they didn't figure out there was going to be a delay until right before I got there. If I had been notified sooner of the delay, we could have gone and gotten burritos. I'm still angry about missing out on that because I haven't been back to Denver since. But it's nice to know that it's still there in case I do get to visit again.
5. Buffalo Bill's Hot Wings
This was another place by the Mayan. The wings would be dripping with sauce, so I would dip the bones in the sauce and lick them clean. They had a variety of flavors. I remember making a joke when the Mayan's Manager Mr. M asked what sauces they had. I told him one of the flavors was grape. (They had lemon.) I still recall his shocked expression before I told him I was kidding. The decor inside featured movie posters of direct-to-video releases. The only movie that ever showed at one of our theatres was "From Hollywood to Deadwood." At some point in the past, the restaurant changed locations and moved to 12th Avenue.
6. The Continental/The Cooper/Century 21
Denver was home to three large movie theatres with the capability to show 70mm while I lived there. (I should point out that Landmark's Esquire could show 70mm, but the screen size paled in comparison to these three.) Having lived in small towns all my life, I never got so see movie screens this size before. (However, I seem to recall the movie theatre in Las Vegas where I was "Superman" was very large. And I might have seen a re-release of "The Sound of Music" in 70mm in Albuquerque around 1974, but these screens were still overwhelmed by the obvious size of the ones in Denver.) The first movie I saw in 70mm at the Continental was "Die Hard." I was astonished by the size of the screen, which ad been advertised at 3 1/2 stories tall. It did not disappoint. These three theatres weren't always showing 70mm. When they had regular 35mm, the Continental and the Cooper's screens would get a little smaller, but they were still the largest in the area. Mr. M wanted to go see "Dances with Wolves" at the Continental on the final day it was showing there (because they would be showing "The Doors" in 70mm the next day, even though it was still pulling in big crowds before winning all the Oscars that year). He said, "If I don't go see 'Dances with Wolves' at the Continental, I'm not going to see it!" A lot of us felt that way.
When I moved to San Diego, there were three large screen theatres there: The Cinema 21 and Valley Circle (both of which resembled the Century 21) in Mission Valley and the Grossmont in La Mesa. There was a fourth theatre that could show 70mm, also in the Grossmont Center, but it used to be a single screen that was split up into three theatres with the largest being in the middle. When I went to see "Far and Away" there, the sides of the image had been chopped off to fit it onto a 1:85 screen. (I think they wound up in the other two theatres) I knew this the second I saw the "d" in Ron Howard's last name get caught in the side masking when his director's credit came on. I was just FURIOUS during the whole movie. If I had paid for it, I would have demanded my money back after seeing the whole movie.
Of the three listed here, only the Continental remains. I haven't been to see a movie there since 1993. (I was not able to find a decent photo of the Century 21, which was just down the street from the Cooper.)
7. Wax Trax
One of the nice things about living in the city was being able to go to an independently-owned record store to shop for music. When I worked at Unimart/Rent City, Wax Trax was just a couple of blocks away, so I would go there almost every day because I had to take a full hour for lunch. But the funny thing is that I don't remember ever buying anything there. I was kind of poor at the time and didn't buy a lot of CDs. And if I did, I had a tendency to get them at the chain stores because Wax Trax charged at least $2 more for new releases. But I LOVED to look at the music I could potentially buy if I ever got a job that paid a lot of money.
8. KTCL
KTCL was a free-form radio station based out of Fort Collins. They mostly played alternative music, but would venture into other genres. On Sunday mornings, they would play classical music. If I fell asleep listening to the station on Saturday nights, the dreams I had before waking up would feature a very dramatic soundtrack. The only bad thing about it was that all the air talent acted like they were announcing for a classical station, ALL THE TIME! You'd think they'd put some more personality into it and be excited about broadcasting a free form format. However, when I moved to San Diego and started listening to 91X, I found that wasn't necessarily a good thing. There could have been a happy medium. Since I moved away, they have more of an emphasis on modern rock, and feature a lot of area acts.
