There are days when technology reminds us that civilization is a fragile experiment.
Yesterday was one of those days.
My Samsung phone had become trapped in a security loop that seemed designed by a committee of prison wardens. Every incorrect password increased the waiting period before another attempt. At the current rate, I expected to regain access sometime around Christmas.
First I tried AT&T.
Then I tried a Costco wireless kiosk, which I eventually discovered was not really AT&T, but a private company selling AT&T services while wearing the costume of customer support.
Then I tried another repair place.
Nobody could fix it.
By this point, I was carrying four phones around Los Angeles and beginning to feel like a man transporting evidence from a crime scene.
Then I found Shawn at Image Wireless in Westwood.
Shawn looked at the phone and said he could probably fix it in a couple of hours without losing the data.
This was not what I expected to hear.
By then I had been told, directly and indirectly, that my choices were surrender, despair, or waiting until the holiday season to try another password.
But Shawn did exactly what he said he would do.
He recovered the phone.
He preserved the data.
He got all four phones running smoothly.
He also put a protective shield on my wife’s phone, which may have cost slightly less than a small used car, but by then I was too grateful and too exhausted to conduct a congressional investigation.
During the process, Shawn asked me what I did. I told him I was a writer. He mentioned that he had known Robert Towne, and suddenly we were no longer just customer and technician. We were two guys talking about movies, writing, old Hollywood, and the strange little connections that make Los Angeles interesting.
Then Shawn decided he could also connect my phone to my old Honda.
I told him that was not necessary.
Shawn disagreed.
There are people who provide customer service, and then there are people who declare war on unfinished business.
Shawn belongs to the second group.
By the end of the afternoon, my data was recovered, our phones were working, my wife’s phone had a new screen protector, and Shawn was trying to establish diplomatic relations between my Samsung and my Honda.
In an age of automated voices, outsourced confusion, and companies that make you feel as if you are being transferred from one machine to another until the sun burns out, there is something refreshing about a human being who looks at a problem and attacks it until it surrenders.
That is Shawn.
He may be slightly impossible.
But he fixed my phones.
jaronsummers@gmail.com
A chicken that laid such an egg would stand taller than the Statue of Liberty.
Even so, you could not make an omelet large enough from that gargantuan hen to feed the 1.4 billion people in China if everyone asked for seconds. Chinese Breakfast
Steel and aluminum skin, The Egg resembles a flying saucer atop one of the busiest intersections in the galaxy.
Under these layers of traffic, below ground level, is the largest “scramble walk” on the planet. If you don’t count Red Square.
This has to do with security–you’ll need a high tech key card to access any room. We never felt safer. Many of the other Hyatt hotels have discovered the advantages to a sixth-floor check-in but the one in Wujiachang seems to have it down to a science. True, they had a few growing pains the first month they opened but everything runs smoothly now.
Nor have we ever found a place with more friendly and helpful employees. Our hosts seemed to anticipate our needs before we realized that we required something. Quick example. Our non-smoking room was a bit smoky. We called the desk and five minutes later we were installed in a room with air like an Alpine village.
Shanghai is world famous for knock-off-brands. Here’s a link to the most popular:
Perhaps one of the most telling comments to describe how things are now came from a hotel executive. He said that in the old days China needed tourists from all over the world. Now only three or four per cent of their guests are from outside of China.
The Chinese middle class is roaring like a crazed dragon. Watch up for its hot flames.
The Rules of the Game (Spoiler: There Are No Rules)
Reporting the Crime (of Hope)
The Day I Snapped (or Slipped)
Bureaucracy Comes Bearing Gifts
The Moral of the Story?
In Summary
my very being, allowing my thoughts to cascade onto paper with rhythmic certainty.
was miraculously restored, as if the river had found its course once again.
Now, some folks might say it’s all make-believe. But isn’t that what we’re here for? To believe in something a tad bit magical?
According to California weather reports a hurricane and a couple of tornados whirl toward us.
We ran up too much credit card debt over the last two years.
MELVIN REDDY pulls off a goofy scam against the IRS who drove his dad to an early grave.
A romantic and redeeming comedy woven into a caper. Think of a young Steve Carell in charge of The Mission Impossible crew. Hell, if he looks this good, offer him the part.
On 5 July 1984 Luise saw the light of day in the amusement park Sottrum. Already with three weeks came the little piglet to the policeman Werner Franke. Because this wanted to know whether boars are as well suited by their pronounced sense of smell as dogs, in order to sniff certain materials.
