Banner Day

It’s a banner day. I mean, I have a lot of good days, and even mostly great because I’ve been able to spend them with my little one. Today though is different. Something is changing soon and forward is the direction we will be going.

I am quite pleased with these new developments, for now at least. I am aware that it could certainly be better and that I am capable of much more. Despite this, I am allowing myself some satisfaction. Breathe easy and deep Michael. You did good today. Let your shoulders down, relax your back, take some moments to be at peace. For yourself. And then for him and her and what else is coming soon.
Ever briefly take it in. For once. Let’s not be too hasty in forgoing celebration. This is just cause. It’s a legitimate victory. Organize a small parade.
I am happy to contribute. To once again fulfill a major responsibility that ought to be mine. Too long has it been carried by others.
The reality of the work though isn’t exactly exciting. It doesn’t matter though. I can bear a cross and I can beat a bear, at least for however long we need.
Now to celebrate! Let’s find a typewriter to buy!

The Rescue

Long Beach, CA – a recent rumor surfaced that she was hiding out among some junk trying to pass itself off as antique. Since when did it suddenly become fashionable to consider all old shit as vintage, leftovers and surplus as treasure, and rusted, broken, withered shadow-of-their-former-selves things as primo collectibles? These items that even in the past, their heyday, weren’t thought of as valuable? Sure I believe some artifacts of the past are indeed prized and significant – we’re talking ancient mayan fertility goddesses, fossilized-in-amber pterodactyls, and the ark of the covenant to name a few; however, dull and bent nails and worn out moth-eaten hats and smelly rotten furniture cannot be and should not be sold at a premium because due to their decrepit states they cannot possibly be reasonably in demand – certainly not in demand enough to warrant a cost triple or quadruple that of a brand new and improved version of itself available now. Again, these are everyday items of old, discarded because they are obsolete as chewed gum. Nevertheless, these antique dealers and steampunk hipsters continue to attempt to cajole us to regard these cheap and inferior, nonfuctional objects as coveted and sought in order to validate their usually outrageously obscene price tag. “Retro”,” vintage”,”classic”,”rare”,”patina”… A bunch of other hogwash words to deceive the truth of what it really is: used, decrepit, falling apart, useless, trash, garbage,  second or third hand thrift store filth and scraps and firewood.

Well, I waded through this sea of crap and found her. She herself was close to being discarded yet again but this time her lofty price tag kept her out of the recycle bin. How many of her lives had she already used up? She wasn’t too beautiful but she had promise. She was a prom queen, pageant winner but for the last 20-30 years she’s been an alcoholic and homeless, forgotten and abandoned.

She needs rehabilitation. I held her hand to help her step out of her own piss and sweat and paid her bail and then negotiated her freedom.

Then we drove to the actual beach, which she hadn’t seen since her youth in Germany.

She has lost her ability to speak for the time being. She sat there quiet, but looked around with curiosity. Her eyes have some sparkle left. But her colors are faded and she has some scratches and scrapes. She escaped without any dents thank god. Be that as it may, she no doubt has seen better days. Maltreatment and abuse is what she’s accustomed to and she’s been handcuffed and caged. Still, I sense that there is fight left in this one. She’s tough. She’s a survivor.

Soon, food and water. I will help her become strong again.

I now have my very own Groma Kolibri!!!

Is There a Doctor in the House?

What began as fun is now a frustrating ordeal. The exhaustive search for a suitable screwdriver set is an exercise in futility. As of now, I am not even at a crossroads; instead, i have not left the parking spot. Endless research ends in pros but also these red flag cons that halt any further committment.

Why even go through such frustration?

Well, these vintage typewriters are exactly that – vintage. Most are long forgotten and left in that bygone era. Purchasing one is not enough effort to consider it rescued. These machines are in various degrees of poor shape. Some need just a thorough cleaning – that’s easy! I bought my cleaning supplies weeks ago. Others need reconditioning – heck, im prepared for that as well. But still there are some that need surgery.

And a surgeon needs the proper instruments before starting the operation.

I suppose the main trouble is that there really isnt quite a consensus on what screwdrivers to use.

The issue is that no one ever made typewriter screwdrivers.

The conventional wisdom is to use gunsmith screwdrivers.

So there my search began – going through brands, manufactured in the USA but now in China so get German but be careful because some of those are now being made in China too, and different sets and bits, handles and materials.

The top set is the Brownell’s Magna-tip gunsmith screwdriver super set. They run about $130. They’re right for the job because they are hollow-ground tip so they fit the screw perfectly so you don’t “bugger” up those precious 100 year old screwheads. Another feature is they are magnetic so they fit more securely.

I asked some typewriter veterans and many actually said they dont know what brand they use.

I called up Bill Wahl from Mesa Typewriter Exchange and he doesnt know exactly what he uses, only that theyre old and he inherits them from dead customers and that he only uses about 4 different screwdrivers.

I talked to Ruben Flores of US Office Machines who had the same story, minus the dead customers.

