Canto CCCXLI: Your Apple Repair Guy

Gentle cabrones:

I’ve talked about my laptop before, and I’ll talk about it.

OLD SKOOL. Bought it new 12 years ago. Cannot upgrade to the next operating system anymore because it’s so old– not that I would want to, because if I did, that means I would no longer be able to use the Microsoft Office suite that I currently use. Man, I only found out a year ago that Microsoft Office now requires a monthly subscription fee — how much more money do you need, Bill Gates?

I digress.

It’s old-school MacBook Pro that’s thick enough that you can break a window by throwing the laptop at it, kind of like that Top Gear episode where they tried to destroy a Toyota pick up truck that just wouldn’t die. The laptop that I’ve replaced the keyboards on twice because my typing is basically like Bach pounding the harpsichord during the first movement of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5.

That laptop? I’m gonna keep it until it cannot work at all. That probably won’t die for a while, because it’s like an OLD SKOOL Ford F150. But it has one problem.

About once a year , the battery starts to overheat. Like dramatically. Like, I can feel the heat, even if I have two pillows over my lap. It’s a fault of that particular MacBook, like the perpetual oil leak on the VW Bus pancake engine.

When the overheating happens? I go to George.

He runs Fast Apple Repair, a computer store with locations in Irvine and Laguna Beach that’s truth in advertising. I’ve been taking my laptop to him for at least seven years at this point. I’ve been taking it to him since before he knew who I was, since before I knew what his name was. I was able to do a short blurb on him for the Infernal Rag, and I’ve recommended people to him ever since.

George is the type of guy who’s honest enough to say I should keep my old school laptop because it’s that good. He’s honest enough to say which iPhones are better, and never tries to squeeze an extra dollar off of me because why would you do that to a customer? And now I’m glad to say, like the most small business George in television, he’s moving on up.

Fast Apple Repair just moved from one suite in an office park just across the street from John Wayne Airport to a bigger suite in the same office park. They’re now now Apple certified, which means George had to pass through a rigorous test and will now get more customers.

I dropped off my laptop on Monday to congratulate him in the new spot, and so he could fix the overheating. He turned it back in yesterday like new (The delay? I was out of town for…something). Said to bring it back next week so he could put some sort of cooling putty on it that wouldn’t take more than 20 minutes to apply.

I don’t mind returning. George is cool. Small business people are cool. Small business people are life. 

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Last week, my media chica and I went to the closing of Old Vine Café in Costa Mexico. Fabulous restaurant, with an amazing run — 17 years! We were there on the first day, so it was wonderful to close the proverbial loop alongside chef-owner Mark McDonald.

Running your own business is about as brave a thing as one can do. I have a proverbial front-row seat (sorry for all the clichés this week!) to the task at my honey’s Alta Baja Market. The courage to put in your own money, WERK nonstop, care about what goes on within your walls and outside of it — that’s how you build a better neighborhood, a city, a region.

Small business owners are the ones who are committed to stay where they are for decades instead of leave the moments things don’t go their way. They improve life for everyone — far more than a soulless corporation, or an investor-laden operation, or wokosos choosing their cause of the month. 

But don’t assume small businesses don’t need your business — because they always do.

I don’t have any regrets in life, because they will haunt you forever. But I do have moments that I wish I could’ve done differently. One of them involved a dry cleaner I use to patronize. One day, the owner gave me my clothes back and said to please keep going to his place. I hadn’t gone as much anymore because it was the depths of the Great Recession. I remember being weirded out by the request — it’s the rancho libertarian in me — and I never returned.  

He lost his business soon after. I see the building that housed it almost every day, reminding me of my folloy.

Where are you spend your money matters – and we all need to spend money. So go patronize whoever your George is today. And if you need fast repair on your Apple product? Go to Fast Apple Repair — DUH.

There’s a saying in Spanish that I wanted to spin into a canto, but I might as well use it now: lo barato cuesta. Cheap costs you. Small businesses will charge more than Amazon, but who care? I remembered that when a fan of mine on Twitter saw that I bragged about buying cheap ass Warby Parker frames. Why not frames from where I work from? she asked. Husband and wife operation.

Three years later, Orange Circle Optometry in Old Town Orange continues to sell me amazing frames and offers such great customer service that I would just talk to them if I didn’t have a job. They’re so cool, I asked them to make my reading glasses look like the type Jack Benny regularly wore — and they did.

I’ve written about them before, and I’m writing about them again. You can never patronize your Fast Apple Repairs enough.

