Category: social commentary

CSI Is Just Another TV Show In Los Angeles

The public sure loves its true crime stories.  The public also loves television shows that approximate true crime, like CSI, which most know stands for Crime Scene Investigation.   The CBS Television Network programs CSI in a number of cities.   The cities range from New York, Las Vegas, Miami, but not Los Angeles.

The show is produced from Los Angeles, but any producer who chooses to approximate a true crime cop show, using LA as the background, better move the bar that much further from fact toward fiction.   The same my hold true for New York, Miami and the other cities where the show is located as well.   The intrepid cops who solve these difficult cases my in reality be confronting the hardships and obstacles found in the Los Angeles labs.

In Los Angeles, cases are severely backlogged, there is gross mismanagement and alleged lack of supervision  in the divisions responsible for both the fingerprint samples and the DNA.   There is a stuff shortage, a misplacement of specimens.   Court cases are backlogged and trials are often delayed.  There are inaccuracies and errors.  Critics claims the LA Police Department has no plan as to how to rectify this grievous series of foul ups.

The century old wonder of the fingerprint is somewhat of a fallacy.   The crime scene unit investigators are only able to recover fingerprints from any one of the 2,400 annual crimes scenes about 60% of the time.   And then when the files, or fingerprints, are misplaced, the adeptness and fortitude we admire on on CSI, the TV Show is lost in CSI, the reality.

As far as DNA is concerned, there are about seven thousand cases where the specimens are backlogged.   To be kind the Lab personnel is extremely understaffed.   The City lacks the money and he people to conduct what most would deem truly efficient investigations.   With forthcoming budget cuts, the rather dire conditions that have been reported in the Los Angeles Times among other places, may not be getting any better.

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I realize that it is tough to be a cop.  It is tough to be a police lab technician in a large city where despite all reverie that violent crime has gone down there is still plenty to go around.  Yes, it’s tough to be a cop and it is tough to be the lab technician.   But it’s a lot tougher to be a crime victim.

Crime victims expect justice.   They should get it.  Often they don’t.  Los Angeles has seen more than a few cases where hte obviously guilty were set free.  In some cases they were free to do it again.   But with crime victims there is a need to believe in some criminal and societal code.  A moral and ethical code where the powers that be will do their very best to bring the criminal to justice.

Increasingly, we see their very best is lacking.   Their very best isn’t even good.   So when you are a victim of rape and you are looking for justice, for some form of retribution that will at least in some small way alleviate the shock and terror you have experienced, along with injury to body and psyche, you expect to encounter the long arm of the law and not delays and excuses.

Which makes this all worse I fear is that with the economic downturn crime and unemployment are among the few things that will rise.   People get desperate and even the more restrained and less violent of criminals may be prompted to commit violent criminal acts.   The streets will be more dangerous, and the criminals will know by the time the labs get around to retrieving their DNA and fingerprint samples they could possibly die of old age.

After the collapse of our economy , for those of you who can’t experience one more shock and disillusionment,  keep your eyes on CSI.  It’s a better world on your flat screen TV.

Beware! Female Sex Addicts Are Lurking Among Us

There is a vintage Steven Sills song.  It is called “Love the One You’re With.”  That seemed like wise words in earlier days when not only the more responsible among us but even the young had less concerns.   Today there are many things to fear, from food additives to terrorists.   You can catch every kind of disease, including some we never heard of.   So it’s hard sometimes just to have sex with someone you like, yet alone love the one you’re with.

Nevertheless, sex addiction is on the rise.  Or so they say, whoever “they” are.  I always suspect the “they’s” in this case are the ones promoting a new fear and making money from it by exploiting the susceptible.  Hey, if you can sell drugs for “Restless Leg Syndrome,” you can hold therapy sessions to cure people from wanting too much sex.   I know people who it seems the notion of sex never seems to cross their minds anymore.  Either they have given up or gotten realistic.  Or don’t know the difference.   It’s hard to say.  But I digress.

Back to the rising tide of sex addiction.    Turns out women are sex addicts as well as men.  There’s a revelation for you.   Not quite the Rapture, but nevertheless I’ll give you time to absorb it.  Women chasing around in search of wanton, mindless sex.    Whew!  How could they?