The disadvantage in dogs: In high heat dogs give up the search quickly, because they have to pant so much. Wild boars, on the other hand, possess a natural instinct to roar and sniff, which they pursue even in midsummer.
POTENTIAL
I was brought up in a fairly strict Christian household and one of my parents was a Mormon.
From the age of three stroking my penis was a no-no.
My parents convinced me that God was WATCHING me 24/7.
I am working on a pet “hearing aid” that allows dogs and cats to communicate with each other and become friends. I like a happy household.
Next I’m going to develop a mouse-cat translation device.
Let’s be kind to all people and animals in 2019
Then something to sell:
Here’s an experiment to see how we’re doing when it comes to compassion.
This came in the mail:
So what will happen?
Because I am a cautious optimist, I think the envelope and dollar will end up at St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.
And somewhere Danny Thomas will be smiling.
There’s a note behind the dollar that says I’m going to donate a bit more money if St. Jude’s calls and ask let’s me know they have the dollar.
Will they call?
I will report back to you.
All great religions begin with a delusional messiah who somehow gets himself martyred. That turns into a social movement and ends when its followers stop believing in magic. Good luck with that one.
Luckily Elder Wonder discovered that AND got the girl.
You say someone has invented a smart phone that can do yet another thing that has nothing to do with making a call?
Wrong!
Check out this Samsung phone:
“Honey,” I said. “Let’s talk about real problems. What do you have to do today?”
“Go shopping, see my mother, and get gas for the car.”
“Wouldn’t a list help?” I asked.
“A list of what?” she asked.
“Of your three things,” I said.
“I’m only doing ONE thing this afternoon,” she said. “Mother and I are going shopping.”
“That’s two things, honey.”
“It’s one thing,” she said. “Mother and I are going shopping.”
“Okay, it’s one thing, but you have to get gas.”
“If we don’t get gas, we can’t go shopping. Getting the gas is part of going shopping. Unless you get the gas.”
“Okay, it’s all one thing,” I said.
“It’s one thing my way; it’s two yours,” she said.
“You want to explain?”
“Sure. I’m going shopping with my mother. That’s one thing.
“The second thing would be writing it on your silly computer; First I have to turn on the computer, then I have to get into some silly program, then I have to type ‘we’re going shopping,’ and I hate typing, then I have to turn on the printer and put some paper in it and get the list printed, then I have to fold up the list and store it in my pocket.”
“Your second task involves at least seven sub-tasks. That’s a list if I ever saw one. Can’t you see how it’s easier to keep track of a list with a computer?”
“You wouldn’t have to do any of them if you didn’t have a computer. Will you fill up the car with gas?”
I drove the car to a service station, gassed it and brought it back.
Kate said thank you and left.
When she came home, I helped her unload 22 things from the trunk. “How much stuff did you buy?” I asked.
“I went shopping for groceries. Groceries are one thing,” she said. “And please stop trying to complicate life when I have two more things to do today.”
“What?” I asked.
“I’m going to build a bridge out of carrots and throw your computer off it.”
“That sounds like one thing,” I said.
“You’re learning,” she said.
About 30 years ago when I was giving a screenwriting seminar at the University of Alberta I noticed that Tab Hunter was headlining a dinner theater at the nearby Mayfield Inn.
I phoned him to see if he would honor the seminar with his presence.
“Ok,” he said. “When do you want me?”
“How about tomorrow — I’ll send a limo.”
“Ah, don’t make a big deal out of it. I’ll grab a cab.”
The next afternoon I told about 100 of Canada’s would-be screenwriters that it helps to sell a script if you have a star attached.
Yeah. Right. Someone asked how anyone was going to meet a star in Edmonton, a city which seemed light years away from Hollywood.
“Good question. Why don’t you ask Tab Hunter.”
And onto the stage he waltzed, his enormous fur coat glowing with fresh fallen snowflakes.
For the next hour Tab Hunter graciously shared stories about his life with everyone — then answered questions to the delight of the class. Hunter was a class act — on or off the stage.
I thanked him and called him by his real name: Art.
“Not many people in Canada know that name,” he said and away he want to get ready for the evening show at the Mayfield Inn. One of our TV and Film Institute board members and her family owned the Mayfield Inn and she sent Tab flowers and wine that evening.
I knew Tab’s name was Arthur Gelien because a single friend of mine I met in the Mormon church had a gold wedding band. There were two sets of initials engraved inside the band. One was AG and the other was my friend’s.
I’ll call my friend “Brigham.”
