In Portland, you might see someone with crazy face piercings, wearing a clown suit, riding a two-story bike cobbled together by hand and playing a harmonica. And maybe they’re in the middle of transitioning from a man to a woman. Pretty run-of-the-mill weirdness. In LA, you will encounter things that are more profoundly strange.

I am talking about the La Brea Tar pits, of course. There you are, on the excessively hip westside of LA. You hit up the pastrami at the famous Canter’s deli and top it off with dessert at that one really hip bakery that has amazing gluten-free cakes that cost about one-month’s salary. Then you mosey down past LACMA, which is featuring a really fantastic exhibit about a designer whose name you don’t want to say because you’re not actually sure how to pronounce it. And there you will find a bubbling pit of prehistoric tar.

“La Brea Tar Pit” literally means “The Tar Tar Pit.” Also, it is not actually tar – it is an “asphalt seepage.” But whatever it is, it is definitively there, smack dab in the middle of LA’s urban center, filled with fossils of prehistoric critters, the teeth of saber-toothed cats and mastodon bones. One point for nature.

LA is assertively man-made. It’s fashion and film and music and point-of-view are completely freed from the tethers of reality. Nature and history are not notable influences – they are largely forgotten in so many ways. But what keeps LA bizarre is the way nature and history aggressively pop up in the middle of all of this city’s fancy-pants fantasy.

I remember visiting Descanso Gardens up towards Pasadena. The gardens are a lovely place, as you might imagine, built by newspaper baron Elias Manchester Brody. They have a famed camellia forest that is just huge with tons of massive bushes with beautiful blooms in pink and red and white. Wandering around the gardens, I found a sign in the main house with a little history on the property. It described the rise of self-made man who went from rags to riches through hard work and a knack for tapping into business opportunities. For instance:

“In 1942, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Boddy found himself with a business opportunity that was surely ambivalent at best. All along the west coast Japanese-Americans were being sent to internment camps to wait out the war, leaving businesses behind. Boddy acquired thousands of camellias from Francis Uyematsu, a successful local nurseryman, buying his entire stock. “

Just a footnote in one man’s life and in the history of a pretty place – but clearly a life-defining event for another man.

LA likes to forget that it was once a desert where wild animals roamed, a Native America village, a Spanish/Mexican colonial settlement, so many things it now no longer remotely resembles. But you’ll find that past in the footnotes. You just have to look.

P.S. The story of Francis Uyematsu is even more extraordinary than I could have imagined on my own – check out this LA Times article for more. 

How far were we willing to go to fulfill our artistic vision? Barstow, CA, my friends. This is the sort of place where people ask if you are on your way to Las Vegas or Los Angeles because Barstow is NO ONE’S terminal destination. Besides “patch of desert outside Barstow,” our locations also include: “Calico ghost town,” “railroad track near Norwalk,” and “Heritage Park,” which is nestled in an industrial park in Santa Fe Springs.

Was it worth it? You be the judge – we hope you have as much fun looking at our photos as we had taking them! Now taking suggestions for Halloween 2012!

See the whole photo shoot on Flickr.

If you missed last year’s shoot, here’s I Love Lucy – 2010.

Look how great we are! (Too bad this photo is from a real estate blog talking about our current foreclosure rate)

California is the most awesome state in the world. That’s not what we’re debating today. The problem is that California’s awesomeness is currently in a slow and painful decline and we only have ourselves to blame. We’re also the only ones who can fix this – will we?

On Thursday, I spent three hours with a bunch of smart, passionate Californians talking it out at the “Reviving California Community Summit,” which brought together a panel to take on how to fix our budget process (definitely step one for this turnaround).

I know I just lost a bunch of you when I said “budget process.” Please hang in there with me. Think of it this way, you love and care about your family, right? So that means you absolutely have to care about your family’s finances. Ditto with our great state. Yes, politics is messy and often unsavory, but the worst thing decent, caring Californians could do is wash their hands of the whole matter and leave the politics completely to the politicians. They clearly aren’t responsible enough to handle their allowance.

***If you’re still on the fence, click here to listen to the OC theme song, “California,” while you read this. Maybe I’ll start scoring all my blog posts. If you read fast, you can accompany the deep politics stuff with 2Pac’s “California Love.”

Maybe you’ve been checked out for the past decade, but if you stick with me for the rest of this blog post, I’ll get you up to speed and tell you everything that people much smarter than me said in the course of the three hours.

First a couple of quotes from Bob Foster, Mayor of Long Beach, who was on the panel. He did a good job of summarizing.

PROBLEM

“We think in terms of a year to 18 months instead of 20-30 years. We don’t have a future orientation and this will turn us into a third-world country if we don’t reform that.”

SOLUTION

“Me, you, labor, business – put aside a little of your self-interest and think about your real self-interest – living in a society that cares about its children, educates its workforce and builds an infrastructure for the future.”

What made California awesome in the first place

The majestic State Water Project - you WISH you could irrigate like CA!

California is naturally awesome – literally. We have really great land and weather, the biggest port in north America, a ton of coastline…definitely a good starting point. We used to a have a pretty amazing infrastructure – ever spotted the State Water Project running along I-5? WOW!  We also have a lot of smart, innovative people here. Both infrastructure and smart people did not happen on their own. The California state government invested in these resources – building roads and bridges and dams and building the incredible California state university system. Silicon Valley is full of self-made entrepreneurs – however, there would be no Silicon Valley without all the bright people educated by our state universities, created by government and paid for with tax-payer dollars. You get what you pay for – however, many Californians are now demanding more and more but don’t want to pay for it.

What the hell happened?!?!

