Kamkiriad : The Authentic, Genuine, Original Valley Guy

It will come as no surprise to readers of this blog that I’m not in love with the San Francisco Bay Area, my home for nearly the past 40 years. Incredibly pretentious, over-priced, and over-rated, I’d leave in a heartbeat if I had consensus from my family. The Bay Area has provided me with a home and a career with limited complaint. That, but absolutely no civic pride or happiness whatsoever. The late, great W.C. Fields purportedly wanted to put on his tombstone, “All things considered, I’d rather be in Philadelphia;” his hatred for his home town clearly evident, but when weighed against death perhaps a different priority. I can’t imagine adopting the same sentiment about my adopted home. While I can’t get excited about much the area has to offer (I’m bored by it all; what can I say?), I do have lots of go-to restaurants that I enjoy, and that I’d probably miss when (if) I move(d) away. I’ll focus on my favorite Chinese restaurant; my family enjoys it, and it’s a place that ...

I first became aware of Alice Cooper through the older kids in my neighborhood. It was 1969 and I was hanging out with a couple of friends when one put the recently released LP Pretties For You  on the turntable. The first several tracks sounded interesting but not unique as the psychedelic sound was common in the late 60s. When the 5 th track, Living , played, it captured my attention and I asked the name of the artist. When he said, “Alice Cooper,” I replied, “never heard of her,” which got laughs from the room. I was then told that this was the debut album of a band named Alice Cooper. No one in the band was actually named Alice Cooper, and that there were no females in the band. OK, I thought, with odd-sounding band names such as Spooky Tooth, Vanilla Fudge and Strawberry Alarm Clock, why couldn’t there be an Alice Cooper? Besides, I was liking what I was hearing. Their 2 nd album was released a year later. Easy Action didn’t fit any specific music style, and was...

Authors Note - I could write volumes about my experience working for nearly two decades for a Japanese company; so much potential content. Here though, I focus on a specific event and the backstory thereof. My career got off to an auspicious start when, soon after relocating from Los Angeles to the Bay Area, I applied and was hired by a gigantic Japanese company, whose global footprint at the time rendered them the 8 th biggest company in the world. I was certainly impressed; their annual revenue topped $80 billion, and their net worth was north of $35 billion. They had over 300,000 employees worldwide, and sold about 20,000 products through various divisions and subsidiaries. I was employed in a group that included semiconductors, disk drives, industrial equipment, and procurement services. I loved working for the company as it was operated with a heavy degree of Japanese culture, business and otherwise; it was unique and different from anything I had experienced prior to or a...

An elderly man approaches his daughter with a request: he’d like to spend a day with his five year old grandson at the beach. The daughter readily agreed, asking the usual questions pertaining to when, where, and whether they’d all meet at the beach or at the house. The man then explained that he wanted a day out alone with his grandson so they could bond and create memories of a lifetime. The daughter was reluctant to allow her father to be the sole guardian of the child at the beach. She worried that her dad, at age 82, would not have the stamina nor quick reaction to properly supervise his grandson and keep him safe. Far too many potential dangers at the beach to be comfortable, thought the daughter. But the old man would not take no for an answer. He reminded his daughter that he had done a pretty good job keeping her safe during her youth, and that he had not slowed down a single iota throughout the years. The man continued to argue his position and he eventually wore his da...

I was informed of a Philosophy professor, teaching a course in Existentialism, who made it clear on the first day of class that the final grade would be solely based upon the final exam, and that it would be graded simply as pass/fail. There would be no homework, no quizzes, no tests, and no mid-term; only the final exam. The class let out a collective sigh of relief! The professor, in their eyes, was Instructor of the Year, and the semester had only just began. Class after class the professor held the students interest with thoughtful lectures, moving readings, and dynamic classroom discussions. The complete works of Camus, Kafka, and Kierkegaard explored. Woody Allen was once quoted as saying that he took an exam in Existentialism and left all the questions unanswered, yielding him a grade of 100%. Would any student be so bold as to turn in a completely blank final? During the last week of class the professor reminded the students that the final would be an essay, addressed from...

Authors Note - With NFL camps opening for the 2018 season, I look back at the day I adopted the Washington Redskins as my team. With apologies to Franklin Delano Roosevelt,  January 28, 1971  is a day that will live in infamy, at least for me. First some background. I became a pro football fan at the beginning of the 1966 season. The Super Bowl, as we know it today, hadn’t yet been invented. It was called the AFC-NFC Championship, and the inaugural game was played in my hometown at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The game didn’t sell out, and since my father wasn’t a big football fan, I failed to convince him that the event was important enough to attend (being 10 years-old I had no other means to get downtown). The game was blacked out locally so I spent that Sunday afternoon with a transistor radio pressed against my ear. By today’s standards, it’s hard to image the game not selling out and being blacked out anywhere in the world. Of course, the tickets were horribl...