2005-08-21 - 12:20 a.m.

Has anyone else noticed how there are so many more people of low emotional maturity around than ever before? �Emotional maturity� is the term I use, although the more trendy �Emotional Intelligence� is the term people seem to understand, now. Like you can take a test and measure your �Emotional Intelligence,� which they analogize to testing ones �Intelligence Quotient,� but I have to ask why they don�t call it �Emotional Quotient�? It seems that they took the wrong word out of the I.Q. pair to indicate the similarity.

Anyway, regardless of what it is called, it seems to be going down. Or maybe it�s just Los Angeles, a city (as I have said numerous times) with way too many people for its own good. With this many people milling around, one can�t help but run up against a type they�d ordinarily routinely be able to avoid. Such as the type driving the car behind me that honk when I stop for a pedestrian. This happens way more than one would expect, particularly when I am trying to make a right-hand turn�this happens nearly every time I stop for a pedestrian when I am making a right-hand turn.

The problem with this right-hand turn is that I know the law requires you to stop and wait until the pedestrian is safely up on the curb. But this wait is a little bit too long for drivers behind me. For some reason, once the pedestrian is one inch past my passenger-side headlight, the driver starts to honk as if any reasonable bozo would know that now it is possible to go. I�m not sure how the pedestrian would feel about my right fender wiping the dust off the butt of his Levi�s, but I�m not about to test the waters and find out.

Anyway, think of me as a wide-eyed seven-year-old reading his elementary school Good Citizen Safety Book�I look both ways before crossing and I relentlessly obey the very simple color scheme of the traffic lights (and believe me, when it comes to driving, I like to keep it simple; the fewer individual decisions that have to be made the better). Green means you can go, if the way is clear (warning, it may not always be). Red means you have to stop. This means all the time. There isn�t an exception that says you don�t have to because you are driving a Porsche or a Lexus SUV, or that you are late for a story conference at Warner Bros. Studios, or that there is no obvious policeman around to see you. You just stop, and you stay stopped until the light turns green. I don�t think that is too complicated for people to understand, and it frees me from a lot of decision-making I�d rather not be bothered with.

Yellow is a gray area, and gray areas are dangerous when it comes to driving. Yellow means that soon the light will turn red and this gives you a warning, you maybe have enough time to keep going, particularly if you were just on the brink of the intersection when the light changed, but most likely, it is just better to simply stop if you can. Of course, to most people, the yellow light is merely an invitation to speed up and barrel their way through the intersection, but, true to form, in Los Angeles they�ve fudged it an extra step over. To them, yellow is a definite �keep going,� kind of like an alternative to green (�We�ll give you a �go,� and then a sequel to �go�; think of it as �go II�") and now red is the �hurry up and accelerate through� (and the fact that so many people do it explains why there are an expanding number of red-light-running automatic license-photographing-and-ticketing machines.) Which means that now to the savvy driver, �green� doesn�t mean �go� any more, but means �go only after all the speeding red light drivers have gotten through the intersection.� This may take up half the time the light is green.

Not having the maturity to follow simple seven-year-old-kid safety laws is very emotionally immature, indeed.

Yesterday, Friday, having completed a rather busy, yet accomplished �back to normal school year schedule� work week (meaning that we now could no longer leave at 2:30 and have Fridays off), I decided to treat myself to a dinner at Ernie�s, a Mexican restaurant that I pass on the way home whenever I take the route that avoids the crowded freeway. Ernie�s has not been on my diet (and still isn�t), so I hadn�t been there all summer. My favorite waiter, the one with the hoarse voice, said he�d missed me (I think that�s what he said, but with that hoarse voice I couldn�t be sure), so in celebration, I ordered a strawberry margarita (which I would have ordered whether the waiter missed me or not). But you know, these waiters brighten up when you order a drink, probably because they know it will practically double the final total and that will up their tip. A request for a Diet Coke earns a let-down expression. Anyway, my favorite waiter and I were happy.

