(See what I am saying?)

Winter in California

The joshua trees stood scattered across Antelope Valley like a marching band with blindfolds on. The lonley trees staggered out into the horizon and up into the darkness of the San Gabriel Mountains.

As we approched Mt. High, a CHP stopped us, insisiting we don snow chains before continuing.

I didn't want to be the guy with 4x4 and testerone and tell lady that despite the 1/2" of snow on the road, i have driven to snowier places.

"See that guy?" she points. (to a Chevy Tahoe with low profile tires, and a surf sticker in the back windshield, and chrome wheels) I just let him go past and he lost control and turned back around.

"It's a good thing he did" I replied. The CHP lady didn't understand what i meant.

She continued to tell me that the only place within 40 miles to buy chains was at the Mile High Cafe, conviently located only 1/4 mile back the road from where she decided to park her cruiser and make a roadblock.

I walked into the store. Black coffee and sunny side ups sat on the bar. Behind it, the greaseboard on the wall read "Chains = $100.00"

"You're kidding me right?" i asked the high school girl with the apron on behind the black coffee and sunny side ups.

"Nope," her mom answered as she appeared from the kitchen. "If you're lucky, we will have your tire size."

"If i'm lucky......" i thought, "means you will or you won't have them?"

She returned from the back room, acting like she was relieved. Oh we have some for you" she said.

"Great." i said.

I gave her $100.00.

Zach and i crawled around in the 1/2" of slush alongside the road and put on the $100.00 chains, which were actually the cheaper steel-cables-with-metal-casings that looked more like a teenage charm braclet than traction enhancing devices.

Long story short short:
I drove past the CHP lady and gave her a deadpan stare as the bare asphault smashed the metal charm braclets into my tire tread and whipped the loose ends across my fenders.

1 mile up the road Zach and i took them off, to spare my tires and the paint on my fenders.

I put my jeep into 4high about 4 miles in, and even at the top, where the desert had turned into a deja-vu from my rocky mountian days, the roads still weren't even worth a 2 hour delay in high school.

When we got on the slope, the snow was deep, if only we could see it through the ice and snow falling. Lighting struck the lifts and intermittently shut off power to the entire park. Leanne met up her friend Hillary, but by 2:00, the falling sleet made our faces feel like that had been given a base grind in the ski shop. we called it quits, got a refund, went back down the aforementioned road, now completey thawed in the afternoon sun. The CHP lady was STILL there, STILL requiring $100.00 chains to be put on each and every car.

When the Mile High Cafe Owner refused to allow me to return the $100.00 tire charm braclets, a car pulled up, and i sold them to a guy with queery ass musician hands. After Zach and I put them on his truck, we got down off the mountian before the entire Mile High Cafe-CHP money scamming operation took us for any more, and stopped in the minor metropolitian area of Pear Blossom to drown our sorrows in chicken fried steak at Billy Boy's Diner.

"How Much do snow chains cost around here?" I asked the waitress behind the counter at Billy Boy's.

"Oh, about 60 bucks down the road here." she replied.

Being young on Tuesday night.

"So i guess you can't really ever make that much money doing what you do." she said to me.

she said it at the same time she realized it.

she said it without cynicism or exaggeration.

she said it like it was true.

and it was true.

"What I do." I thought. The conversation ended. I closed the phone.

"What I do", referred to being a designer. A graphic designer, to be a little more appropriate. at least for that conversation.

"I could make money being a designer", i thought. but it would never be doing the kind of work that is exciting, innovative, fun, or engaging. It wouldn't be cool. But i could have money.

The type or work i like to do as a young person does not make money. At best, it profits other, older people.

At best.

Young design is cool. Young design does not make money. Young design firms, young publications, youth sports companianes, music, and the bloated genre of youth lifestyle companies who profit from the idea of being young (i.e. "cool") are all owned or backed by, and therefore profit....... old people.

Truly genuine young design - that is, young people designing with energy directly for other young people - is not a profitable venture. Designing and producing projects for photographers, musicians, and other designers is fun, exciting and allows for less constraints and yields more provocative results, but young (i.e. "cool") design does not make money because i do it for other young people, who, in turn , have no money to pay.

The solution: design for financial institutions. Design for pharmaceutical companies. Design for the companies whose names are horribly sterile and ambiguous. Design for old people. They are the ones who have the money.

The best i could hope for, i thought, is design for old people who want to look young.

I sat at the table thinking about it all while looking at an issue of surfer magazine. The people surfing, the people taking photos of them, and the people who were writing about it all are the least paid in the process, Yet they are the ones who make the magazine what it is. They are the ones who make it cool. They are the ones who sell the magaizne so the owners of the companies who advertise in it can make money.

Suddenly and realized the equation was really simple:

You can be young and you can be cool, but can't have money.
You can be young and you can have money, but you can't be cool.
Young can be cool and have money, but you can't be young.

"how much do you charge to design business cards? I want you to do it up sweet." My roommate Zach, a self employed real estate appraiser, asked me as he skateboarded across our living room floor and crashed head over heels in wool lumberjack socks and bright red crocs across the threshold into the hallway.

The drain has been clogged for 3 days and the bathtub is nearly full of water. The landlord hasn't come over to snake the drain yet. Each shower raised the water closer to the top of the tub. None of us have taken a shower in the last two days for fear of being the one to overflow the tub and flood the bathroom.

Ryans Adams, "Note to Self: Don't Die", was playing on the house stereo.

"i tell you what," Zach said as he picked himself off the ground, "i will trade you for your design. if you ever decide california is where it's at, and you buy a house, i will trade you for an appraisal."

by the time that comes around, i thought, we will both be old enough to pay each other. and old enough to wish we were cool again.

[*addenda: 1). There are, i think, exceptions to the equation. (i.e. My pal Woody. But he is not a designer. and he is really isn't young.) 2). I hate the word 'cool'. 3). About 1:30 am Zach feverishly began plunging the bathtub. By 1:40 am the water had drained.]