Stuff is wearing out. It happens. And it sucks, because as we all know, that means you have to replace it. It’s one thing to replace a tire, but our entire highway system?! Furthermore, we’ve had some money issues. We have some problems with the way we allocated our money (no rainy day fund, lots of restrictions…), and with the revenue side (too dependent on a booming economy).

You can see the painful effect of this at our state universities. When the Master Plan for Higher Education was passed in 1960, the goal was to guarantee smart Californians a FREE university education. In fact, if you were in the top 12 percent of your class, you were guaranteed a spot at a University of California campus and it barely cost you anything. Last year, 38,000 students who met this criteria were turned away due to budget pressures. Those who made it in are looking at $13,200 in tuition alone.

This is not only a burden for these students and their families – it will cost the state of California way down the line.

Prop 13

There were multiple factors that contributed to this, but I absolutely have to single out a really big one – Prop 13, passed in 1978. It decreased property taxes, and also put in place the two-thirds majority requirement to raise any taxes through the legislature. Wikipedia summarizes: “A large contributor to Proposition 13 was the sentiment that older Californians should not be priced out of their homes through high taxes. The proposition has been called the “third rail” (meaning “untouchable subject”) of California politics, and it is not popular politically for lawmakers to attempt to change it.” A couple of recent extraordinary things related to this:

• California voters passed Prop. 25, removing the two-thirds requirement and the budget passed on time for just the sixth time in 20 years. - TIME: California Miracle- On-time Budget!
• In August, LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called on the legislature to REFORM Prop. 13, calling it a “corporate tax giveaway.”

What now?

As Antonia Hernandez, head of the California Community Foundation, pointed out, a lot of the problems we have were good ideas at the time – we just live in a radically changed state now and need to update our laws and policies to reflect that, like, for instance, updating our tax code. Sexy stuff. Bill Lockyer, the state treasurer, raised a lot of the points below – and he should know, right?! I wouldn’t characterize the man as a fringe activist. Between all the panelists, there was actually quite a bit of agreement on what the problems are – not that they’ll be easy to fix.

I’ll provide a laundry list of issues, in no particular order:

Tax code

As Fred Keeley, County of Santa Cruz Treasurer, pointed out,  government has four types of taxes: property, bank and corporation, personal income and sales. Property taxes tend to be the most stable source of revenue, but not for California, because of Prop. 13. Right now, California relies heavily on capitol gains taxes and taxes on goods. That made sense when we use to make stuff, but we now have a service economy and there is no tax on service. It also means that when we had the Dot Com Boom, we were swimming in money (none of which we set aside for a rainy day), and now we’re doing terribly.

Term limits

Another one of those “seemed like a good idea at the time.” We thought we’d get some fresh faces in the legislature. Instead, term limits have made our state run even more by special interests and unelected staff because the legislators are mainly newbies who have no idea what they’re doing. Furthermore, since they always have to worry about their next election, they can’t focus on the job at hand.

Initiative process

Interesting historical note: California’s unusual initiative process, which allows any Californian to put an initiative on the ballot, was passed in 1911 to balance the power of the railroad men who were totally running the state. Yay, direct democracy! Downside, it turns out the ballot box is not the best way to make laws. The initiative process is now completely used by special interests. Basically, for two million dollars, you can hire those guys in the Safeway parking lot to hustle enough signatures to get anything on the ballot. A few more millions and you can get it passed. I wish the voters were smart enough to see through that, but, unfortunately, they have not been. Representative democracy wins.

Budget process

Getting rid of the two-thirds vote is a big deal and should help quite a bit. Other suggestions:

• Go to a two-year budget cycle for better planning
• Get rid of some of the past initiatives. Voter initiatives have so ham-strung the budget that the legislature only has discretion over 17% of the general fund. That’s so little flexibility that they couldn’t do anything even if they wanted to.

From the CA Forward People

If you’re really into this stuff, I’d suggest you look at more from California Forward .

Bring the government closer to the people

Another major effect of Prop. 13 that Fred Keeley, who is on the CAFWD board, highlighted was that it effectively demolished 60 percent of local government revenues overnight moving a lot of power to the state government. He argues that we should move more things back to the local government level because local governments are closer to the people on the ground and more responsive.

Outcome-based budgeting

Fred Keeley was also really into the idea of outcome-based budgeting. Rather than measuring “miles of road paved,” we should measure what we want to accomplish: Is our transportation system efficient? He also argued that government should be held accountable to those goals – if we gave you money in the last budget cycle, we review your results on your outcomes before automatically giving you more. This would be a pretty huge shift in the way government handles its funds.

Let’s pat ourselves on the back – we’ve already done something to improve these problems:

Redistricting

Back in the olden days (a few years ago), a bunch of Democratic and Republican legislators would get in a room and basically split up the state into solidly Dem and Rep districts where basically the party was guaranteed a win. I don’t know who thought letting legislators draw their own district lines was a good idea in the first place, but, fortunately, voters decided to put an end to this. We are now in wait and see mode to see whether the new districts drawn by a citizens redistricting panel will be any better and achieve our long-term goal of having a less partisan legislature – more moderate districts -> more moderate representatives. Cross your fingers.

Top-two primary

Last budget cycle (back when we had that two-thirds vote thing, so retro…), Abel Maldonado, a Republican legislator from Santa Barbara, basically held the entire legislature hostage and forced them to pass a process where, rather than the top Democrat and Republican going to the ballot, it would simply be the top two voter-getters in the primary – period. In theory, in areas that are heavily Republican, you would end up with two highly-competitive Republican candidates, maybe more moderate ones, rather than having a Democrat basically get a free spot. Or vice versa. Could have a big impact – we’ll see!