I also had an email conversation with Tom Furrier of Cambridge Typewriter

who said that gunsmith screwdrivers are overkill. He said he actually uses Craftsman from over a decade ago. Additionally, he finds a jewelers/watchmaking set useful as well.

In the yahoo typewriter forum, some typewriter collectors who do their own repair wrote to use Wiha or Chapman or Klein or Grace.

I looked at all those and they are nice but it does seem like overkill sometimes because of the 10 screwdrivers in the set, 6-8 are slotted/flathead screwdrivers of varying sizes.

Additionally, there are concerns about quality. Those brands rest on the laurels of their reputations once forged long ago and rightfully earned, although now those same reputations recede as the tide because they have sacrificed that made in the USA or Germany quality for the bottom line, or perhaps its because the new world economy demands those concessions in order to survive. The game has changed.

I actually added a set into my amazon shopping cart but in the end i decided it was premature. I determined that if i spent that $20 on this beginner set, well that $ could actually go towards a much better set. The logic cant be argued against.

At the same time, one has to allow oneself a learning curve. And the best place to begin is the beginning with a set that matches your abilities. And wallet.

Sleep on it, you might say. Well, i’ve been sleeping on it for about 2 weeks now. There are no sufficient answers in dreams. And it has started to bother my sleep as i obsess about finding the right set and making the right choice and the best decision…

Perhaps this has more to do with than just screwdrivers.

Antiquing

This past Monday I had some time available to galavant. I spent it hunting for typewriters, of course. I have given up on The Goodwill. Therefore, I employed Yelp to assist me with a different place to search and discovered King Richard’s Antique Center in Whittier, CA. It’s huge!!! More than huge – its bohemoth like a pregnant elephant. Or better yet: a pregnant wooly mammoth. There are about 175 separate dealers leasing space within its rickety walls. It was multi-multi-level and it was labyrinthine and quite dizzying. You can truly get lost and I neglected to bring breadcrumbs to mark my path.

Once inside i was sufficiently awestruck by its girth – i imagine it is what Jonah felt like inside his whale. It was a jumbo-Hindenburg … If the blimp were an antique mall.

People who worked inside this stout, vast mass were sparsely located. From a distance they seemed the size of an ant. And they moved like them too.

Other shoppers were either intensely focused, peculiar and eerie, loners in their search. Or loud touristy-types who chortled incessantly with their companions about their experiences with this or that knickknack. I was within earshot of their stories but paid no heed because they were not discussing typewriters.

Inside each lot of space were shoved trinkets and gadgets of old, you really had to look to see everything. Odd objects like safety pins and bottle caps were displayed though not as prominently as a boar’s head or a Coca Cola vending machine.

After a time, I finally asked where the typewriters were and was told that they are around! I must have given a quizzical look bc without more prodding, I was provided additional directions: “go downstairs twice and most of them are in that area.”

Hmmmm. So off I went, deep into this animal. Surely I vanished into the horizon and entered a land haunted by ghosts, friendly and hostile. Instead of a light fog of mist, it was a dense cloud of dust. Debris littered my vision. I coughed and it echoed – both mine and the dead.

I came across a skittish worker who hardly seemed alive until I came upon him. I asked my question and it was as if it were the first words he had heard in decades. He hadn’t a mouth but his moss-like mustache said there are typewriters around and I had to find them. As if they needed saving from this dreary place. I felt like I had time traveled. Like inside a vegas casino, this place was holding onto me and its grasp was tightening. Out of a growing fear, I urged him to point me where he had last seen a typewriter. I could hear his mind crank, barely able to start. The ignition was a squeak. He more or less floated away and I followed lest be left alone.

We came to a wide carriage Olympia, probably an SM9. There was no price and he said to go back to the surface and inquire at the front desk. With that he turned like a stegosaurus would and began to walk away, with a deceiving speed belying his overgrown and extinct reptilian brethren.

With some panic in my voice I informed him that I was looking for something smaller, a portable, and a manual at that. At this most recent behest, with a tap of his foot, he urged me to follow once again.

It was then I acquired a better look at him – his eyes though glassy appeared to have innocence, his face where there was no beard or stubble seemed smooth enough, his cheeks though inundated with a ghastly pallor hinted at a plump rosiness, and again, his eyes: there was a faint gleam. I recognized the bright spots of his look bc of my 6 month old who is so full of life he beams with vitality and happiness.

I found myself horrified: was this a young man? Had this place robbed him of his youth? Or was his life force being used to feed this building? Methusulah’s crypt. Was he part of the building’s collection? Its cold grave. The air was still and the quiet is like that when the river of blood gushed down the hotel hallway. It was Halloween inside here.