9. The siphoning effect of evening rush hour traffic
It seemed like the entire state of Colorado drove into the Downtown area to go to work. I've already gone into detail about my first experience with the morning commute. Sometimes, when I least expected it, I would have to drive somewhere away from the city between 4pm and 6pm. The one good thing was that after the first few miles, traffic would lighten up. At every exit along the highways going North, South, East and West from Downtown, a large number of vehicles would leave the highways, creating less traffic along the way. This meant that only the first part of the commute was really rough. In San Diego, it seemed like everybody who commuted into the Downtown area all came from the same exit in El Cajon. But at least that had all the bad traffic going in one direction. It was even worse when I'd moved to San Jose, in which every ramp that had a lot of cars exiting, the exact same number would be coming onto the highway, and this would be true for both directions. Now, I don't know how traffic is in Denver now, but I can only imagine it's much better than what I have to currently drive home in.
Well, in retrospect, it looks like the main things I liked about Denver were the newspapers, food, movie theatres, music and traffic. That about sums up everything I did during the three years I spent there.
1. The Rocky Mountain News
This was the BEST newspaper I've ever come across. I enjoyed going out every day to either a vending machine on the corner or a nearby convenience store, bringing the paper back to my apartment, sitting there and reading it before starting my day. I could practically read the whole thing from cover to cover. It was tabloid-style in its format, but not its content. This made it a lot easier to sit down and read. I was working at newsradio station in San Jose in 2009 when our network news reported that the paper was going to cease publication. I told the anchor/news director that the news was hard to hear because it was my favorite newspaper while I was living in Denver. He agreed that it was a good publication.
2. Westword
Since I'm on the subject of newspapers, I also have to give a shout out to my favorite alternative weekly of all time. Like The Rocky Mountain News, I enjoyed reading just about all the articles. It was this publication through which I found my apartment and attempted to find girlfriends. I liked it so much, I tried to get a job in their want ad department. When I interviewed, the person in charge said she was trying to move the want ad department from its appearance as a dorm room to that of a professional place of business. Well, gee, that was the whole I wanted to work there. I didn't get that job and I never saw any other opportunities for employment there.
3. Angelo's Pizza
This place was just a couple of blocks away from my apartment and they took credit cards. Anytime I got a craving for pizza and I didn't have any cash (which was often), I could go over there, get an individual-sized pizza and walk it back to my place while it was still hot. Every time I returned to Denver in the years after I had moved to San Diego, I would go there and eat. I just wasn't able to take it back to my apartment. It has since become Angelo's Taverna and now features an oyster bar. They still have pizza. But I'm not going to order an oyster pizza if I ever go back there again.
4. Senor Burritos
This place was right across the street from the Mayan Theatre. They had amazing burritos that you could order plain or smothered in verde sauce. The only problem was if you bit into a plain burrito, you would sometimes have butter shoot out the other end and it would drip past your hand, down your arm and mess up your shirt sleeve. When it first opened, it was just a little hole-in-the-wall to-go counter and just had a couple of people on staff. I went over there one day when everybody had left for some unknown reason. I went inside and waited about five minutes. Finally, they came running back in. When I paid for my burrito, I saw they had several hundred dollars in the register. With the amount of time I was there alone, someone could have easily come in and taken all their cash.