Brigham, 22, was as good looking as Tab. Brigham was gay inside a tight closet.
He spent several months in Hollywood in his late teens and Tab introduced Brigham to things that most Christian churches did not approve of. Tab and Brigham had a falling out and my friend was kicked out of the movie star’s bedroom.
You can read about Tab Hunter’s real life in his autobiography: Tab Hunter Confidential. It was recently made into a Netflix film.
Tab never made a pass at me. Brigham did. I passed. Brigham said I was a hopeless hetrosexual. He became a leader in the LDS church.
I didn’t.
Here’s my novel about my failed attempt as a Mormon missionary.
I was washing my old Volvo when I spilled some battery acid on my jeans.
After hosing them off I threw them in the washing machine. That got rid of the acid but there was a hole about the size of iPhone in the seat.
I stopped at a LA’s men’s store.
If you want lots of TV programs and a lower bill — here’s a few ideas.
First lower your cellular bill.
Let’s say you and/or one other person is at least 55. Sign up for T-Mobile. Two smart phones — $60 a month. Unlimited phone calls, lots of data and unlimited texting. The data has a cap of 50MB. That’s streaming TV for about 3 hours a day. And if you connect to wifi, that does not count against your cap.
If you want unlimited Data on T-Mobile for two phones it’s $120. Welcome to the world of maniacal gamers.
You can phone, text and use your data anywhere in Canada, USA and Mexico. Visit them, call back to the States for free.
For years Kate and I have spent some of our most fun times in Hawaii and New Zealand. I promised Kate that someday I would buy a small island just for her. Today I did. You can come and visit us.
You may also want to sublease a part of our island. I bought it thru Ikea, of all places
I keep a journal since it’s fun to see what I did ten or twenty or thirty years ago.
When I was a missionary I prayed each day.
One day I realized that if there were a god or gods they would have stopped people from creating religions. Any religion. Nothing is as detrimental to human friendships as people with different religions.
Furthermore, even if there were a God, He or She or It would be far too busy with quakes and quarks and quirks to deal with me.
The director of the FBI could use a better disguise than blending in with the curtains when he meets Trump.
“You can do so much in 10 minutes’ time. Ten minutes, once gone, are gone for good. Divide your life into 10-minute units and sacrifice as few of them as possible in meaningless activity.”
-Ingvar Kamprad, Founder of the furniture brand IKEA
Before James Bond, there was the Saint.
This goof wants to build an ICBM with a nuke in it and aim it at us. https://goo.gl/iuIftg
The problem is that he needs a miniaturized nuke. So with the help of the CIA I could sell him a tiny “nuke.” It would have four dials on its face. A GO button, then three destinations: LA, NY and DC.
It would be a tricked-out baby ‘nuke.” As soon any of the four dials were touched, a voice would say: “Bye-Bye Little Fat Boy.”
I am sending Rex to Russia to conclude my latest deal.
I just sold Putin and his pals some worthless land we bought from them in 1867.
I doubled our original purchase price. This is a TERRIFIC DEAL. DT
Suppose you live next door to a jerk.
And suppose the jerk though you were a jerk.
And suppose you were both right.
You bickered and swore to burn each other’s house to the ground.
And you would have, except your daughter fell in love with the jerk’s son. And miracle of miracles they had an adorable child.
Would you set the house of the jerk on fire and take a chance on killing your adorable grandchild?
Probably not.
Now substitute any country for your house. And any country for your neighbor’s house.
See what I’m getting at with immigration?
Dear Pirahã Person,
I am sorry that I do not know your name, although I know tiny a bit about your Amazon tribe. Glad you’re learning to write.
In addition, your ability to think outside the color spectrum is going to be life altering for us. When you teach my wife how not to think in colors, I will experience heaven on earth. No more: “Stupid, blue and brown don’t go together. Let me get you some clothes that match.”
Please, I beg you, Pirahã Person, come to Hollywood. Teach us to be like you. I will pay for your plane ticket and find a place for you to live under the leaves behind our home.
I will also teach you how to write screenplays that we can sell to the major studios.
Screenplays will be a snap for you because stage directions are always in the present tense.
Wonderful Pirahã Person, I look forward to hearing from you.
Your new friend,
jaron
PS — if you can’t come to Hollywood, I will arrange to send my wife there to live with your tribe for awhile. OK?
New Study Says Religious Organizations in United States Cost Taxpayers $71 Billion a Year.
Millions of truck drivers create tens of millions of job.
