Weather Report, By Whitney Farmer – Un Pop Culture

February 2, 2011 Whitney Farmer 0 Comments

Whitney runs a rock music venue on the beach in L.A. She has an M.B.A, and very rarely has migraines that make her go blind and unable to speak sometimes…like last week.

How are you holding up? I had a conference call yesterday with about ten people from different cities. One was from Chicago where two inches of ice were expected to descend within a very few hours. More than half of the country is facing a winter storm that is being called a monster. In Australia, a Category 5 cyclone – the highest and most powerful reading – is churning its way to landfall in Queensland which has been nearly drowned into oblivion in a series of floods recently. That the world is being hit with the labor pains of global warming and is changing before our eyes appears to be a given. There is confusion when people see 2/3 of the country being blanketed in ice and snow. There is an incorrect assumption that it is proof against the concept of global warming. It is in fact the opposite: In starting a fight with our planet, human civilization has knocked our tranquil blue home off balance. Weather extremes are the harbinger of a world that is incensed with the damage that we have done, and it is starting a slow boil.

Weather is REAL news. With an average of 70 million hits daily, the National Weather Service’s website has been encountering 20 million hits each hour in the midst of this challenge. Everything is up for grabs when the roof over our heads starts to cave in, as happened to the Hard Rock Casino outside of Tulsa. When a storm hits, it’s wise to try and navigate out of it, using every skill and experience to come out alive. A compass can help us determine what’s left and right, true and false, and can help us escape in the right direction. And the right direction is the closest point that we can get out from under the blow without hitting the rocks. Under the worst of circumstances, the storm that descends is so large that all that can be done is to seek shelter or ride it out.

A few months ago at the club, an LAPD officer assaulted one of our servers. We ejected him, but above ground he began to threaten in very specific ways. A quick 911 call later and the cop was under arrest. Now the case is going to trial. The young woman who was the victim is frightened and has said that she just wants it all to go away. In the midst of that, there is a group of us that have also been subpoenaed and are looking forward to standing with her in her trial of the trial. The cliché ‘God bless you’ pat on the back is useless. What is essential is that we stand beside her in the storm. We can’t make it go away, but we might be able to hold up the roof together until it passes. A few days ago, I said a quick prayer of ‘God bless her’ in a store over a young woman who was troubled. The silent Almighty answer I got back was, “YOU do it…” So I smiled at her, and thanked her for the good job she was doing. The storm retreated a bit.

I remember what my family did for me when my marriage broke up once upon a lifetime ago. My sisters cried for me when I couldn’t and raged when I wouldn’t. My parents first moved me to another room in the house with another bed, one that hadn’t been slept in by my husband, and then they eventually moved me out of that house completely. To the City of Angels, where I was given safe haven until the storm passed and my boat was righted.

Where I am, the Santa Ana winds have arrived again. The City of Angeles in the State of Grace had rain last week, so forest fires aren’t a threat. Outside, it’s warm and the wind rushing through the palm trees makes them sound like waves crashing on the beach. Or less poetically, like prom night taffeta. I called my best friend in Missouri to see how she is faring. She has mounds of college homework and babysitting of grandbabies to keep her busy indoors. She was full of laughter and sheltered from the storm.

Some storms you can work through. With others, all you can do hide from it until it passes over you and does its work. This is one of those.

Quote of the Blog, from Ed, Dude of Light and Fog, regarding our A-2 monitor tech who has decided to grow enormous mutton chops…again: “That ginger boy just isn’t right in the head.”