After I moved away, they were able to expand it to include a dining room. The last time I went was in December of 2009. I was in Denver for the funeral of my cousin Jend. Loyd and I stopped by the Mayan Theatre. I had originally planned to eat a breakfast burrito there the next morning. However, Loyd was hungry, so we decided to grab a quick snack of fries while we were there. I wasn't hungry enough for a full burrito at the time (they are very large), so I didn't order one. Come the next morning, all of our family decided to go have breakfast at Denny's across from the motel, so I couldn't have a burrito for breakfast. While Loyd and I were contemplating going to see a movie at 10am, we planned to eat at Senor Burritos afterward before he drove me to the airport. I really wanted that burrito. But right before we left, I got a call from Knod. I had been trying to reach her the night before so Loyd and I could visit her, but she never picked up her phone. It turned out her youngest daughter was sick at the time and was hallucinating, so she was not able to have company. We were at her apartment in Arvada for a couple of hours until it was time to go. We didn't have enough time to go to Central Denver and eat, so we drove straight to the airport. After going through security and the shuttle, I found out my flight was being delayed several hours. It was not because of snow in Denver. No, it had been pretty clear that day. It was because there was snow in Houston and everybody was freaking out at the airport over there. But they didn't figure out there was going to be a delay until right before I got there. If I had been notified sooner of the delay, we could have gone and gotten burritos. I'm still angry about missing out on that because I haven't been back to Denver since. But it's nice to know that it's still there in case I do get to visit again.
5. Buffalo Bill's Hot Wings
This was another place by the Mayan. The wings would be dripping with sauce, so I would dip the bones in the sauce and lick them clean. They had a variety of flavors. I remember making a joke when the Mayan's Manager Mr. M asked what sauces they had. I told him one of the flavors was grape. (They had lemon.) I still recall his shocked expression before I told him I was kidding. The decor inside featured movie posters of direct-to-video releases. The only movie that ever showed at one of our theatres was "From Hollywood to Deadwood." At some point in the past, the restaurant changed locations and moved to 12th Avenue.
6. The Continental/The Cooper/Century 21
Denver was home to three large movie theatres with the capability to show 70mm while I lived there. (I should point out that Landmark's Esquire could show 70mm, but the screen size paled in comparison to these three.) Having lived in small towns all my life, I never got so see movie screens this size before. (However, I seem to recall the movie theatre in Las Vegas where I was "Superman" was very large. And I might have seen a re-release of "The Sound of Music" in 70mm in Albuquerque around 1974, but these screens were still overwhelmed by the obvious size of the ones in Denver.) The first movie I saw in 70mm at the Continental was "Die Hard." I was astonished by the size of the screen, which ad been advertised at 3 1/2 stories tall. It did not disappoint. These three theatres weren't always showing 70mm. When they had regular 35mm, the Continental and the Cooper's screens would get a little smaller, but they were still the largest in the area. Mr. M wanted to go see "Dances with Wolves" at the Continental on the final day it was showing there (because they would be showing "The Doors" in 70mm the next day, even though it was still pulling in big crowds before winning all the Oscars that year). He said, "If I don't go see 'Dances with Wolves' at the Continental, I'm not going to see it!" A lot of us felt that way.
When I moved to San Diego, there were three large screen theatres there: The Cinema 21 and Valley Circle (both of which resembled the Century 21) in Mission Valley and the Grossmont in La Mesa. There was a fourth theatre that could show 70mm, also in the Grossmont Center, but it used to be a single screen that was split up into three theatres with the largest being in the middle. When I went to see "Far and Away" there, the sides of the image had been chopped off to fit it onto a 1:85 screen. (I think they wound up in the other two theatres) I knew this the second I saw the "d" in Ron Howard's last name get caught in the side masking when his director's credit came on. I was just FURIOUS during the whole movie. If I had paid for it, I would have demanded my money back after seeing the whole movie.
Of the three listed here, only the Continental remains. I haven't been to see a movie there since 1993. (I was not able to find a decent photo of the Century 21, which was just down the street from the Cooper.)
7. Wax Trax
One of the nice things about living in the city was being able to go to an independently-owned record store to shop for music. When I worked at Unimart/Rent City, Wax Trax was just a couple of blocks away, so I would go there almost every day because I had to take a full hour for lunch. But the funny thing is that I don't remember ever buying anything there. I was kind of poor at the time and didn't buy a lot of CDs. And if I did, I had a tendency to get them at the chain stores because Wax Trax charged at least $2 more for new releases. But I LOVED to look at the music I could potentially buy if I ever got a job that paid a lot of money.
