In the market

Last week, I made my first real inquiry into buying a house. I'm starting to wonder what I've gotten myself into.
I know just a few weeks ago I claimed I never wanted to be the kind of guy to talk about real estate, and I still feel that way. But when you’re thinking seriously about buying a house it’s hard to avoid. This might be simultaneously the most exciting and the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done.
I probably wouldn't be in the house market at all if not for some problems with my current landlord. It's minor things, like a hole in my kitchen ceiling and light fixtures that don't work and no signs any of that is likely to change anytime soon. Somehow, it all put me off the idea of relying on someone else to make repairs to the place I live. It seems like a much better idea now to own a place of my own, where I can be the one not making repairs.
It seemed like a good enough plan, but I never really factored in the whole home-buying process. Apparently it's a little more complicated than buying a carton of milk at the grocery store.
Take last week's showing. I'd been looking at this particular house -- a nice little duplex -- for several weeks. It helps that the place is directly across the street from my current apartment.
From the outside, the building looks nice. Online, it looks nice. It's a little bit small, maybe, but I don't need a lot of space. It would be perfect if not for the fact the main bedroom is tucked up so tight under the roof I'd practically have to crawl on my hands and knees to get to bed each night. Also, the owner is bumping the price up $10,000 so she can replace a couple of furnaces insulated with asbestos. It's the little things, you know?
So, that place was out, and my entire buying plan changed. I think there was a part of me that actually believed buying a house would be as easy as walking across the street and making an offer. Then again, there's also a very small part of me that still thinks the Vikings will win the Super Bowl someday.
So, now I'm looking again. I spent part of my weekend driving around to check out at places a Realtor had suggested to me. Some looked OK, at least from the outside. Others had minor problems, such as being painted a garish green not actually found in nature or having a front porch that appeared to have been designed by someone who had never actually seen the house the porch would eventually be attached to and who might possibly have been drunk at the time.
Of course, finding a home is only part of the process. I'm pretty sure I'll also have to pay for it. And that's where things really get scary.
It is not in my nature to accept debt readily. I can only think of one occasion when I carried a balance on a credit card, and the idea of borrowing enough to buy my first car nearly sent me into a state of shock. My second car loan was a little easier — mild heart palpitations, maybe — but not by a lot.
Now there’s this. Sometime in the next few weeks I might very well ask someone to loan me nearly as much money as Bill Gates probably has in his pocket right now. Enough money that I can put this whole apartment-living thing behind me and pretend to be an actual adult. And somehow I can’t shake this feeling that as soon as the forms are processed my loan officer is going to rip off his mask and reveal he is some sort of minor demon and I have just signed away my soul. Or, if not my soul, then at least my spleen or my liver. That would be especially weird considering I’m probably going to get my loan through my cousin, and there are hardly any demons on that side of the family.
In any case, I may very well keel over as soon as I sign my name on the dotted line.
On the positive side, that would mean I wouldn’t have to make any of the payments.