Then, in came three youngish guys who sat down in the booth in front of me. Two of them were white and the third was black�the black man was wearing a white undershirt, what we used to call in the men�s clothing trade an �A-shirt�, which is different from a �T-shirt�, but in the common parlance of the day is referred to as a �wife beater�.

Now, when those three sat down, I did notice the wife beater. Not that the black man didn�t look good in it�he looked very good in it. He had a good body that was shown to good effect beneath the thin and nearly invisible knit, and his smooth black skin, particularly across the top of his shoulders and down along his biceps and triceps, was shown to good effect by the white fabric. But regardless of this, I couldn�t help but automatically think back to my mother, who always despised men wearing A-shirts into a restaurant. �They might as well be wearing no shirt at all,� she�d complain. �I don�t want to watch little beads of sweat gather on the ends of their armpit hair as I am eating,� she�d further explain. My mother was very prejudiced against sweat, which belonged outside accompanying yard word, not being brought into the house and sat down at the dinner table.

As for me, I�m not so prejudiced against people�s clothes like my mother was, although I can give her a good run for prejudiced money over those horrible baggy pants whose inseams end midway down on the calf; I can�t believe that not only are tasteless led-by-the-herd young men still wearing those atrocious things (and otherwise at the peak of their physical beauty, too), but now guys my age have taken to wearing them, too. (Believe me guys, these don�t make you look younger, although they do make you seem emotionally immature.)

So with this black guy wearing the wife beater, my subtle impression was that he was somehow going to be treated in a way that he was �lesser than� than he might have wanted. And the form that took in this case was that when the three of them ordered a round of drinks, my hoarse-voiced waiter asked to see the black man�s I.D. His, and only his.

Frankly, it wouldn�t have occurred to me that he was too young (and especially, that he was too young and that his friends were not), but then again, I�m not in the business where I have to make that kind of a determination, which is a good thing, because I am terrible at guessing people�s ages. Anyway, the waiter asked the black man for an I.D., and he fumbled around in his back pocket for a moment and then said, �Oh, it�s in the car.�

The waiter stood there patiently, expecting, perhaps, that the friend who blocked him in the booth would then slide over and let him out so that he could go get his I.D. But the friend didn�t budge and the black man didn�t ask him to move. Instead, the black man looked at the waiter, shrugged his naked shoulders and said, �I�d go get it, but it�s too long of a walk out to the car.� I nearly laughed at that, because one of the reasons I go to Ernie�s is that they have a perfectly convenient parking lot right there next to the building, no valet parking, no parking fee, no hunting up and down the street for an available space, you merely have to turn left and there you are. So, you know, if I wanted a drink and my I.D was out in the car (fat chance), I�d get the hell up and go out and get it.

Instead the black man glared at the waiter as if he could change his mind, and said, �You think I look young?� and then shook his head as if to indicate how terribly he had been insulted.

About my hoarse-voiced waiter, I thought: Bravo! You�re a genius! You had this guy pegged from the very first moment and I (as I said) wouldn�t have had any idea. And the guy went on to prove it several times over�first, by claiming that his I.D. was in the car (what, you didn�t come in here with a wallet, what are you, a mooch who simply expects your friends to buy you your meal?), second, by not getting up to go to the convenient parking lot to retrieve it (obviously you didn�t even have one), and third, only the young get upset over somebody thinking that they look young!

Okay, that was last night. Today, I planned to go to a beach in Orange County that a guidebook on beaches I have said was one of the best beaches in Orange County, Corona del Mar State Beach. Before the summer is completely out, I still want to try out as many good beaches as I can, and since I�ve read that most of the Los Angeles County beaches get an �F� rating in the summer for their water pollution (the presence of sewage, and the like), I decided to concentrate on beaches that are clean (those that get an A+ rating). And that takes me out of Los Angeles County altogether, to Orange and San Diego Counties to the south, and Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties to the north.