So there you have it, California-lovers. The way forward is clear! Well, not entirely, but it should be clear that inaction is not an option if you want California to be an awesome place for our kids and our kids’ kids. I’ll close with one last thing, if you’re wondering what you personally should actually do about all this (besides vote):

According to the 2010 CA Civic Health Index, Californians ranked 46th out of the 50 states on the question: “Do you discuss politics with family and friends?”

That seems like as good a place to start as any. So start talking!

My journeys in Latin America have not only exposed me to a ton of great food and super people – I also had the chance to listen to a ton of great music, much of which isn’t well-known among my people (AKA white American people). I think it’s time I start spreading the word.

I put together a playlist on Youtube for some passive listening – guaranteed to spice up your work day – and below are some notes about some of my favorite artists. I tried to pick one song for each, which was tough. If you like someone, go deep – all of these folks have tons of great music.

I’ve divided this into three sections. The first is music that, if it weren’t in Spanish, would be pretty similar to some of the great rock we have in English. This is an easy first step for gringos into a very deep pool. This is followed by musica tropical, which has a completely different flavor that is 100% Latin, but quite palatable to Americans. This is the stuff of salsa dance classes. This is followed by some extremely Mexican music that I now love, but that might take Americans a little while longer to learn to love…Enjoy!

Rock – Gateway Drugs

If you like rock in English, try rock en espanol! All these artists are so rocking, you either won’t care you don’t understand a word or you’ll be inspired to learn Spanish.

Sabanas Frias – Mana

I don’t care if they’re overplayed or too pop or they sold out or whatever else cool people complain about, I’ve loved Mana since the first time I heard any of their songs. I particularly love Sabanas Frias for the section where everything just breaks down into rhythm. I also never get tired of Oye mi Amor and Mariposa Traicionera…

A Dios Le Pido – Juanes

Juanes is a Colombian hit machine. I saw him in concert at the Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City – what a performer! Camisa Negra is probably his biggest hit, but I really like the words to this song, which is like a prayer: http://lyricstranslate.com/en/dios-le-pido-i-ask-god.html-0

Octavo Dia – Shakira

Pretend Waka Waka and She-Wolf never happened. I invite you to meet the Shakira I fell in love with in the early ‘90s. This video is conveniently subtitled so you can see the depth of the lyrics. Shakira in English will never equal the talent of her earlier music in Spanish.

Lamento Boliviano – Enanitos Verdes

The “green dwarves” are just simply a heck of a lot of fun and this song is a classic – “Here I am, drunk and crazy!”. If you like them, you’ll probably also dig los Hombres G.

Andar Conmigo – Julieta Venegas

Probably the best thing ever to come out of Tijuana. It was super tough picking a favorite song of hers – I also love Te Voy a Mostrar, El Presente, Limon y Sal and Eres Para Mi is super fun. If you like Julieta, you’ll also love…

Controlar – Ceci Bastida

Also from TJ, used to perform with Julieta and has a great, original style. Check out the full interview/performance with KCRW. http://www.kcrw.com/music/programs/mb/mb110111ceci_bastida

Eres – Cafe Tacuba

Another classic Mexican rock group, straight out of Mexico City. If you thought you’d gotten a grasp on this whole Spanish language thing, just watch Chilanga Banda and you’ll figure out pretty quick that Chilango is another language entirely.

Un, Dos, Tres, Go – Belanova

Yes, they’re muy pop, but they’re also super fun! And c’mon, Rosa Pastel has plenty of social commentary.

Frio – Ely Guerra

I’m probably not hip enough for Ely Guerra – she is just way too cool! Also, this song is ridiculously sexy, even beating Plastilina Mosh’s flirty Pervert Pop Song – “Punish me, I know I’ve been bad…” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN0u3mzAwj8

Agua – Jarabe de Palo

This song makes me cry – in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, if I hear it before work, driving around town, whenever. It’s beautiful and has such heart-felt lyrics. Here’s a version that conveniently shows the translation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAdAOm5YaJI

El Matador – Los Fabulosos Cadillacs

These are guys are super fun. I think Calaveras y Diablitos is the best song ever for cruising around town – it makes life seem like an absurd adventure.

Me Gustas Tu – Manu Chao

I have a minor in Latin American studies. Therefore I am, of course, a fan of Manu Chao, the ultimate darling of left-learning college kids with a thing for Latin America. He’s a hippie-ish nomad who sings in Spanish, English and French. This is the best song ever for people learning Spanish.

Tropical

First of all, I am not doing justice to la musica tropical here…Cuba alone could have its own category considering they invented salsa. If you love that Caribbean flavor, also try out some bachata and merengue from the Dominican Republic, cumbia from Colombia and maybe even some reggaeton (think Daddy Yankee “Gasolina”). You can find lots of great stuff listening to Batanga online radio: www.batanga.com/ or by going to a Zumba class near you!

Los Infieles – Aventura

My love of Aventura started as a guilty pleasure, but now I’m ready to own it. These guys make me swoon with their bachata. And artist who is still in the guilty category? Pitbull (Please pronounce this PEET-BUHL), though he really hit it home with Bon Bon.

Quizas, Quizas, Quizas – Ibrahim Ferrer & Omara Portuondo

I could have picked basically any song by Buena Vista Social Club to stand in for beautiful classic Cuban music. This is a double whammy since it’s a fantastic song performed by two fantastic artists. These two are part of the BV Club, but please go deep and listen to everything else they’ve ever done, their talent and presence are phenomenal.