When good celebrities go bad

The potential for entertainment seems nearly endless when borderline celebrities (or, even better, former celebrities who have fallen on hard times) get desperate for money and/or attention. When you’re dealing with people used to having the eyes of the world on them, the opportunities for unintentional comedy go through the roof.
For example, you get things like Hollywood is Calling, a company that recruits celebrities (although they appear to apply the term fairly loosely) to make personal calls to anyone willing to shell out $20.
You want the guy who played Mr. Belding on Saved by the Bell to wish your mom a Merry Christmas? No problem. You want Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi to scream “No soup for you!” at an unsuspecting friend? Done.
If you’re willing to shell out $300, most of these celebrities will also make something called a phone appearance. I have no idea what that is, although the fact they’re on the phone seems to suggest someone is having trouble with the definition of “appear.”
I’ll admit there is a chance for some good entertainment here. Who wouldn’t enjoy getting a motivational call from former Incredible Hulk Lou Ferigno? Or a “Just called to say hi,” (one of the site’s suggested phone calls) from “Gilligan’s Island’s” Professor. I’m sure some people would be happy just to be reminded he’s not dead.
Granted, some of the site’s celebrities are a bit, well, lame. Maybe I’m the only one, but I couldn’t have told you Alex Michel appeared on ABC’s “The Bachelor if the site (hollywoodiscalling.com) hadn’t told me that. I imagine he would be endlessly annoyed if someone hired him to congratulate me for something and I spent the entire call asking him who the heck he was.
Other celebrities and their claims to fame: Edwin Neal (voice of Dr. Robotnik in Sonic the Hedgehog); Dr. Elmo (recorded “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” and voiced two parts (narrator and Grandpa) in the Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer animated movie, a true Renaissance man); Mike Walker (columnist for the National Enquirer); and, my personal favorite, Jim Lazer Starr (American Gladiators (appears as Lazer)).
Perhaps even better, though, is the news that Mr. T is making a comeback. According to England’s Sun newspaper, “80s icon” T, as I like to call him, is returning to public consciousness with a part in Rocky VI (itself a prime example of a celebrity not knowing when to just go away), a new reality show and even a comic book.
“There’s a new generation out there and they like me and I’m honored by that and grateful to God,” T told the Sun.
The new Rocky movie certainly has the potential to be a train wreck of monumental proportions, but I’m most intrigued by the new TV show, called, predictably, “I Pity the Fool.” In it, T does his part to solve the problems shared with him by ordinary people – that is, the kind who don’t wear 75 pounds of jewelry on a daily basis.
I’ll let T explain.
“For example, a lady might write to me saying she’s having trouble at a car dealership, because she’s the only female employee and the men are harassing her. So I’ll go in and straighten things out.
“I learn about the situation, observe for a couple of days and then call the guys into a meeting and give them the Mr. T rap – ‘I tell you fools, don’t you disrespect no lady. My mum is a lady!”
“I don’t get physical with anyone, but I talk to them man to man and brother to brother.”
I’m not sure the “Mr. T rap” wouldn’t actually cause more problems than it solved, but I’m honestly thinking of making up a problem just so I can get Mr. T to hang out at my office for a few days. I feel it would immensely reduce the amount if jibber-jabber that takes place there on a daily basis.
Now, if only I could get him to wish me a happy birthday.

Lessons learned

On Monday afternoon I came closer than I’ve ever knowingly come to someone in the act of dying.
I was on a plane at the time, on the way back from a week’s vacation in Arizona. We’d been in the air for about half an hour when the captain asked a doctor or nurse to come to the first class cabin. A few minutes later, he announced we’d have to return to Phoenix. Paramedics who did not to be in any too big a hurry took the man off the plane on a stretcher with a blanket over his head. I was sitting about 30 rows back.
I’d like to say I learned something profound from this experience — something about how precious a human life is, maybe, or how quickly it can be gone. I’d like to say it made me appreciate the things I have, or made me want to hug my mom and thank her for being there for me.
The thing I thought most, though, as I waited through the process that delayed my return home by 2 1⁄2 hours, was, “Man, I’m glad I bought a new book before we left.”
So, maybe I didn’t learn any significant lessons about the human condition during my trip to the greater Phoenix area, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t learn anything. Vacations can be very informative if you know where to look.
For example, I learned:
• Airport security is a hassle: This was the first time I’d flown since Sept. 11, 2001, and security at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport was more than a little depressing. There’s no real way to feel dignified as you push a little bin filled with your possessions into an x-ray machine. One of the security guards wore a pin that read, “Freedom Isn’t Free,” which I took to mean, “Hey, it’s either this or get bombed, so shut up, take off your shoes and show me your driver’s license.”
• Airplane aisles are narrow; people are not: I had aisle seats both to and from Phoenix last week. Mostly this was because my mother is convinced it is what I, with my long legs, should want. It is something she continues to believe no matter how many times I tell her I don’t care. It’s sweet, I guess, but it also means that I get smacked in the shoulder about 15 times per flight by wide-bodied people making their way to or from the bathroom. Has anybody ever looked into whether Americans might be a little overweight?
• Phoenix is a good place to be in the gate business: I suppose it could be something to do with the fact we stayed in a pretty high-end suburb of the city — I’ve never seen so many Porche SUVs, Ferarris or Lamborghinis — but, seriously, every other neighborhood required a special passcard to get in. Apparently, the people of Scottsdale don’t like unexpected visitors.
• Pigs can be scary: Really, they can. We were walking in the neighborhood where we were staying one night when we saw a group of mysterious shapes in the dark. After staring at them nervously for a while (“Are those wolves?” my brother asked, although he might have been joking), we decided they were javelinas, a kind of wild pig native to the area that is none too shy of people. We kept going, giving them a wide berth, and were nearly to our destination when two more charged out of a nearby garage. I didn’t push my brother at them and run screaming into the night, but it was a near thing.
Actually, I was already a little nervous about pigs, thanks to the story of Ira Ives. Ira, we reported in one of our Looking Back entries a few years ago, was a farmer in the area long ago. One day one of his mules kicked him in the leg, breaking the bone. As he crawled back to the house to get help, several of his pigs tried to eat him alive. It really puts bacon in a whole new perspective.
I learned a few other things — biking uphill for nine consecutive miles is hard, for example — but those are the main things. Well, that and make sure the person sitting next to you on your next flight looks healthy enough to make it to the end of the flight.