But there is a huge shortage of drivers according to The Wall Street Journal.
And those jobs cannot be shipped overseas.
I beg to differ. Pilots fly drones halfway around the world.
A clever guy in the shade of the Great Wall of China could be “driving” 18 wheelers with a little bit of technology adjustment. He or she could sit in the “cab” of a truck instead of the “cockpit” of a plane.
Problem. How do you give a guy a ticket in Beijing when he’s driving past Las Vegas?
I am writing on a desk that took me 70 years to possess.
And here’s how we have improved in the last 10,000 years as a species.
For some time now Very Evil People (VEP) have attempted to discredit the leaders of the LDS Church and spread nasty gossip about its prophets.
Yes, President Smith may have made a tiny error in assuming that our moon is a planet. On the other hand, he was 
Around midnight, the cops picked up Donald Rabbit and took him to Grid HQ and gave him some bottled water and left him in the interview room.
Donald, 23, was apprehensive because he had never been to Grid HQ.
He was half way through the bottled water when the door opened and an attractive woman, about 30, with a name tag that said Office Rabbit, walked in, smiled and sat down across from Donald.
Since they both happened to have the same last name Donald wondered if they were related.
“No, we are not related,” said the woman.
This crazy broad can read my mind. My theories are right, though Donald.
“No I can’t read your mind,” said Officer Rabbit. “We asked you her to chat about your stats.”
“Is there something wrong with my stats?” Donald said.
“Why don’t we chat about that and you decide,” said Officer Rabbit and gave him another one of what appeared to be hollow smiles.
“Okay.”
She put on a pair of Stat Glasses that were probably linked to his stats which meant she knew more about him then he could recall himself.
ften included bare knuckle brawling when it came to deciding which pairs of shoes they were going to purchase.
I thought the relationship was hilarious.
I figured they would be great characters to write a movie or novel or short story about. But I only got as far as these few paragraphs … and the title.
America is a huge hive.
We all live in it. Most of us are worker bees. No matter what we do our leaders are coming for our honey. Do we vote in “officials” who take our honey and pass it off to the one percenters (the drones)?
Or do we vote in statesmen who distribute it among the 99 percenters?
And, in the process kick the drones in the ass?
Lake Andes, SD That’s Grandpa and Grandma…sitting in their front yard. The town is part of an Indian Reserve. Uncle Glenn learned to speak Sioux there. He was a druggist. The good old days. That photo–taken from a stereo transparency. Maybe 70 years olds. The lovebirds had been married about 40 years in this image … they made it past a Golden Anniversary.
Now if you’ll excuse me, Dwight, my chauffeur, who drives my new Rolls has just yelled out that one of our carrier pigeons has returned with an important message from my publisher. I must be going ….
November 8, 2016
We want the common area to be clean and neat so that:
Here’s a guy from the city I was born in who makes more money copywriting than most dentists.
An evil landlord built a huge shower in his rental basement. Five tenants lived in that coed house. One day to save water these five tenants showered together for one hour.
Let us start with money.
I met Mr. C Wi in Venice, California, a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean.
In another matter … California is working on a plan to siphon zillions of gallons of water from Lake Superior to LA. Honest. Lake Superior is one of the deepest lakes in the world. It has ten per cent of the fresh surface water of Planet Earth.
Part one of one part ….
Around midnight, the cops picked up Donald Rabbit, took him to Grid HQ, gave him some bottled water and left him in the interview room.
Donald, 23, was apprehensive because he had never been to Grid HQ. He was halfway through the bottled water when the door opened and an attractive woman, about 30, with a name tag that said Officer Rabbit, walked in, smiled and sat down across from Donald.
Since they both had the same last name, Donald wondered if they were related.
“We are not related,” said the woman.
This crazy twist can read my mind. My theories are right, thought Donald.
“No, I can’t read your mind,” said Officer Rabbit. “We asked you here for a Stat Chat.”
“Something amiss with my stats?” Donald said.
“Why don’t we chat about that and you decide,” said Officer Rabbit and flashed him another hollow smile.
“Okay.”
She wore a pair of Stat Glasses that were probably linked to his data which meant she knew more about him then he could recall himself.
Donald Rabbit looked into Officer Rabbit’s blue eyes. She was focused on reading his stats, not looking at him. This was even more annoying than trying to converse with someone checking their emails on an MS-finger ring.
“Back in the early part of this millennium, a few decades after those movies on the Matrix came out, some disrupters came up with an idea that humans were created by an alien race and were part of some goofy advanced culture’s computer games,” she said.
