by Ken O'Steen
By morning, the drizzle had changed to sprinkles. The first look out of the window before making coffee revealed an ocean that surely enough was choppier than it had been on the day before. Lila turned the television on, and I went outside to fetch the paper while the coffee brewed. As bona fide members of the leisure class, the LA Times now was delivered to our doorstep. This day it came provided with a plastic package that protected it from the rain. I expected the plastic, and the spritz I took on my face when I retrieved it would become standard fare for a while to come.
I methodically disassembled the paper on top of the bed as Lila sampled the spectrum of channels. She stopped momentarily on the show, “The View,” where the female Gang of Five appeared to be gang-neutering Sylvester Stallone with love.
“Local news,” I admonished Lila. She scanned the local channels, finding that none of them were running a newscast at that precise moment. An examination of the Guide Channel revealed the local news would hit the air on Channel Seven in twenty minutes. The wait seemed to drive Lila to more manic channel-flipping behavior than normal, and the speed of her dance across the tube-light fantastic of the cable dial brought my head up from the day’s Sports.
At MSNBC, the first juncture where we rested, an official of the Indian government was discussing the export of raw opium products from legal poppy growers in three designated provinces in India, for the making of morphine, codeine and other products, as well as the efforts by the Indian government to stop poachers from encroaching in those fields, or taking them over in order to divert poppies to be used for making heroin. The official was asked by the interviewer about the “seepage, or rather flooding” of legal opiates into the illegal market, and the futility of terminating distribution of the illegal forms. Though the official was speaking English I translated his answer as approximately, “In order to succor your misery or to ease your pain, it is important to contract the proper affliction. Narcotizing in the service of increasing the tax base is no vice. Narcotizing without kicking in to the kitty is no virtue.”
Moving along to Headline News we discovered a gentleman wearing sunglasses, and a canary sports jacket sitting on a sofa in his living room. While he talked, one could read the crawl at the bottom of the screen relaying to the audience that the man, of the Christian Science faith, remained blind, rather than undergo surgery needed to restore his sight. Having landed at Court TV we lingered long enough to ascertain that the “legal expert” speaking, was describing the salient events of the day in the litigation of a lawsuit brought about, when a woman riding a ride at Magic Mountain sustained catastrophic damage to her brain, though the ride itself did not malfunction.
When we came to a stop on the Animal Planet, I felt a little more at home. A behavioral psychologist and a veterinarian were making a highly persuasive case for animals being more trustworthy and reliable than human beings. Very quickly I was nodding with approval. I was taken aback only when a literary allusion was made, to a quote from Milan Kundera of all things: "True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists in its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals.”
After Lila successfully flipped us over to CNN she got up to refill her cup, providing the opportunity for remaining in a single cable niche beyond a minute or two. There, I listened to a man of nineteen describe his excitement at the response to the Initial Public Offering of his company, an online cappuccino delivery service. Awaiting his answer to consecutively posed questions regarding his plans for the future, and his net worth, the nipples of the questioner appeared to harden. One might have regarded her as a surrogate for the audience itself, a Nips Populi, if you will.
Lila returned, and after the ensuing flip, we remained with BET long enough to get the gist of a screed by a representative of an inner city community group, about the selling of very expensive sneakers bearing the names of, or promoted by, or worn by star players, in particular, the way fighting over the shoes and the stealing of them contributed to “the epidemic of youth violence.” He said he loved the stars, hated the shoes.
Even though Lila picked up her speed again, we spent enough quality time at our next stop to get to know a couple in identical flannel shirts strolling the grounds of a frame house, and pointing out, “OUR deck,” “OUR garden,” and “OUR gazebo,” while also promising to instruct members of the audience in a series of programs in weeks to come how to make, “YOUR gazebo” resemble “OUR gazebo.”
“It’s time,” I said to Lila, meaning time for the news to begin to air on Channel Seven.
“I’m on it,” she said. Once a man dressed in the costume of the Terminator screaming at the top of his lungs about delivery of new Toyotas was finished, there appeared, as we were told, a “live shot” of the Santa Monica Pier in the falling rain. A view of the Santa Monica Pier was a staple of the weather segment. There seemed to be a tacit contract with the viewer, that should a storm arrive someday, it would cause the Ferris wheel seen in all those shots to be blown away from its moorings, to go whizzing across Ocean Front, and over PCH, leave Palisades Park with a swath of destruction, and go bounding into the Third Street Promenade for a final rolling and tumbling strike of magnificent devastation. Stay tuned to Channel Seven.
The first words to be sounded were, “It doesn’t look all that bad now, but in southern California, get ready for Giorgio.” The anchors quickly passed the audience, like a searing potato, over to the weather guy. He stood in front of the Big Map, a large, ominous swirly planted off the coast, and monumental L’s stationed to the north and east.
“Giorgio, formerly a hurricane, downgraded to a tropical storm as it made its way across the southern part of Mexico, upgraded back to hurricane status south of Baha, until, after moving north, and losing intensity, it was downgraded to a tropical storm again, and finally to a plain old storm as it stationed itself off the coast of southern California, has now been upgraded to tropical storm status once again, its winds clocking at about fifty-two miles per hour”
“At the same time, we see here,” he said as he pointed, “this storm is sitting about smack dab over Riverside, producing two to three inches of rain already in the Inland Empire, depending on the exact location. This storm also is feeding additional moisture into Giorgio.”
“As THIS storm,” pointing again, this time higher on the map, “coming down from the north, slides southeastward, down through California, bringing its counter-clockwise upper level winds, rather than butting against Giorgio off the coast, it’s expected to have the effect of holding Giorgio in place, where it is now, allowing the tropical storm to intensify and finally, as this storm,” doing more pointing, “eventually pulls completely off to the east, nudging Giorgio very near the coast, with about a fifty-fifty chance it will make landfall on the coast of southern California.”
“Holy fuck,” Lila responded.
My response was the more prosaic, “Fuck.”
“This means,” our forecast provider continued, “a strong possibility of hurricane force winds in the coastal regions, and throughout the Los Angeles basin. Folks along the coast can expect storm tides and coastal flooding…we may see swells as large as twenty or thirty feet. Right now, we’re expecting Giorgio to reach the status of a Level One hurricane, the smallest on the scale…but that’s plenty strong enough, folks…with winds at 74 miles per hour or stronger. It isn’t inconceivable that Giorgio could become a Category Two storm, if its wind speeds manage to reach as high as ninety-six miles per hour or stronger, though that isn’t considered a high probability at the current time.”
“By tomorrow, we should see a conspicuous increase in wind velocity all up and down the coast, and rain moderate to intermittently heavy. Right now, it looks as though the storm wil
l get its closest to the shore, or make landfall if that turns out to be the case sometime late in the day Thursday, or Thursday night. It’s impossible to pinpoint with a great deal of accuracy, but landfall should occur somewhere in the large area between Laguna and Zuma Beach…right now, the highest probability is in the area of Pacific Palisades.”
“What do you think we should do? Lila asked.
“Buy vodka.”
“Seriously. And food?”
“Why not.”
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