It's all wet

Water is out of control, and I don’t mean in a science fiction, intelligent-water-creatures-are-taking-over-the-earth kind of way. That might actually be kind of cool, at least until we started to get all pruney.
No, I’m talking about bottled water. And, in its own way, that is much more frightening.
Have you been in the bottled water aisle of your local grocery store lately? It’s unsettling enough that stores need an entire aisle to sell something most people can get for free out of their own faucets, but what’s in those aisles is even more remarkable. The bottled water industry appears to have found a way to take perhaps the world’s least remarkable product — honestly, what food or drink product is less interesting than water? It’s like the Jay Leno of the food pyramid — and present it in roughly 47,000 ways. There is plain water. There is carbonated water. There is fruit-flavored water in both carbonated and bubble-free varieties. There is mineral water, which as far as I can tell is a fancy way of saying there’s a little dirt in the bottle. A true water connoisseur could go probably go his entire life and never drink the same kind of water twice.
Then, there are the high-end luxury waters. I can’t say for certain what separates these waters from the rest, but they come in really fancy bottles. These companies appear to put the same effort into designing bottles that car companies put into designing their latest model. Maybe more.
Although, I can’t help but imagine some unsuspecting design specialist pouring his heart and soul into a design and then having a conversation that goes something like this:
Designer: “Here it is. This bottle is my masterpiece. I have poured my heart and soul and every ounce of creativity I have into its design.”
Water executive: “Great. It’s really great. I like how it’s wide at the bottom, then narrow, then wide again. Sexy.”
Designer: “Yes. It speaks to the passion of human nature. Now, do you mind if I ask what you plan to put in this bottle — this physical manifestation of all I hold dear?”
Water executive: “Water.”
Designer: "Excuse me?"
Water executive: "Water. We've discovered that if we put out water in really fancy bottles we can charge a lot more for it."
Designer: “Oh, crud.”
Saratoga Spring Water, for example, advertises water that comes in “an Award Winning Cobalt Blue Glass Bottle.” It’s never entirely clear what award the bottle won, although aside from being blue it seems pretty much unremarkable. Then again, the company’s slogan is “Everything else is just water,” which seems to raise questions about exactly what Saratoga Spring Water Company is selling.
A company called Glaceau sells something called Smartwater, which apparently has some kind of nutrients in it and comes in a fancy glass bottle. According to its entry at bottledwaterstore.com, Smartwater “side effects may include being called nerd, dork, geek, brainiac, know-it-all, smarty-pants, smart alek, bookworm, egghead, four-eyes, Einstein or being mistaken for the I.T. guy.” It’s pretty much exactly what you’d want from a bottled water, I imagine, although I’m not sure how likely it is you’ll be called “brainiac” when you can’t spell “smart aleck.”
Apparently, we are becoming a nation obsessed with bottled water. I’m drinking a bottle even as I type this, for crying out loud. According to the International Bottled Water Association — yes, there is such a thing; there's an association for everything — Americans drank nearly 6.8 billion gallons of bottled water last year. The result, according to the Canadian Dental Association, is an increase in tooth decay.
Apparently, by drinking bottled water we are all missing out on the fluoride introduced into tap water. We are drinking bottled water to avoid pollutants in tap water but losing teeth left and right.
But at least we have cool bottles.