La Vida es un Carnaval – Celia Cruz

INDOMITABLE. “Ay, there’s no need to cry, because life is a carnival,/ It’s more beautiful to live singing./Oh, Ay, there’s no need to cry, For life is a carnival/ And your pains can be alleviated through song.” – They can, if you’re singing, Celia. Celia also does a cover of “I will survive” that is as good as, if not better than, the original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoSCQWxyMTA

Crossing over…

Bidi Bidi Bom – Selena

Que descanse en paz. If you’ve seen the movie starring Jennifer Lopez, then you know Tejano superstar Selena was murdered by a crazy fan at the tender age of 23, a huge tragedy. Selena was one of the first Mexican artists to “cross-over” with her huge hit “I Could Fall in Love,” which is still getting play on the light rock stations. American people, it’s time for you to cross over the other way and recognize the amazingness of Selena. I picked this song so you could see her perform live. I also love Amor Prohibido – if you find yourself selecting Como la Flor at the next karaoke night, your conversion to Selena fandom will be complete.

Muy Mexicano

Some of Mexico’s most beloved artists…

El Rey – Vicente Fernandez

It’s appropriate that Vicente Fernandez’s most famous song has the lyrics “And I’m still the king.” You really are, Vicente. This man is a classic of Mexican ranchera music. Even if you don’t speak Spanish, I think you’ll find it hard not to sing along to “Volver Volver,” which is played without fail at every fiesta precisely at the moment that everyone has had one shot of tequila too many.

Los Dos Plebes – Los Tigres del Norte

This band is BEYOND HUGE in Mexico, but might not be terribly palatable to the American ear…You know when you hear Mexican guys blasting polka music out of their trucks?…yeah, it’s that music. Just give it a chance folks…And be sure to see Bajo la Misma Luna (Under the Same Moon), a great movie featuring a cameo from these guys. Another fun song of their’s – La Puerta Negra.

Tu Carcel – Marco Antonio Solis

Tu Carcel was the song that made Marco Antonio famous – Si No Te Hubieras Ido might be the one to make him immortal. This Michoacano turns out hit after hit after hit – I love that he’s got a mix of slow and high-energy songs – un gran artista!

Paloma Negra – Lila Downs

Lila Downs is a contemporary artist that sings really old, really Mexican songs. Beautiful music and I love the Oaxacan influence – check out her stunning clothes in this clip. I also love that her dad is an English-Scottish guy from Minnesota. Viva la fusion!

Rata de Dos Patas – Paquita La Del Barrio

Your man cheated on you? Coming off a rough break-up? The prescription for that is Paquita La Del Barrio. About 90% of her songs are about how men are complete heels. To quote this one “Rat with two paws – yes, I’m talking to you…Are you hearing me, you useless man?! How much I hate and despise you!”

Viva LA!

Just a quick shout-out to a couple of Latin-flavored acts out of LA – one veteran, the other up and coming.

Nadas Por Free – Ozomatli

Viva el Espanglish! These guys are just super energetic, wacky performers and muy LA. I find it entertaining that they were hired by the US government to be cultural ambassadors to locales in Asia and the Middle East – way to represent!

La Santa Cecilia

I think you have to see them live to really get how great these folks are. They do awesome Spanish covers…they also do the old-school Mexican stuff and maybe a little klezmer. What’s not to love? http://www.lasantacecilia.com/

Round 1: Baked goods

We may be off to a slow start here, folks. As we well know, baked goods are not a national strength for either of our two contenders today. US loses two points for plagiarism – pretty much all their baked goods were ripped off from Europe: croissants from France, strudel from Germany, donuts from…Dutch people? However, I’m hearing a counter- argument “Isn’t that the American way – taking the best every culture has to offer and making it our own?” The Dutch did this:

Americans somehow made it THIS:

Well-played, USA. Let’s turn our attention to the Mexican bakery. Two points for the interactive experience. Rather than pointing at things behind the counter, at the Mexican bakery, you grab a metal tray and tongs and grab everything that strikes your fancy and take it to the counter in the back. That’s great, but the selection is not…we’re getting a lot of booing from the Mexican fans, who are starting to chant: “Conchas, conchas, conchas…” The referee is conceding that conchas are pretty darn delicious, but everything else is pretty so-so…The Americans have brought up the Mexican chain: Los Bisquets Bisquets Obregon, pointing out that their “bisquets” are “weak sauce.”

Bisquets from Los Bisquets Bisquets

Referee has stated that the big, buttery, flaky traditional American biscuit is an estimated 10 times more delicious.

American biscuits

It’s not looking good for Mexico, but wait…what is this? It appears Mexico is bringing one last item to the table – is that a fresh CHURRO? Smothered in cinnamon and sugar?! Mexico appears to be breaking the churro in half…something is oozing out…that’s right, folks, the churro is filled with hot caramel sauce! This is going to be a tough round to call!

Churros filled with cajeta (caramel sauce)

Conclusion: Americans won’t get dinged on plagiarism since they took European baked goods to a new level – they get one point for sprinkle innovation and one point for baking powder biscuits. Mexico gets two points for interactivity, but loses two points on overall quality, regaining two points on the strength of churros alone. That’s right, folks – we have a draw.

USA: 2

Mexico: 2

Round 2: Beverages

The US opens the round by putting it all out there…and it appears that all they have is coffee and fresh-squeezed orange juice, not a strong start…Mexico points out that they actually get to keep coffee since they grew the beans. Excellent point. However, for being a coffee-producing country, they sure drink a lot of instant Nescafe – ouch! Then again, so does the American midwest….what’s that? Did I hear cafe de olla? One point for Mexico in coffee-brewing style points – brewing coffee in a mega pot with cinnamon and sugar was a brilliant idea. We’re getting some whispering from the Americans – one word, “Starbucks.” Well-played, USA! Two points for gourmet coffee chain domination! Mexico is taking the hit – they appear to be admitting they can’t deny their intense love of Starbucks.