8. KTCL
KTCL was a free-form radio station based out of Fort Collins. They mostly played alternative music, but would venture into other genres. On Sunday mornings, they would play classical music. If I fell asleep listening to the station on Saturday nights, the dreams I had before waking up would feature a very dramatic soundtrack. The only bad thing about it was that all the air talent acted like they were announcing for a classical station, ALL THE TIME! You'd think they'd put some more personality into it and be excited about broadcasting a free form format. However, when I moved to San Diego and started listening to 91X, I found that wasn't necessarily a good thing. There could have been a happy medium. Since I moved away, they have more of an emphasis on modern rock, and feature a lot of area acts.
9. The siphoning effect of evening rush hour traffic
It seemed like the entire state of Colorado drove into the Downtown area to go to work. I've already gone into detail about my first experience with the morning commute. Sometimes, when I least expected it, I would have to drive somewhere away from the city between 4pm and 6pm. The one good thing was that after the first few miles, traffic would lighten up. At every exit along the highways going North, South, East and West from Downtown, a large number of vehicles would leave the highways, creating less traffic along the way. This meant that only the first part of the commute was really rough. In San Diego, it seemed like everybody who commuted into the Downtown area all came from the same exit in El Cajon. But at least that had all the bad traffic going in one direction. It was even worse when I'd moved to San Jose, in which every ramp that had a lot of cars exiting, the exact same number would be coming onto the highway, and this would be true for both directions. Now, I don't know how traffic is in Denver now, but I can only imagine it's much better than what I have to currently drive home in.
Well, in retrospect, it looks like the main things I liked about Denver were the newspapers, food, movie theatres, music and traffic. That about sums up everything I did during the three years I spent there.
Friday, January 29, 2016
My Apink Saga on YouTube
It's been a long break, but I'm glad to finally be back to blogging. Today's post will not pick up where I left off, but a lot happened during my break that I shared on YouTube and I thought it would make for good fodder for those of you who don't watch my channel on a regular basis. (Did I ask you to subscribe? No, I didn't.)
While my encounters with celebrities will be fully discussed in Phase 2 of this blog (which is going to be WAY in the future, so don't hold your breath), I thought I'd post all the stuff I did on YouTube surrounding my getting to meet KPOP group Apink.
It all started on Saturday, 11/21/15. I had done a Twitter search on Apink and discovered that the day before, they had announced a tour of North America. After finding the promoter's website, it showed that they would be in San Francisco on 01/08/16 at the Regency Ballroom. I immediately tried to buy tickets, but found out they wouldn't go on sale until the next Saturday. Looking at the details, they were selling 150 Meet and Greet tickets. These tickets included a photo with the group (along with 9 other fans) and a Hi-Touch pass, in which I'd be able to high-five all six members of the group. There would also be 300 VIP tickets, 50 of which would be randomly drawn to take part in the Hi-Touch. I did not want to take a chance with regular VIP, so I knew that I had to have the Meet and Greet, or nothing at all.
In the next to last video in this post, I go into detail about how I managed to acquire a Meet and Greet ticket, which I could not procure when the tickets initially went on sale. But before I got that ticket, the promoter offered a contest in which someone could win two VIP tickets. Entrants just had to post a video of them performing a dance or vocal cover of one of Apink's songs. The winner would be determined by popular vote. I figured the tickets would automatically include a Hi-Touch and if I was lucky, it wouldn't have anyone else from the Bay Area entering the contest. I went ahead and planned a video. In the meantime, I did manage to get my hands on a Meet and Greet. Since I had already planned the video, I decided to see if I could win anyway and maybe bring Ms. Ogolon to the concert. So I produced this:
I had hoped that doing lyrics in English would set me apart from everyone else, and it did. I posted the video about a week before the deadline and started getting views almost immediately. However, the promoter announced a change in the contest. They said that the winner from each city would get to share the stage with Apink. Later postings clarified that the winner would be on stage during the time the group was changing into their outfits for the second act. In addition, it would no longer be a popular vote that determined the winner. It would be a panel of their staff making that decision. After they announced the winners, I posted this video:
I should add that even if I had won by default, I wouldn't have gotten up on stage to sing. I would have been chased out of the venue.