When I looked at the map to see how to best get to Corona del Mar Beach, I saw that it wasn�t too far from highway 73, the toll road that runs between San Juan Capistrano and Irvine. I have long been fascinated by the existence of this toll road, yet so far had never travelled on it.

I�m not completely sure that I am right about the history of this road, but the gist of what I understand is that some time back, Orange County went bankrupt because the county commissioners, under the guidance of one particular person, had made an investment decision that did not pan out and they lost their treasury. The county, and particularly the individual who had recommended that investment, took a lot of razzing over that, but anyone among us who hasn�t lost money on an investment hasn't really been trying very hard. If you�re going to be earning anything over a namby-pamby guaranteed three percent (that doesn�t even keep up with inflation), you�re going to have to take some risks, and risks have within them a chance that you will fail along with the chance that you will succeed. Okay, so Orange County failed; the mature thing is to pick yourself up and keep on going, perhaps being innovative in how you solve your current problems. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Meanwhile, Orange County, like the rest of coastal Southern California, continued to have immense population growth, and this growth brought intense pressures to the freeways in the county. It had gotten so that people could hardly even get to work, the freeways were so compacted. But with a bankrupt county, who was going to be building any more much-needed highways?

So, instead, what happened was that a private company, not having anything to do with any governmental entity, got permission to build three new highways in Orange County, risking their own money, of course, in this investment, and would then be able to earn an income from this investment by charging a toll for the use of the highways.

Now, basically, the idea of a toll road in California, the land of the freeway, was, I am sure, at first an anathema. The initial hue and cry must have been deafening. But soon enough, the sensibleness of the proposal became quite clear and these roads were built and, as far as I know, are well appreciated by enough users that the company who built them is making a decent recoup of their investment, or at least, I certainly hope so.

The one I had been dying to use was the one I thought of as �the rich people�s highway,� because it seemed to service commuters in Orange County�s most glamorous beachside corridor (what is sometimes called �California�s Riviera�): San Juan Capistrano, Dana Point, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Beach, Laguna Hills, Corona del Mar, Newport Beach, and Irvine. Well why not? They�ve got money, they�ve got to get to work, they�d be willing to pay what amounts to three or four dollars one way�heck, it costs $10 to just park at the beach. Anyway, I�d seen the southern entrance to the highway as it escapes off of plebian Interstate 5, curving upward into the sky like an enticing bridge to the Emerald City of Oz and I longed to experience the length of it at least once, but unless you have installed on your car a special electronic pass gizmo that you�ve loaded up with a balance of money, you�d have to have on hand a good supply of exact change, something I just never seemed to have whenever I was in the vicinity of that highway. If you didn�t have the right change and ended up speeding through one of the automatic toll booths, you could end up with an automatic $80 license-photo fine. (That part was weird, a private company having the power to �fine� you.)

So today I was going to be prepared. I went by the branch of my bank that was open on Saturday to get a roll of quarters. I popped in and was surprised to see that the bank was nearly empty, no one in line and only two women standing at the table, filling out their paperwork. I went up to the empty head of the line and stood there enthusiastically, ready for the next available teller so that I could quickly get my quarters and then would be on my way to the beach.

Suddenly, the two women were angrily confronting me from where they stood, stating that they were in line before me, very upset that I had just butt in front of them.

I probably should explain that how this bank is arranged, like most of them here, is a long �corridor� marked out by dividers, kind of like velvet ropes, except they are plastic tapes, parallel to the row of teller windows. There is an entrance and an exit. You enter at the entrance and stand in line behind whoever is in front of you until you get up to the head of it, and then you go to the next available teller. Along the inside of this corridor, on the teller�s side, is a long, narrow �desk� or �table,� furnished with deposit and withdrawal slips, pens, etc., so that you can do whatever paperwork you have to do while standing in line, if you like. As for me, I forgo that. My practice is to simply stand at the very far end of that, right at the entrance to the corridor, and completely do my paperwork before I feel that I am ready to get into line. Particularly because there is a lot of space between me and the last person in line, it is obvious to anyone coming in that I am �not� in line, but am filling out my paperwork first, so people simply walk past me to the end of the line.

