If you ever move some place, getting a bike is key. Not just to make one feel less geriatric and pasty white Northerner, but because it’s the correct speed to simultaneously cover some ground and take a look around.

With a bike, it was easier to see that just block away or so from my front door was a clear view of the Santa Cruz mountains. (I think it’s them anyway. With my sense of direction it could be the fucking Pyrenees and I wouldn’t know.)

And I could take a closer look at the one of the two ice cream men I hear wandering the ‘hood every single fucking day. I’ve actually spotted at least three separate ice cream operations on my street, including your basic ice cream truck, and two street vendors wheeling little refrigerated carts. (It’s hella quaint like I ain’t never seen Back East to see a grown man pushing around a multi-colored, throwback to the ’30s wooden cart every damn day.)

I think the thick concentration of frozen confection vending is due to the proximity of a local park down the street. But what do I know, maybe everywhere here there’s platoons of ice cream men. (You know, instead of the Spanish fantasy of the Golden West with gold in the streets, it could be the shangri-la of creamy treats on every block. It’s all different from Boston here, afterall.)

The two I hear every day cause me to alert like a dog but not in a Pavlovian ice cream lust way. Nope. It’s because one of them has a tinkling little bell (I can hear right now) that sounds exactly like I remember from the reading of the Gospels 10-second warning in a Catholic mass. (For you heathens, they ring bells to signify the importance of the Holy Word, or some such bullshit.)

The other guy, his cart plays the little tune from some kids song that goes like:
Does your hair hang low?
Does it waggle to and fro?
Can you tie it in a knot? BLAH BLAH

You know the one? Every single time that ice cream guy comes by I free associate on Dennis Hopper, morphing him in my head through different psychos, starting with the hippie in “Easy Rider,” who played around to that tune, through to the nitrous oxide mask in “Blue Velvet.” Scary ice cream.

Besides, with a bike I zipped right in and out of the jammed up Post Office parking lot full of folks like me, dragging their heels in handing over some cabbage to the government. But, fuck it, the tons o’ dough I owed the U.S. of A. is en route, and I hope I can just make some more.

I’m pushing hard to remain upbeat about the likelihood of my getting some sort of gainful employment. Today was a mixed day of rejection and hope. I heard from one part-time office manager job I didn’t get. The woman was tres cool about the whole thing as far as letting me down easy goes. Apparently, I was a rocking, hardcore, right up in there, contending #2.

Either this #2 status was completely genuine, and I only did just miss out because of a lack of industry X experience (which I’m choosing to believe). Or, the chick hiring was the best pep-talking liar in the world. Either way, you just got to keep going.

(I’m a tinge regretful, because she seemed just the right kind of low key for me to put behind the last fireball of stress such was my last gig. A key moment that sticks out in our interview because of it’s striking contrast to the “best and the brightest” bullshit I survived in the hallowed ivy halls was one remark.

She said, in regard to my letting her know I was looking for something not overly mentally taxing, because I had my own writing junk to energize, “Yeah, I know what you mean. I drove a bus through graduate school.” And we talked about balance and not burning out with total submersion or spending 70 hour weeks.

I only wish the assholes I’ve worked with in the past could have heard that, you know what, there are people with advanced degrees and intellectual acumen who don’t buy into the ball-busting, shark-swimming bullshit.)

Speaking of past work, a recruiter has been casting my resume on the waters. And, he says, there have been murmurs of “impressive.” Right now, he’s working on something at a company run by an alumni of the very place from which I fled west.

Small fucking world.

Any minute now, I’m also looking to crank up the old comedy calendar again. Yup, I’ve finally gotten off my ass and lined up some performance dates. California, here I fucking am.