During the time that I was waiting for the big day, I'd noticed a lot of stuff happening in which people planning to go to the show were getting really frustrated with the promoter. I posted this video a few days after the concert to put it all in perspective, even though it really didn't affect me:
Leading up to the day of the concert, I encountered major issues with my Meet and Greet ticket:
But in the end, I got what I came for:
And here is the photographic proof:
In reaction to the photo, one person posted on the event's Facebook page "smh at the guy who covered his face LMFAO." I responded and identified myself as that person. I explained that I did that because of the nature of the photos I post of myself on Facebook. (This post has since been deleted.)
The whole experience was certainly unforgettable. It's going to be a long time before I get to do something like that again. I had no choice but to enjoy it.
While my encounters with celebrities will be fully discussed in Phase 2 of this blog (which is going to be WAY in the future, so don't hold your breath), I thought I'd post all the stuff I did on YouTube surrounding my getting to meet KPOP group Apink.
It all started on Saturday, 11/21/15. I had done a Twitter search on Apink and discovered that the day before, they had announced a tour of North America. After finding the promoter's website, it showed that they would be in San Francisco on 01/08/16 at the Regency Ballroom. I immediately tried to buy tickets, but found out they wouldn't go on sale until the next Saturday. Looking at the details, they were selling 150 Meet and Greet tickets. These tickets included a photo with the group (along with 9 other fans) and a Hi-Touch pass, in which I'd be able to high-five all six members of the group. There would also be 300 VIP tickets, 50 of which would be randomly drawn to take part in the Hi-Touch. I did not want to take a chance with regular VIP, so I knew that I had to have the Meet and Greet, or nothing at all.
In the next to last video in this post, I go into detail about how I managed to acquire a Meet and Greet ticket, which I could not procure when the tickets initially went on sale. But before I got that ticket, the promoter offered a contest in which someone could win two VIP tickets. Entrants just had to post a video of them performing a dance or vocal cover of one of Apink's songs. The winner would be determined by popular vote. I figured the tickets would automatically include a Hi-Touch and if I was lucky, it wouldn't have anyone else from the Bay Area entering the contest. I went ahead and planned a video. In the meantime, I did manage to get my hands on a Meet and Greet. Since I had already planned the video, I decided to see if I could win anyway and maybe bring Ms. Ogolon to the concert. So I produced this:
I had hoped that doing lyrics in English would set me apart from everyone else, and it did. I posted the video about a week before the deadline and started getting views almost immediately. However, the promoter announced a change in the contest. They said that the winner from each city would get to share the stage with Apink. Later postings clarified that the winner would be on stage during the time the group was changing into their outfits for the second act. In addition, it would no longer be a popular vote that determined the winner. It would be a panel of their staff making that decision. After they announced the winners, I posted this video:
I should add that even if I had won by default, I wouldn't have gotten up on stage to sing. I would have been chased out of the venue.
During the time that I was waiting for the big day, I'd noticed a lot of stuff happening in which people planning to go to the show were getting really frustrated with the promoter. I posted this video a few days after the concert to put it all in perspective, even though it really didn't affect me:
Leading up to the day of the concert, I encountered major issues with my Meet and Greet ticket:
But in the end, I got what I came for:
And here is the photographic proof:
In reaction to the photo, one person posted on the event's Facebook page "smh at the guy who covered his face LMFAO." I responded and identified myself as that person. I explained that I did that because of the nature of the photos I post of myself on Facebook. (This post has since been deleted.)
The whole experience was certainly unforgettable. It's going to be a long time before I get to do something like that again. I had no choice but to enjoy it.
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