Starbucks Coffee in San Miguel de Allende in central Mexico

Mexico appears to be reaching deep for this next hit…CHAMPURRADO!

The Americans tried to answer that with…

Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate Mix with Mini-Marshmallows

Are you kidding me, America? One point for marshmallow innovation, but Abuelita kills Swiss Miss any day, much less bona fide homemade champurrado!

Grandma is smiling because she knows she can kick that little Swiss girl's butt any day

America is faltering, but Mexico does not appear to be backing down. They’re going in for the lethal blow…Fresh-squeezed juices including el vampiro and jugo anti-gripal (anti-flu juice)!

Mexican Juice Stand

Jugo Vampiro/Vampire Juice: Mix of beet, celery, orange juice

Jugo Antigripal/Anti-flu juice: Mix of lime, orange, guava, pineapple and honey

That’s it, folks, America is down and doesn’t appear to be getting up!

Conclusion: US gets two points for Starbucks, Mexico racks up points with cafe de olla and champurrado, garnering two more points for their outrageous selection of fresh-squeezed juices, and they didn’t even have to pull licuados out of their sleeve!

US: 2

Mexico: 4

Round 3: Main dish

It has been a knock-down, drag-out fight so far. It’s a hard one to call at this point…Main dishes are America’s strength, but the Americans team admit they don’t really know what Mexicans eat for breakfast. Will their hubris and ignorance be their undoing?

America opens the round – they are holding up a picture of American folk hero, Paul Bunyan, and daring Mexico to come up with a breakfast big enough to feed him.

Paul Bunyan: American folk hero and big eater

An interesting approach – America could have come out on the quality of its offerings, but they appear to think they’ll dominate based on serving size alone. Those ARE some pretty huge flapjacks!

Obesity epidemic? What obesity epidemic?

Average American Breakfast

The Mexican team looks slightly shocked, and possibly a bit disgusted…but they are quickly regrouping…Their answer – that staple of American breakfast menus everywhere – Huevos Rancheros!

Huevos Rancheros

It looks like it’s coming to blows…America answers with: Biscuits and gravy!

Biscuits and gravy

Mexico: Chilaquiles!

Chilaquiles: Fried tortilla dunked in red or green sauce, with eggs or chicken on top, plus sour cream and cheese

America: Pancakes with real maple syrup!

Pancakes/Flapjacks, known in Mexico as: "Panqueques"

Mexico: Tamales!

Tamales...for breakfast?!! Simon!

The American team has a question for the judge – it appears they did not know you can eat tamales for breakfast in Mexico…that threw them for a loop…We didn’t catch their other question, but they seem to have regrouped and have a response…Denny’s Grand Slam!

Denny's Grand Slam

A new tactic – we thought they might present egg dishes and bacon separately, but they seem to be trying to overwhelm Mexico with the ultimate breakfast combo, at prices that can’t be beat…

Mexico: Machaca con huevos!

The Americans look really confused – they clearly did not fully investigate their competition – one of the Americans appears to be looking up machaca on his cell phone. For our viewers, machaca is dried beef, which may sound a bit peculiar, but we can confirm that it is indeed delicious. How will the Americans answer that one?

America: Breakfast burrito!

The Breakfast burrito: Origins unclear, Genius unquestioned

Wait a second! Are the Americans attempting to claim the breakfast burrito? Is that not Mexican food? We have a debate starting to emerge…The referee is asking for clarification about what exactly the Americans are talking about…it appears their point of reference is the Jack in the Box breakfast burrito, made with sausage, American cheese and hash browns. The Mexicans have confirmed that they disown that concoction. They are smiling and laughing – they clearly don’t think they need this one in order to win…The Americans are retracting the breakfast burrito and substituting the: Egg McMuffin!

Egg McMuffin

Mexico answers with: Huevos a la Mexicana with a side of chorizo!

Mexican-style egg scramble with tomato, onion and jalapeno

Mexico seems to be running out of options…their team is discussing some regional specialities for its next move…The Americans are clearly seeing an opportunity to secure their domination here, they are conferring with the ref….they are stepping out with:

Brunch!

Brunch: You cannot resist its charms

The audience is confused…Many Mexicans do not appear to be familiar with brunch…we have a debate between the judges about whether brunch is an off-shoot of breakfast or another meal entirely. The Americans are being asked to clarify what they mean by brunch. They have put up a definition on the main screen:

Brunch = all-you-can-eat buffet of traditional American breakfast foods + seafood buffet with crab and shrimp cocktails + eggs benedict + quiche + Bagels and creamcheese with lox + baked goods + mimosas + Bloody Marys

WOW! America is throwing down! But it’s not clear if this is entirely legal…folks, we can’t call it – it is going to a vote of the people – Post your votes in the comments section below or on my Facebook wall. Who will prevail?!!

Don't let those alcoholic breakfast beverages addle your mind!

From an article I wrote for the college magazine - Click to read it.

I came up with the title to this blog post and it sounds pretty good, very authoritative, yet still personal. I would like to read this post very much. Unfortunately, I’m supposed to be writing it and I’m not getting very far.

First of all, I’m completely unqualified to be dishing out advice (not that that’s ever stopped anyone). I studied abroad in Habana, Cuba for precisely one semester in the spring of 2004, going with a group of about 25 students from my school, Lewis and Clark College, led by one of our professors, and we took classes and lived on the campus of the Instituto Superior del Arte. It was a short experience, but one that personally impacted me a lot.