Pulitzer, here I come

The other day an aunt I don’t see very often asked me if I’d ever thought about writing a book. I haven’t, at least not seriously. I have ideas for stories, but none of them ever really go anywhere. Unless I can find a market for three- or four-paragraph novels with no clear conclusion, I think I’m out of luck.
I suppose I could put more work into developing one or two of those stories, but I’ve always figured there are enough mediocre novels in the world. It never really seemed worth the effort.
Over the weekend, though, I saw something that caused me to reconsider. I was wandering through a book store, minding my own business, when I saw a book — a novel, even — by Nicole Ritchie, a woman best known for being the daughter of singer Lionel Ritchie, for doing lots of drugs and for being at least as annoying as Paris Hilton on the reality show “The Simple Life.”
Richie’s novel, so far as I can gather, is about a young woman with a drug problem who makes a series of “reality commercials” with her best friend. I don’t know if it’s a mystery, a romance or an adventure, because I stopped reading the description after a few sentences when my head started to hurt.
My sophomore English teacher liked to claim reading was good no matter what the book, and I tend to agree with her. But I can’t imagine people who read this book don’t somehow end up dumber because of it.
Richie isn’t the only celebrity with a book. Once you reach a certain level of fame, it’s pretty much possible to get anything you write, including your grocery lists, published.
Paris Hilton and her dog Tinkerbell both have books in stores. Neither one of them has written a novel, although I have a feeling the dog’s got a good techno-thriller in it.
Former Baywatch star and originator of the celebrity sex tape trend Pamela Anderson has two novels — “Star” and “Star Struck” — both of which feature a character that bears an uncanny resemblance to Anderson.
The second book begins with the sentence, “Why do my nipples hurt?” So, at least give Anderson credit for knowing her audience.
Mediocre actor Ethan Hawke has two books, too. Many men admire Ethan Hawke for marrying Uma Thurman. Many men pity him for allowing that marriage to fall apart. No man has ever read either of Ethan Hawke’s books.
(I didn't bother to read the descriptions for either of Hawke's books, mostly because I already had that Uma Thurman joke in mind.)
Former Playboy playmate and all around annoying person Jenny McCarthy has written books about pregnancy and being a new mother. Sample sentence: “There’s nothing in the world like baby poop.”
According to Amazon.com, Jenny McCarthy is a New York Times bestselling author. I figure that’s really got to tick off the people at the New York Times.
Supermodel Naomi Campbell has written a book called “Swan” that has been described as a “supermodel mystery.” I don’t know much more about it, except that it’s characters include an “all-American blonde” model and a “spunky Cuban immigrant.” Now that’s good characterization.
Tennis great Martina Navratalova has a mystery novel called “Breaking Point.” It’s about a “retired tennis champion and amateur sleuth” thrust into the middle of a murder mystery. The summary I read doesn’t mention whether the main character has a bad haircut or looks vaguely like a man, but I really enjoy the idea of Martina annoying current tennis players by poking around their lockers looking for mysteries to solve.
Lots of celebrities have written children’s books, apparently figuring toddlers won’t know enough yet to realize the books are terrible. Madonna, Jamie Lee Curtis and Whoopi Goldberg — three people I’m sure most parents would love to have babysit — have all written children’s books. I once read a children’s book by actor John Lithgow that included several words even I had to look up. I’m not sure he really understands his audience.
Celebrity authors are not a new trend, either. Shirley Temple published a series of stories in the 1930s, and in 1946 Elizabeth Taylor published a story about her adventures with her pet squirrel. I bet they were nutty.
(I apologize for that joke.)
I’m not sure any of this will help me get a book published, but it’s certainly given me an idea for a story. It’s a techno-thriller about a drugged-up heiress and her dog who fall in love with Uma Thurman and solve mysteries at fashion shows. It’s going to be great.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to clear out my search history at Amazon.com.