As I was about to turn and run, he pointed gingerly, perhaps due to my heightened nervousness, to 2 typewriters against the wall. There was a near pristine 1950s Royal QDL and by its side, an exceptionally agreeable glass keyed Remington Portable. The price for the QDL was $75 – too high, especially since i picked one up earlier this month for $10. The Remington – not sure which portable but probably in the 1930s had an asking price of $90, but i see these on eBay for a lot more affordable a cost. Plus I dont really like either typewriter.

I thanked my new friend and bravely asked him to direct me to the least expensive typewriter he knows. Without a word he moved, left and right and left and right and straight and who knows where else. I only followed. From behind a mini piano he expunged a small yellowed case and said that this was $30. He capriciously opened the case and there was a decent Smith Corona Silent Super in peach/pink/light tan.

Ive read all the praise bestowed to this machine. There is a dedicated following to its supposed superior build despite its rather homely and near unsightly styling. I’d never quite wanted this particular typer but I did not want to leave empty handed. I wanted to survive this trek into the belly of the beast and have a trophy to show for it.

Somehow, I was brazen enough to ask if the price was negotiable. My companion stood statuelike for an eternity, as if he spotted medusa. Had my cavalier ways finally caught up to me and he was to turn werewolf or vampire and end my life, mummifying my body so it could not be found until aliens invaded and took over the world?

He struggled but again found the energy and ability to speak: ill take you up to the front desk.

As we rose from the depths, he became more human and more light and color entered in his face. He was damn close to conversational as we broke to the surface. He said that there was no such thing as 50% off – he had never heard of such a thing, but dealers likely would accept 10% off. Again, I was bold to suggest $25 is a fair price for this piece.

Once at the desk, he whispered to the man behind the desk – he looked like a life-sized hobbit. This hobbit was taller than me and he went to the phone and called the dealer. My offer was accepted and I am now the new owner of this old Silent Super. I am also a survivor of King Richard’s Antique Center.

First Time Away

Last weekend marked the very first time we spent away from our little one. Our good friend Nathalie gifted us a stay at the Loews Coronado Resort in San Diego.

Coronado Island is a tourist attraction because of its beach lifestyle. The famous and haunted Hotel Del Coronado is one of its inhabitants. Its human residents are divided into hipsters, surfers, 3rd or 4th generation Coronadoans, and retirees, but on the weekends, the tourist come like women shoppers to the Nordstrom Anniversary sale.. The Loews Resort is in the more remote part of Coronado island, away from much of the commercialism, and as such I surmise is so designed in order to truly get away from it all.

We were to use it and relax and hit the spa, get away and catch up on some rest and sleep. Despite this, we still deliberated taking our little 6month old with us. We imagined it’d be fun and all the new sights and sounds he’d see. However, we also were clairvoyant enough to realize that hotel life is far from ideal for a baby.

With much consternation, we decided against taking him along with us. It wasnt so much that we were worried for his care and well being – my parents’ love my son goes past the heavens – it was our impending separation anxiety that nearly justified our taking him with us.

In the end, the utilitarian or even, categorical imperative (and a rare sense of rationality) won out.

Our thoughts never quite strayed too far away from him, even though we tried earnestly to pretend to be having fun, deep in sublime conversation, as if we were our old pre-baby selves.

While we leisurely drove up and down the 5 freeway, one such way we fought our dread was to hunt for typewriters. I called basically every Goodwill along the coast and 15 miles inland for that 100+ mile expanse to inquire on their typewriters… Nearly all empty. If one was in stock, it was an electric typewriter. What’s worst, a common story was that they hadn’t seen a typer in months! Where were they disappearing to? Could it be that people stopped donating these machines to instead attempt to turn a profit via Craigslist or eBay? Or even, perhaps people are deciding to keep these machines for themselves! If that is the case, maybe it’s time to hoard!

A bump

You can consider this afternoon’s impulse buy, a fiendish bump of sorts, as in a fiendish bump hit of near-pure cocaine. Yes, right off the grimy old thumbnail, as you should prefer. It’s a lot more lustful and truthful than an almost medicinal sniff from a small cold metal rod dipped into a haphazardly worn show-off vial around the neck.
Truth be told, I did not crave this particular typer… But nor was it plain and common enough to dismiss. I merely and quickly processed fast-becoming natural instinct calculations and made the necessary considerations (such as $ and space) to determine that while I didn’t exactly need or even desired this machine, i couldn’t let it go bc it would monumentally haunt me all the remaining days of my life.
So, action.

Hello world!

I am moving out of the shadows, turning from lurker to participant and officially joining the typosphere.

I’ve enjoyed many blogs and they certainly assisted in my accelerated education of typewriters as well as expedited my obsession and compulsion.

While I have admired these machines of old from a distance, i only got near and and intimately dear to them recently. Now i suppose fawning over them would be even more accurate.

What started as just 1 typewriter quickly multiplied like gremlins. Yes, i sought them after midnight.

Now i would like to chronicle them and be amongst my peoples, this subculture called the typosphere.

However, I cannot be a true citizen quite yet because my scanner is out. I’ll have to repair or purchase a new one before i can typecast.

Im excited to start