That said, I feel like I was in Cuba so briefly and that I would need to be there for years and years to be worthy of saying a lot about it. Not to mention that there have been a few minor changes since I left – for instance, Fidel is no longer Comandante-in-chief. However, a good friend of mine is moving to Cuba in a less than a month, to attend medical school and I’d like to be able to offer her more than “!Que Tengas un Buen Viaje!” Well, Nora, this is all I have for you. Maybe some others out there can put in their two cents on the advice column.

At first, you won’t understand what’s going on because you don’t speak Cuban Spanish. Then you won’t get what’s going on because you just won’t.

Cuban Spanish is way different than the Mexican Spanish that we’re used to here on the west coast – different slang, different pronunciation (talk two times faster and drop half the letters in every word and you’ll be well on your way). Ultimately, it’s not just the Spanish though – it’s the entire world view and, indeed, the entire world around you and the rules that govern it that are different.

In Cuba, every day is the DMV.

Americans hate the DMV. You don’t get good customer service, it’s unclear what rules govern the place and you easily might spend an hour in line, just to reach a bitter mid-level bureaucrat who tells you you have the wrong paper and have to go stand in another line. Nothing makes sense. It doesn’t matter how much money or power you may have outside the DMV – they won’t help you once you pass through those doors.

Get zen.

Americans, and especially American Protestants (I would argue) have an incessant can-do attitude. Sure, we ask God for help, but we largely count on ourselves to do the work. We believe we can bend the world to our will and that all problems can ultimately be solved with enough hard work (or by thinking the right thoughts for all you New Age “The Secret” devotees). Maybe that is true in America, but Protestant Christianity is little comfort in a place like Cuba.

Catholics are a little better off – more primed to accept “the things we cannot change.” They have a million saints to pray to for relief, hopeful of a miracle, but are emotionally prepared for the worst. When I was in Cuba, I became convinced that the God I knew didn’t actually have any control over the island – that the orishas had control and they were completely capricious and unpredictable – like a bunch of two-year-olds.

Although santeria, with a dash of Catholicism, is the primary religion in Cuba, I would actually offer up Buddhism as the religion most suited to life there. Buddhism teaches that happiness depends on detaching yourself from all material wants – that’s a good attitude in a place that has trouble reliably getting vegetables from inland to the city and where various imported items might not be available for weeks on end and the phones and electric lights don’t always work. Whatever is getting your goat, the answer is: RADICAL ACCEPTANCE.

Lose yourself, but don’t lose yourself.

I went to Cuba when I was 21 years old. That’s a dangerous age – you’re half-baked at best, still impressionable and malleable. Life is just one big identity crisis. I’d like to go back to Cuba now that I’m at least a little more sure of myself, though I wonder if I’m already starting to shut myself off to life-shattering experiences.

Learning another language means learning another way of seeing the world. It changes your brain so that you learn to hold inside yourself two equal, but often contradictory truths at the same time. It can really mess you up at first, but I guess you get used to it. So lose yourself, but don’t lose yourself. That’s my double-truthed, contradictory advice for you, mi amiga. If it doesn’t make sense and you find yourself getting frustrated, please refer to points 1-3.

For more fun: This was an article I contributed to our college alumni magazine about our experiences in Cuba. Featuring a photo of me in a really large hat.

Model of San Carlos Borromeo, posted by dlofink on Flickr – See the full gallery of his students’ models. Please note that even if this post calls for eliminating the mission model project, these models are still pretty awesome.

Knowing how the missions were built is, indeed, the least interesting thing about them – who build them and why is the story that is really worth learning. For example, when I was a docent at the San Francisco de Solano Mission in my hometown, Sonoma, I could have casually mentioned that the original chapel stood on western side of the four-sided complex. The more interesting tidbit that it was burned down by Native Americans revolting against Father Altimira’s tyrannical rule (yes, the man for whom one of Sonoma’s middle schools is named). My favorite thing about history is that it’s surprising – shocking even. You would think that historians would really have this pinned down by now, that we would know definitively everything that every happened and why. The reality is that the past is as expansive as the future. If you ask the question: “What really happened?” you can spend a lifetime chasing the answer.

I love California history because it is practically a telenovela – full of unexpected twists and turns and lots of crazy characters. To that end, I’d like to take all of you back to fourth grade and share some of the things you should have learned when you were instead gluing together sugar cubes and spray-painting macaroni. (If you were wondering what you were supposed to learn, please refer to History and Social Science Standard 4.2 on Page 13. Note that “Students must be able to build a scale model of a mission” is not indeed a standard. If anyone has insight into the origins of this tradition, please let me know!)

California was not empty.
It’s hard to say exactly, but there it has been estimated there were more than 200,000 Native Americans speaking more than 100 languages living in California when colonizers started showing up. You think our state is diverse today?!
Back then, everyone wanted a piece of California. The first explorers to land in California hailed from various world powers – England, Spain, Russia…Those countries’ rulers were doing anything they could to get a foothold and get control of California’s abundant resources. Spain’s approach was to found missions, with military outposts alongside them, which were supposed to become fully functioning towns.

The mission fathers were benevolent AND cruel.
It’s hard to make a broad generalization about an entire group of people. First and foremost, remember that these priests were political operatives, tasked with turning Native Americans into Spanish-speaking, Catholic citizens of the crown. They grew so powerful that the Spanish crown eventually expelled all the Jesuits from the new world, secularizing the church’s assets.
That said, they were on the front lines and anyone well knows that things look different from the frontier than they do from headquarters. I won’t discount the good works that individual priests did in their mission communities or the advocacy of those like Spanish priest Bartolome de las Casas, who was one of the few people at the time who chronicled and protested the mistreatment of Native Americans. But the priests were also spreading and perpetuating a system that did tremendous harm to California native peoples and that, too, cannot be discounted.