“Yeah,” said Donald Rabbit. “As good as any theory…a game called Earth with billions of avatars. We think we’re alive but we’re just blips in a computer game. We don’t all live in a Yellow Submarine. We’re in a simulated world. No ideas what color it is.”
“If the aliens had such a game, you could spoil everything by spreading such ideas,” said Officer Rabbit. “You’ve been doing a lot of that, Donald.”
“So what are you going to do about it?” asked Donald Rabbit. “Reprogram me?”
“Against the rules,” said Officer Rabbit.
“How do you know that?” asked Donald Rabbit.
“Trust me,” said Officer Rabbit. And she winked at him. Or seemed to – but she was activating a faraway program via her Stat Glasses.
One of the eight planets spinning around the Sun vanished. And the alien game players were down to seven worlds in the solar system they had made 6,000 years ago.
I had a college roommate who possessed good looks and charisma. He exuded passion.
One Down, Three Left
by Jaron Summers
One of the basic glues of modern society is gossip.
The 
She apologizes…there would normally be no problem but in order to have Coronation front the gas, we would need a requisition order for the vehicle because the town can’t “give away fuel” as it costs over six dollars a gallon and there has to be some restrictions.
A phone call to the rental agency reveals we will only be charged $500 for a new windshield but there will be a $250 penalty for taking the car off road.
DRIVE REVIEW…
“My grandfather said that one day they’d make a law outlawing tobacco and the coppers could toss you in the clinker for grabbing a smoke. Some cities in California, you can’t smoke in them now. Imagine that.
The lawyers and stock brokers and MBAs got it all. And, what they didn’t get, Congress did. Wasn’t jackshit left to liberate. Goddamn unfair.”
“You didn’t sleep well, did you?” asked Mrs. God.
We rent our home in Edmonton. Here is a recent inquiry (with applicant’s photo) —
Our friends seem compelled to send us things they have made over the years.
For example, their children (or worse, the photos of their kids). Here is a recent “family Christmas card” from an old friend.
The Whale Wrangling Piper
There’s an interesting article in Newsweek on how to find aliens.
To the Toronto Police Department:
That was in 1986.
I wondered how many other customers had also been cheated out of $39.00 the previous night. A million? If only a few thousand of them complained the bank might have made a cool $40 mil or more.
Old world charm & hi-tech delights…three blocks from the 
First of a three part series
2nd of a three part series. Part 1
2nd of a three part series. Part 1
A tip of the hat to Cousin Ken Summers for finding and enhancing the above photo. In it I appear to be almost human. That’s Ken beside me. He’s the family historian who sticks to the truth. I’m the other kind.
People said that the reason Bittner’s meat market caught fire was because Shab had rewired the butcher’s freezer the wrong way. No one could ever prove that.
Every night for the last 40 years or so I get up around 3 AM and go to the bathroom. I always think of things to write about.
Lately I have been writing them down.
What would happen if you got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and you stubbed your toe just as an atomic bomb detonated about 15 miles away?
And escaped the fallout? Do you realize how carefully you would go to the bathroom in the future?
I also think about being a Mormon Missionary in New Zealand decades ago and living in a tiny town on the North Island.
Our landlady was stingy with our breakfast — so each morning I would pick Chinese gooseberries and eat them. They were delicious.
In 1962 I met a man who said he was with the New Zealand Produce Board and I told him that they ought to rename the Chinese gooseberry the Kiwi Nut. Or Kiwi Fruit. They would sell all over the world.
He said he would think about it.
Soon the government of New Zealand started to market Kiwi Fruit. It is a multi-million dollar export now.
I never got credit for this but I don’t care. New Zealand is still my favorite place in the world to visit.
I wrote a novel about living in New Zealand and being a Mormon Missionary.
Here
So what have I accomplished with my life?
Invented the fridge magnet. Came up with Kiwi Fruit and sold the first novel on the web before the web was invented.
I go back to sleep. z-z-z-Z-Z. And dream of New Zealand, the land of the long white cloud….
The Mercy Stone
When Soda finally arrived he explained that the RCMP had identified the mastermind behind a secret Asian spy ring that had infiltrated every area of Canada.
George, the Chinese boy I had taught English to, froze in our dining room doorway.
The conclusion of the Curious Case concerning the RCMP and the boy with the Huge Head can be read at this very 
Fox News — Afghanistan.
“I don’t appreciate it when you use the word ‘like,'” said her husband.