What’s more, the number of  female sex addicts is rising.  Whether the figures are on the increase or more women want this sort of attention is hard to say.    Perhaps by surrendering yourself to therapy as the great wanton hussy, you can achieve recognition for being sexual.     Or you can meet some cute guys with the same ideas.  I don’t know   But, yes, according to a recent article in the London Times women can be prone to sex addiction right along with men.

According to the article, thirty percent of the people being treated for sex addiction are female.   Not exactly a fifty-fifty proposition but notable just the same.  One woman talks about her longest romantic relationship lasting all of three months.  Other women talk about the need for intimacy, to be accepted, to be perceived as attractive.   Some talk about the romance and fantasy, the thrill of the hunt.  You know, what we typically call men stuff.

A noted writer, Susan Cheever, just wrote a book about her own sex addiction.   The book is called,  Desire: Where Sex Meets Addiction, for those who are interested.  Cheever’s father was iconic author John Cheever who it appears struggled with his own sexual behavior.   So then the question arises–is sexual addiction much like drug addiction or alcoholism?  Is it something that is passed down from one generation to another?

One must wonder if addictive personality is passed through the genes.   Sometimes it will manifest itself in the similar practices of one’s parents.   Sometimes the children will find a new channel and take their addictive personality down a new road of dependency.  Or they pair them up–alcoholism, drug and sex addiction– the Dependency Combo.  A Deli Special sandwich.    Hold the pickle.  This is all conjecture, but it seems to bear out in most cases.

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A woman has needs.  A man had needs.   A man can fulfill these needs, as Lenny Bruce once wrote, by screwing wet sand.   Anything that has intercourse with wet sand is not someone easily reasoned with.  They have an urge and they respond.  Esteem issues may enter into it.  But then again, that would give men more credit for their sexual consciousness than may ever be necessary.  Or realistic.

Women on the other hand think about it differently.   Most women.   But then there are women who are just horny as hell and just want hot sex, a shower and the time to move on down the line.   It is safe to say that they have dated.   They didn’t like what they found.   They were looking for romance and found eels in suits and jeans instead.   Or they found love and were bitterly disappointed.

Whatever their story, now they want to get their rocks off.   Perhaps it is vindication.  It may be affirmation of their good looks.   It may be a snatch at the gold ring of fantasy.   You read enough romance novels and you got to at least once try to put it into practice.   In any event, for one reason or another, there are women in this world who have decided they would rather have sex with anyone than sit and home eating ice cream and watching romantic movies that remind them of what  they are missing in life.

There are women out there who just don’t care.   They don’t want intimacy.  They want sex.  They want to get off not buy into someone else’s fantasy.   These are the type of women we love to disparage.   Some of us wish to disparage.  Others wonder where are they and what are they doing on this Saturday night?  Do you have their number?

I guess the main thing about addiction is not whether it is in control.  Addiction by its name means you are out of control.   The main thing about addiction is whether or not you are doing harm to others.   Are you busting any bubbles, wrecking families, whatever?   Then you may want to take a look at what you are doing.

Some will protest and claim the addicts are doing harm to themselves.  Yes they are.   They sure are.  Let’s face it addictive behavior hardly promotes a positive life force.   It is fair to say the spirit is wanting.   But then there are other things that may be worse.   Life in a vacuum comes to mind.  Life searching for the perfect mate to find anything but that.   Life wondering who you are and what you want.

So if you see a woman who is a confessed sex addict, she may be confessing not out of some twelve step surrender, but out of self-awareness.   Don’t try to intervene.  Don’t try to help her.  Just ask for her number.  It would probably do the both of you some good.

Selling Your Home Without a Broker


I live in Brentwood.   Brentwood is known for many things.  Its show business residents first come to mind.   But it is probably most famous for the murder scene of O.J. Simpson’s wife, Nicole, and the O.J. Simpson house, which has since been razed.

What Brentwood is not known for is its poverty.   Mind you, among the glitzy multi-million dollar homes there are people who reside more modestly in condos or apartments.   A lot of single women live in he neighborhood.  It is safe and shopping and the coffee shops are within easy access.   But poverty?   There is none to be found.

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There are two times that people eschew realtors and try to sell the house themselves.   The first time is when there is a housing shortage, as there was a few years ago, and people were at your door begging and bidding for the opportunity to move in.   Houses then went for ten, maybe fifteen percent more than listed price.   To sell your house was like shooting fish in the barrel.   So why give the realtor his or her six percent, when you can put that in your pocket?

