Dog the Bounty Hunter

My newest reality TV fascination is Dog the Bounty Hunter. My friend Susan lives in Colorado Springs, and said that they do a lot of their filming there. One Halloween she even dressed up as Beth, and was treated like a local celebrity.
Upon first flipping through the stations on a boring and rainy Saturday night (I have to stress that it was raining so that I don’t feel like such a loser for having no plans and committing my evening to watching reality TV marathons), and came upon Dog and his family.
Who hasn’t had a child with Dog? OMG, he has spawn everywhere. And they either have an interesting name or an interesting hairdo. I first had a crush on Leland until a later episode showed him wearing Laura Ingalls Wilder type braids in his hair. Then it was on Duane Lee, who was even hotter but had an affinity towards corny one-liners aimed at Leland. And finally my heart came to rest on Wesley, who is in very few episodes, but who is by far the hottest. Even hotter than Dog’s nephew with the one leg.
And yet, through all of the mullets and horrendous fashion ensembles, I find myself yearning to be a part of their family. I love that they’re reformed bad asses who praise God. I love that every redneck across America showed up for their book tour. It doesn’t matter that these people don’t know how to read, and that the women probably turned a couple of tricks to buy the book, but they formed friendships with Dog and Beth on Twitter, the way God intended. It was almost like watching a remake of the Goonies. I half-expected a camera to pan to Corey Feldman holding up a gold penny saying “this one’s my dream. I’m taking this one back!”
I hope that I’m never in a position where I’m a fugitive from the law, but if I happen to be one living in Colorado Springs or Hawaii, then I hope that Dog, Beth, Laura Ingalls and the rest of the gang are the ones to bring me back to justice.

There Once Was A Mayor of San Pedro

San Pedro, CA, was very much a locals sort of town, home to families who had lived there for decades. Working for Enterprise, it was easy to track down a renter who owed you money. They either were a longshoreman or a recovering alcoholic at a bar.
My favorite repeat renter was Alex. He was late 60’s or early 70’s, and owned The Green Onion restaurant. His staff was instructed to comp most of our dinner, which usually consisted of margaritas and chips y salsa. I went in there so often with my Assistant Managers, Brian and Danielle, that they took our picture and hung it up next to the table we frequented, a sort of Hall of Fame wall for patrons of the restaurant.
It was Christmas time in the small, sleepy seaside town of San Pedro. Brian and I had called it a day, and went to the restaurant for dinner. Alex had Santa Claus statues everywhere, and many of them were the big creepy 3’ tall kind that would give you nightmares as a child. Most of them were just lifelike dolls, but some would light up and sing & dance when you walked by. After a couple of margaritas, Brian and I looked over to see an elderly gentleman dancing with the largest of the dancing Santas.
After yelling out cheers of encouragement (this old timer very obviously had gotten some recent practice on his grandkids’ Dance Dance Revolution game the way he was moving), he came over and sat with us. He introduced himself as the Mayor of San Pedro.
Brian: OMG, it is an honor to meet you. Since you are a city official, I am surprised that Sapphire here hasn’t blown you in a public restroom yet.
The Mayor was so drunk that he good naturedly agreed, and then ordered us a round of shots.
For months after we saw the drunken Mayor of San Pedro get his groove on with the Pit Boss of Santa Clauses, whenever we would see him in The Green Onion, we would say hello and buy the Mayor a drink, which he would happily accept. This went on for about a year when one day we were having a talk with Alex at the rental branch while we waited for his Cargo van to arrive. Brian brought up the story about the Mayor dancing with the lifesized Santa, and Alex looked confused.
Alex: The Mayor? What Mayor?
Brian: The Mayor of San Pedro. He’s always at your place.
Alex: San Pedro doesn’t have a Mayor. That was probably Charlie, he always tells people that he’s the Mayor. He’s just the town drunk.
After that epic let down of meeting someone that could possibly be 1,725th in line to the presidency was all a sham, Brian and I continued to see the Mayor around town. And even though we knew the truth, we let him live his Sally Fields “you really like me” moment of glory, and never let on that we knew he was not San Pedro royalty. But we did stop offering to buy him alcohol.

More emails from Judy

I tell my mom that I am going to Cabo for my good friend Priscilla's wedding in June. She tells me that she and Jim have been asked to go with some friends on a Mexican cruise:
"We're not going on the Mexican cruise- for me it's the drug war activity- in today's news they just found 14 people beheaded in Acapulco. We're planning a Sicily trip later this year with friends, so that will be enough for me. But you have fun. Love, Mom"

A more recent email from Judy was after we had 5 days of rain in Southern California and there were some bad pile ups on the freeways:
"Saw there was a bad accident on PCH in Newport Beach. Not surprising there were as many dead and injured with the way everyone drives on those highways. Love, Mom"

I love my mom but she totally reminds me of the skit on Saturday Night Live where Debbie Downer has a depressing answer for every conversation. Waa Waa Waa!!!