I do it this way because I think it is more considerate of others and also it is easier for me. I�d rather concentrate on what I am doing instead of keeping one eye on the movement of the line, and I think it is stupid to keep on sliding along as you write, doing your paperwork as the line moves. Taking my time with the paperwork first only makes me miss two or three spaces in line�big deal. Sometimes I already have my paperwork done; I�ve done it at my desk at work before going to the bank, or I do it sitting in my car. But most of the time, I need a form that I can only get at the bank, so I fill it out in the bank and then get into the line. Of course, politeness would absolutely require, especially in a crowded bank, that you have all your transaction paperwork done before you go to a teller!

So where these two harpies were filling out their paperwork was halfway down the line�s corridor, with absolutely no one actually �in line� and ready to see a teller. So of course, since I was completely ready and had in my hand a ten dollar bill and my bank card (in case the teller needed it), I went to the empty head of the line. Frankly, it truly never even occurred to me that these women would think that they were in line (and it would have made me feel ridiculous to stand there behind them halfway down the corridor if it had occurred to me), so when they angrily confronted me and said that �they were line,� I didn't sheepishly give in, but responded with, �It doesn�t look like it to me.�

�Well we are,� one of them insisted, showing me a face that could sour yogurt.

�So get up there, then,� I insisted, not about to allow them to continue to stand there half-way down the corridor�if they think they are in line, then get up there at the head of it. They grabbed their stuff and slid it forward down the table, muttering obscenities. One of them, the woman who was supposed to be �first,� shook her head, as if she thought I was an imbecile. I would have loved to have explained to her that you can�t insult somebody who �wouldn�t even piss on you if your mouth were on fire.� But instead, I watched, amused, as she continued to fill out her paperwork, this time at the very end of the table. I, of course, not otherwise occupied, was perfectly free to then see when a teller was available. The woman, who truly wasn�t ready, hadn�t noticed, so I said to her, �Well, if you are in line, then why don�t get yourself over to the available teller?� �And you, too,� I then said to her friend, who also hadn�t noticed that a second teller had become available, as well.

�I�m going, I don�t need you to tell me,� said the first one.

And, of course, both of them then stood there in front of their teller windows, taking up space while they continued filling out their paperwork. I, meanwhile, had made it to a third newly available teller, from whom I requested a roll of quarters. Even though it wasn�t really true (I wanted the quarters so I could drive the Orange County toll road, but that would have been too difficult to explain as most residents of Los Angeles haven�t even a clue that Orange County even has such a road), I said to the teller, "Laundry time.� Somehow, this seemed more fitting, with her having to be working in a bank on Saturday. The teller loved this, immediately she was my best friend and said, �Oh god, I hate doing laundry!�

�Well,� I continued, �I�ve procrastinated so much, it�s going to take me almost this whole roll of quarters to get it all done!�

We bantered back and forth about doing laundry, finding available working machines in a crowded apartment laundry room, etc., and since guys are supposed to be notoriously lousy at doing laundry, I know I conjured up in her mind an expectation that I was going to end up with shrunken cottons, faded colors, and pink underwear. Our mutual laughter rang from the bank�s rafters, right into the ears of the two harpies taking up their tellers� time, and I knew this irritated the women and it made my laughter even more joyful. (I�ve got my two eyes facing forward at the front of my head, I�m a predator, what can I say? Much better to not confront me, I�m liable to slide off of my normally pacifist position instantaneously.)

�Have a great afternoon,� the teller wished me as I left.

�Yes, me and the soap suds!� I laughed as I left.

I would have liked to have explained to the two women �in front of me� the considerate way to handle their banking, but the fact that I was in my car and out of the parking lot before those two women even finished their transaction probably spoke more eloquently than anything I could have said�if they had any emotional maturity at all with which to understand the lesson.