Even the realtors knew this, since many cut their commissions in half.   Selling a house was easy.  Just list it.   The banks were forthcoming with mortgages for just about anyone.   Appraisals seemed arbitrary, if not a flight of fantasy.   So just put up the sign and close the deal when the throngs come banging on your door.

But there is a second window when people try to sell their houses.   This is now.   This is when the marekt has fallen so steeply that the sellers will be taking such a hit they simply can’t afford to give up the realtor commission.  And since the realtors know that no house is an easy sell, they will hold for the most part to their six percent.   So when your house drops thirty percent from purchase price, giving up another six percent is unthinkable for many people.  Especially those people who bought at the high and are now in the hole.

Come Sunday I will be driving toward the beach down San Vicente Boulevard and with this economic downturn and a further drop in the real estate market, I expect to see even more houses listed with “For Sale By Owner.”   This indeed is a new sign.  A sign of the times.

Sarah Palin–What Becomes of Her Now?

Last night like just about everyone else, I sat in fron of the television, staring at election returns.   I watched John McCain give his concession speech, which I found to be sincere and dignified.   I watched Sarah Palin as well.  She and her husband stood behind and to the side of McCain, looking a bit like deer in the headlights.  Or when she first met Tina Fey.

Palin looked like a person unsure of how to deal with defeat.   She looked like she wanted to say something but was obviously prevented from doing so.  The concession issue goes to the top of the ticket, as well it should, and not to the runner up.   Sarah looked wooden and tried not to fidget.   It was tough for her.

So now what becomes of Sarah Palin.   Although she was not my favorite candidate, she ran a feisty election campaign, maybe based more on fiction than fact.   But that’s what election campaigns are for.   Palin certainly gave new cachet to the red, waist length jacket, and from now on women who wear it will remind observers of the Governor of Alaska.    The red jacket will be regarded as sexy.

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So what becomes of her now?  Back to Alaska?   Maybe, but it is hard to return now that she has seen the bright lights of the city and the Capitol Dome in Washington, D.C., a place she claims to abhor.  Yeah, sure.  But with Ted Sevens convicted of counts of bribery and what have you, he may well be barred from taking his Senate Seat.  That would leave it up to the Alaska Governor to appoint an acting Senator.  She could well appoint herself.   That would give her access to all those Washington insiders who she may claim to dislike but who can also elevate her career.   Not a bad move at all.

And then, she could become a commentator on Fox News.   It may not be politics, exactly, but it would sure mean a handsome contract and a lot of money.   At that point, with fame, fortune and a better wardrobe, would she finally give up Todd, the husband, first dude, who, let’s face it, won’t be doing her new career that much good?  Will she?  Won’t she?

Stay tuned.   The girl has been bitten by the TV bug and it’s doubtful if she’s about to go away.

Lindsay Lohan and the Celebrity Personality Makeover

Sometime over the summer I was reading an article in the Los Angeles Times about San Francisco poet, August Klenizahler.   I read how he was the bad boy of verse, and how he has alienated fellow poets with his critiques of their work.   He has  disenfranchised himself from the Academic literary scene by pronouncing their writing programs”multi-million dollar Ponzi schemes.”   All in all, he has pissed off a lot of people in the literary community.

Kleinzhaler’s legacy is he literary tradition of two fisted poets and story tellers who have sometimes allowed  their colorful reputations to surpass their  writing talents.   Their drinking and fighting gets in the way of their careers.   They show scorn where they are supposed to display humility.   He openly sneers at what he terms the bullies of his business.  Whether it is an act or genuine, or a little of both,  you have to love the guy for what he is.  Aside from all this he is a very talented writer who can select the images that can pronounce the truth of a scene or an incident.   That plays like music on the deeper emotions.

Whether Kleinzhaler will mellow with age is still out with the jury.   Whether he will be embraced as a curmudgeonly literary icon, much like Charles Bukowski, remains to be seen.  Whether he will undergo a  personality makeover is doubtful.   Depending on your own view of the world and the need for success and acceptance, August Kleinzahler seems incapable of either enduring that ungainly process or possessing the good sense to turn his career around.