The Native Americans got the raw end of pretty much every deal.
If you think that slaves in the south liked having a master, then maybe you also like to imagine that the missions were happy-go-lucky places and the Native Americans were always thrilled to be there. The treatment of Native Americans is one element of mission history that is probably most disputed and I would encourage you to read different perspectives, but if the only one you’ve heard is “Spanish priests were doing God’s work to save the souls of the Natives and give them food and shelter,” please dig deeper.
Yes, many Native Americans signed up at the missions by choice. However, once baptized, they did not have the choice of leaving and were forcefully kept there and even hunted down if they ran away.
There were a lot of different factors at play – this was a period of huge change. One factor that drove Native Americans into the mission system was that the Spanish introduced livestock to California, which had a huge impact on the environment that Native Americans relied upon for their traditional hunting and gathering. There was also the devastating impact of disease, made worse by the concentration of the population at the missions, which helped disease spread more quickly. The Native American population dropped by an estimated 90 percent during this period. Please try to imagine 90 percent of the people you know dying.
Apart from life under the mission system, the period that followed was possibly worse (refer to the novel, Ramona, which is California’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin). Once most Native Americans were fully dependent on the mission economies they had build up through their labor, the Mexican government decided to secularize the missions. There was talk of splitting the land among the neophytes, but ultimately most of it went to powerful and wealthy men and the Native Americans were thrown out with nothing and ended up having to work on the new ranchos.

If you thought the Spanish and Mexicans were bad…
The Americans soon proved to be just as bad, if not worse, in their treatment of the Native Americans. Spain at least had the stated goal of preparing Native Americans to be citizens with full rights. The United States had no such intention. With the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the Mexican-American War, the United States took over many of the former mission properties, generally didn’t recognize the land titles held by Native Americans and put the reservation system in place.

This is far from a definitive account of the history of the California missions, but I hope it spurs you to visit a mission near you and find out more. And when your child’s fourth grade teacher demands you spend your weekend building a model of a mission, I suggest you take your cue from the mission Indians and revolt.

Hanging out senior year at Sonoma Valley High School

I recently went to my high school’s ten year reunion. There is something decisive about a decade. I am no longer just a few years out of high school, no longer just a few years out of college and thirty is coming up fast. You can’t help but get to thinking, “What have I been doing with myself?” Or the more dangerous version that can easily devolve into self-loathing angst, “What have I accomplished in life?”

I blame Oprah. She always makes me feel not only like I could be doing better, but that, indeed, it’s 100 percent on me. I just need to think positive and put my mind to it! So far, I’ve decided to stop reading magazine features about the “Hot 30 under 30,” which seems to be helping.

With the reunion as a resounding reminder that the years really have marched by, I’m thinking back for the first time on the entire sweep of my life since high school.

I stopped keeping a diary in high school. I was wise enough at that age to look at the things I was writing down and to see that they would mortify me years down the road. Without a written record, it’s easier to pretend we were bigger people than we really were, that we didn’t spend hours mooning over some doofy little boy who didn’t even know we existed and wasn’t worth the pain anyway. There are some things worth forgetting.

Right now, I’m trying to remember what it was like to be eighteen. I have to remind myself how little I really knew back then. My world was very small – Portland seemed like a big, exotic city to my eighteen-year-old self. Among the things I was exposed to in that first year of college were: vegans, gay people, sushi, organic gardening, skinny-dipping, bone-dry cappuccinos, tofu, bluegrass music, pot, microbrewed beer, dumpster diving, Critical Mass, carbon emission credits, Islam, hookahs, and cross-country skiing. I also got my first email address. And that was just year one!

I loved those college years so much because, like high school, there were clear rules for success. I worked hard in my classes, studied, listened and asked questions and, in turn, I got good grades and honors on my thesis. However, the moment I graduated, the idea that life made sense and there is a clear formula for success, indeed a clear definition for success, was completely upended. I was thrown into a full-blown panic about what to do with my life. I would literally wake up at three in morning in sheer terror that if I didn’t do well at my current unpaid internship, I would undoubtedly fail in life and never get a fulfilling, paying job and, also, I would probably never find a boyfriend. I sent out resume after resume and penned a million cover letters. Everything I’d learned in 22 years didn’t count for much.

I don’t know what you could say I really learned in college. Really, the biggest decision I made was that I left home. That decision to leave my comfort zone was the one that made the difference. I would continue to make that same decision over and over again – when I studied in Cuba instead of Spain. When I left my job as a reporter to travel in New Zealand and then move to Mexico City. When I stopped writing for a living, the only work I’d ever known, and started renting warehouses to Mexican businessmen. When I followed love to move to yet another new city and start my life all over again, this time in Los Angeles, working for a state senator.

Living it up in high school yearbook class

But that’s just me being writerly and giving my life a logic, after the fact. At the time, I had some vague goals. I had some notions of where I wanted to go, and I considered myself ambitious, but those goals kept changing as I learned more and saw how the world around me was changing, which is why my 18-year-old self would probably be pretty disappointed in where I am now. In a quiz I filled out the summer after senior year, my answer to “What do you want to be when you grow up?” was “Really cool.” According to my younger brother, I’ll never achieve that one.