Traffic to Orange County was terrible. Too bad I hadn�t planned to use the toll road in this direction, it would have saved me some time (although most of the bad traffic was way before I got even near to the toll road). As more than an hour went by, I got more and more irritated, but that irritation disappeared the moment I saw Newport Beach harbor, with its sparkling blue water and eye-popping yachts. It�s a whole different world down there, one filled with outrageous money and overwhelming beauty. Why am I not normally part of it? Got to somehow reconfigure my life. (But I�ve been saying that for years.)

In contrast to the beauty of the environs, Corona del Mar Beach, itself, was as crowded as Coney Island, not exactly what I had been expecting (or looking for), but I made do. It was a nice crowd, as crowds go.

One thing unusual about this beach crowd that I hadn�t seen before anywhere else, was that the popular beach accoutrement that everyone seemed to bring was a kind of square self-opening tent or pavilion. It made it look like the beach was covered in thousands of cabanas, like you might find at an elegant beach club or resort, except these were things that the people brought themselves and set up on their spot. I practically felt like a homeless person, merely spreading a beach towel out on the sand!

It was okay�probably not worth going back to again, with so many more beaches to explore and so far, none of them truly satisfying me. I�ve got to say that after you�ve been to the beaches in Fiji, Hawaii, Florida, French Polynesia (Moorea, Bora Bora, and Tahiti), Caribbean Mexico (Cozumel and Cancun), Honduras's Roatan, Australia, and New Zealand, no California beach with its ugly yellow-brown sand, ice-cold water, and small waves but large undertow, can measure up. The houses looking down on California beaches are way more beautiful and appealing than the beaches, themselves.

So I left after an hour and drove on down the beautiful coast (noticing how the town of Laguna Beach looked like a warmer, less misty but also less quaint version of Carmel), from Crystal Cove to Monarch Bay, and ended up in Dana Point, where I had lunch on the front patio of a Mexican Seafood restaurant I was familiar with. The waitress seemed irritated that I sat out on the patio (a longer walk for her, and I was the only one out there) and didn�t order an alcoholic drink. Again, the �Diet Coke� earned the disgusted face. Oh well, I�m the customer!

Then I drove the toll road. It was almost, not quite, but close to being on a different planet. I don�t know how they found this land, but once the highway took us up into the sky above and beyond Interstate 5, it was virgin territory, Southern California hill and canyon land that had previously been untouched by modern civilization. I could smell the sage and dried grass in the golden hills and in the near distance spy previously unknown isolated luxurious condominium complexes and Mediterranean mansion housing developments, and granite and marble office buildings with company names I�ve never heard of and businesses I cannot guess�esoteric investment firms, maybe? It was all clean and sort of �Shangri-la� like, in its way, far from the maddening crowd.

The contrast was especially noticeable after sailing along at an easy 65 mph on cruise control, having to merge back into the hoi polloi once again as highway 73 came to an end and we were inserted into the crowded stream of Interstate 405. Total toll: $3.50. Not bad for a trip to a nearly hidden, privileged world. Couldn�t buy a drink at the Laguna Niguel Ritz Carlton for that, and the effect was better. And how much better it would be if this had been rush hour instead of an easier weekend drive.

Ordinarily I�d say that the success of Orange County was due to its proximity to the great economic engine of the megalopolis of Los Angeles. And yet, to look at it today, I can see that one could conceivably live their whole life in Orange County and never once have the slightest involvement with Los Angeles. South Coast Orange County somehow superseded Los Angeles. Los Angeles seems like a cracked, peeling, and falling-down bungalow, whereas Orange County is a three story colonnaded mansion with wrap-around decks hanging from a cliff over a sparkling ocean. Los Angeles seems like a rusty old clunker up on blocks in a weed-infested yard, whereas South Coast Orange County is a DeLorean converted into a Back-To-The-Future Harrier Jet. �Roads? Where we�re going, we don�t need roads!�

There�s a kind of a future there that maybe we can look forward to�if only we will all grow up.

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