The article about Kleinzahler started me thinking about any number of artists are born with a skull full of demons who cause them to abrogate their successes with acts of contrariness and self-destruction.  Kleinzahler may well have a reason for confrontation.  There is much to be said about his critiques of the middle brow hacks out there in the world of Academia who pass off what meager talent they have for creative achievement.   I have known a few of them myself, to say the least.   But I digress, since this is not really the point of this story.

As for the other artistic personalities, they may have  what to them seems like rational perspectives for choosing disruptive behavior.  Others may have been influenced by the wrong people, or let the celebrity go to their heads.  Some succumbed to the demons who have been lurking around since childhood.

Some get over it, and some don’t.   The ones that do get over it and straighten out their lives make good subject matter for the media.   There they can confess to a certain degree about their previous transgressions and then explain how with the help of whatever it was that helped them, they overcame these demons and returned to the path of righteous.   Well, all right, if not the path of righteousness, then at least they gathered enough sense to put their careers back in order.

Some, like Bukowski, a talented drunken brawler, are elevated to to iconic status.   Ron Jeremy comes to mind as one who has been pronounced some kind of national treasure.   Jeremy, of course, was not known for drunken brawler, but made his headlines as a porn star with plenty of stamina.  For awhile there it seemed everywhere you went someone was extolling his virtues, telling the world what a nice guy Jeremy was.   I believe he is.   Not that I know him, other than having sat across from him in the deli now and then.   Out in the Valley where the bulk of the porn films are made.   It just seems odd some would deem him a national treasure.
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There have been many others who were the bad boys and girls of celebrity. After years of drug and drink soaked depravity, fighting and fornicating in all the wrong places,  they became freak show attractions. The only attention they drew was the kind of attention they no longer wanted.   They were laughed at and, worse for any celebrity, finally disregarded.   The trash dumps of Hollywood are littered with their bodies.

Dennis Hopper comes to mind.   He was an absolute pistol in his younger years.  He was renowned for his doping and orgiastic behavior.   He had gone from the heights of fame and approval to the depths of his profession.   And then he cleaned up his act, put on a suit and after years of persuading the Hollywood powers that be, he became respectable.   He was allowed to work again and established himself as a consummate actor.  He is a renowned art collector and an artist himself.    He even votes Republican sometimes and he is the spokesperson for a major financial group’s retirement investment fund pitch to Boomers.   That’s a long way from Taos, New Mexico and other reaches of Bacchanalian history.

Barbara Hershey was another.   She along with what may be the contributing factor to her career downturn, her then boyfriend, David Carradine.   Hershey, after being considered for years the stoned out, loopy, crazy cosmic hippie, cleaned up her act and, yes, put on a suit, and, after some years of persuasion convinced the Hollywood powers that she was reliable once again.  Carrdine, after years personal craziness, drifted back into the bosom of acceptability.   It may have been a Zen thing, in his case.

The list goes on.  Mickey Roarke, after winning kudos for his acting portrayal in the new film, the Wrestler, is about to join the ranks of the redeemed.   Always talented, Roarke was distracted by his personal demons until it was all he could do to find an acting job.  Now he is redeemed, sober, the aged, craggy, veteran of his own personal wars.

And then we come to Lindsay Lohan.   The verdict is not only out on Lindsay Lohan; the court has yet to even convene.  Lohan is still going through her own travails as a club crazy practitioner of libidinous and inebriated activities.   She is involved in a romantic relationship with another woman, which in Hollywood,  despite these allegedly enlightened times, can prove a deal breaker for the leading actress.  As far as her being the leading actress her revolving door relationship with rehab can prevent her from being insurable on any major motion picture.

So if Lindsay Lohan is eventually going to get her act together, she will need to change that act.  She will need to undergo the Hollywood celebrity personality makeover.   It begins of course with sobering up and being much less of an attraction for the tabloids.   Then comes her ability to assure people she is sober and reliable, capable of doing what she is asked.   She may even need to put on a suit.   And then, lastly, as with all the others previously mentioned, there is the matter of talent.   While some are lucky to go places despite their lack of talents, once you fall off the proverbial horse, without talent, you can do all the personality changeover you want and nobody will care.

Talent is it.  Talent is why your industry and even the public will look past the demons and misdeed.   Talent is why they will begin to hope you can make a comeback.   Because, without talent, you can climb back on your horse, but you still ain’t going nowhere.   Not even in the movies.