The goal that I have the hardest time letting go of, and haven’t really let go of, to be completely honest, was my high school dream of being an investigative reporter. I wanted to be Lois Lane, or better yet, Bob Woodward. I wanted to blow the top off this whole thing – to be the voice of the voiceless, to speak truth to power and wield my pen like the sword of justice. Instead, I watched the media industry implode and changed my goal from being a foreign correspondent for the New York Times to being “paid enough money to live.” There’s no quick way to describe the deep sense of loss, but also the blossoming of possibility I’ve felt observing and participating in the changes in the media  industry over the past decade. I still play tug-of-war in my mind over whether I wisely saw the writing on the wall and adapted to survive or gave up on my dream too soon. I usually placate myself by concluding that I may still be able to achieve this goal; it just won’t take the form I thought it would when I was 18.

So here I am at 28, taking stock of my life. I support myself entirely, working as a communications director for a non-profit. I live in a cute, little one-bedroom with a patio in Los Angeles and I have a car. I blog and take photos. I assist my boyfriend with his  special event photography and video business. I speak Spanish, another one of those goals I had as a teenager. I am still friends with lots of people that I’ve always been friends with and I’ve picked up some other cool people along the way. I don’t know if my 18-year-old self would meet me now and pronounce me “really cool” or be secretly disappointed. But my current 28-year-old self would say that life is pretty good, and that’s more than good enough for me. After all, I still have 12 years to make the “Hot 40 Under 40.”

***

A big special thank you to my friend, Lizzy Acker, who was my editor for this post. Can you believe that all this time I’ve just been posting things straight out of my head with no editor?!! Thank goodness for Lizzy, who is not only cool, but a bona fide published author!!

This would be shocking to most Angelenos, but between the ages of 0-22, I only met and got to know three black people. Then again, my boyfriend, who grew up in LA, admitted to me that I’m the first white person he’s ever gotten to know very well. He whipped out his year book – there were literally no more than a dozen white people in the whole school.

So why am I getting so pensive about this? Actually, it’s because I found something funny and then started to wonder if my friends would think it was funny too. I was phone banking for LAUSD school board candidate Luis Sanchez and I picked up one of his flyers. I’ll let you take a look:

For how many years, have we all joked about how political campaigns are always ridiculous in their heavy-handed attempt at total diversity – there’s always a token black person, a token old person, a token Asian person, a token person in a wheel chair…Well, my friends, the day has arrived – we now have the token white person.

I’ll close this out with a quote from Glee’s Sue Sylvester: “I love minorities. In fact, I love them so much I’m thinking about moving to California so I can become one.”

Now, I agree with Jamie. I too am all about fresh, healthy, organic, locally-sourced food. I grew up in Sonoma, a bastion of back-to-the-land foodie culture if there ever was one, not to mention I put in several years in Portland surrounded by vegetarians, vegans, freegans and the odd fruititarian. That said, I no longer live there.

I now live in a majority Mexican neighborhood, within a short drive of Monterey Park, a diverse Asian community. Which is to say, I have to go out of my way to buy hummus. However, I have no problem getting a wide variety of great produce, any cut of meat and practically any ingredient needed for any ethnic cuisine. The issue is fish.

For Christmas, I got Jamie’s book “Cook with Jamie: My Guide to Making You a Better Cook.” I was particularly excited by the sections on fish and meat since I’m not particularly adept at preparing either of these, nor do I know anything about how to select the right items at the market. I realized Jamie is from another planet when I reach the section: “At the Fishmonger’s.” I have never seen a fishmonger in my life, which will probably make it tough for me to befriend him and call him in the morning to check on the latest catch. So I moved on to the other tips.

Fresh fish shouldn’t smell fishy.

Ranch 99, the massive Asian supermarket, has a vast selection of fish. That said, the entire place reeks of fish – all the way over to the produce on the opposite side of the store. I’m not sure about the particular fish I’m considering buying because the stench of fish is overpowering me as I sniff it. Is that a bad sign?

The eyes should be clear, bright and shiny.

One day I was at Ranch 99, when suddenly there was a stampede. I had a pretty great view, since I am a full head taller than all other people in Monterey Park, which would be awesome if there were more rock concerts over here. I realized one of the guys had just popped out with an enormous tub of live fish that he dumped into a vat in the aisle. People went CRAZY, grabbing the wiggling fish and wrangling them into their bags. Confirmed: the eyes were bright and shiny. On the down side, they were all gone by the time I got up there. Jamie, you might want to add a tip about the need to be assertive and not hesitate to use your elbows in the quest for fresh seafood.

If there are sustainability issues with a particular fish, it’s probably a good idea to use something similar in its place.

Since going to Monterey Bay Aquarium years ago, I’ve been carrying their Seafood Watch Guide in my wallet. Talk about buzz kill. Mercury in tuna!? Overfishing of Chilean sea bass!? Will it never end?! This guide has a bajillion varieties of fish in it – however, it was no match for the staggering selection at Ranch 99. There were varieties that I googled that only came up on the some sort of international fishing website that sounded like it was written by the CIA.

I mapped it. Click here to see all the varieties available on an average day.

I was able to pretty conclusively decide that farmed anything wasn’t going to cut it and imported was generally a hit against it. That left me with U.S. wild…fish paste. It looked like quivering gray mass of fish-based jello. And no-go on the salmon, usually my staple. At the end of the day, the only two items I could decisively conclude met sustainability standards were the lobsters and crabs. So I guess I’ll be eating like a queen…

So, Jamie, I could definitely use a hand over here pinning down this fishmonger business. I know you’ve been slumming in LA lately, so I’m not asking you to take a transatlantic flight or anything. Those westsiders you’ve been hanging with will probably not actually be able to locate my neighborhood. Just go east. You’ll know when you get there. I’ll treat you to a taco – and a boba tea.