**

Enough rambling. This was the semana that was:

IMAGE OF THE WEEK: My far-more handsome, far more talented doppelgänger Lalo Alcaraz taking a photo of me. To the left is acclaimed profe-writer Roberto Lovato; to the right is legendary Inland Empire activist Emilio Amaya. We, along with another legendary activist, Angela Sanbrano, gave thoughts yesterday on the legacy of Prop. 187 at a two-day conference at UC Riverside that continues today.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Because if I've learned anything, I've learned that you only pass through this life once, Jack. You don't come back for an encore.” — Elvis Presley

LISTENING: “Las Piedras Rodantes,” El Tri. I’ve plugged the chilango rock urbano gods before, I’m sure, but I’m doing it again to honor “This Fool” one final time. This was the concluding song to the gone-too-soon Hulu series #SaveThisFool. Alex Lora has as distinctive a music voice as Rod Stewart and Easy-E, but will never get the respect he deserves because what chilango does? But gorgeous, wistful, soulful blueser of a song.

READING: “Heaven Help Marge Schott: Cincinnati's owner is a Red Menace”: I remember reading this 1996 Sports Illustrated article when it came out, by one of of the faces on my teenage journalism Mt. Rushmore, Rick Reilly (the others? Jim Murray, Alan Malamud, and Leigh Montville). Reading it decades later, it’s still as incredible as ever — disturbing, unsparing, unsympathetic, hilarious. Skip J-school, and get yourself a bunch of old Sports Illustrateds, aspiring reporter!

BUY MY NEW CO-BOOK! People’s Guide to Orange County tells an alternative history of OC through the scholarship and reporting of myself, Elaine Lewinnek, and Thuy Vo Dang. There’ll be signings all year — in meanwhile, buy your copy TODAY. And, yes: I’ll autograph it!

Gustavo Events  

March 2, 3 p.m. aka TODAY: Join me and my compa Bill Esparza for yet another Alta Journal reading — but this one featuring wine from Baja California! It’ll be at my wifey’s Alta Baja Market, 201 E. 4th St., Ste. 101, SanTana. The lecture is FREE, but if you want to taste the vinos, that’ll be $15, which will get you you a copy of Alta’s latest issue. RSVP here.

March 21, 5:30 p.m.: I’ll be in conversation with folks from the Long Beach Public Library Foundation on why libraries have become the culture-war front that they’ve become at the Union Bank Building, 400 W. Oceangate, Long Beach. Tickets are $25, but it’s a fundraiser, so PAY UP.

Gustavo in the News

“Their first movie won Sundance. For Luz Films, it’s only the beginning”: A Los Angeles Times newsletter you should subscribe to shouts out my columna.

“Meet Old School Becky Lu, the Coachella Valley DJ helping keep Art Laboe’s legacy alive”: Same newsletter, different edition.

“Latinx Files: When movie theaters become churches": Same newsletter, another edition.

“(event) Words & Wine // Alta Journal x Alta Baja Market": Alta Journal shouts out the event we’re having TODAY.

“Voyage LA Interview - Rising Stars: Meet Zachary Ellison”: The legendary whistleblower shouts me out in a profile of him #respect

Gustavo Stories 

“Grítale a Guti”: Latest edition of my Tuesday night IG Live free-for-all.

“OC showdown: Two supervisor seats up for grabs in crowded race”: My weekly KCRW OC commentary talks about the races between incumbent Don Wagner and Farrah Khan, and the Northwest OC race that’s really a death match between Van Tran and Janet Nguyen.

“Ask a Californian: There’s No Sober Like California Sober“: My latest Alta Journal co-columna tackles flash robs, sorta sobriety, and more! KEY QUOTE: “If you are truly an addict, using other substances is like living in Poway—why?”

“The story of Latino political power in Los Angeles”: My latest Essential California introduces a four-part series called “Power y Glory” that I’ve been working on for months and is FINALLY out. KEY QUOTE: ““Power y Glory” is important to read because all Angelinos should know about the different nodes of political power in Latino L.A.”

“The Eastside, cradle of Latino politics, is squabbling once again”: Part 1 focuses on the CD-14 race in Boyle Heights. KEY QUOTE: “Rivalries are part of any region’s politics, but in the cradle of Latino power in Los Angeles, they are biblical.”

“The rise and stumbles of the San Fernando Valley Latino political machine”: Part 2 goes to Pacoima. KEY QUOTE: “The duo, who room together in D.C., frequently cite that initial campaign as the template they used to construct an L.A. political dynasty worthy of the British royals.”

“Latino political power emerges in South L.A.”: Part 3 focuses on AD 57. KEY QUOTE: “South L.A. may be majority Latino now, but history has shown that ignoring or waving off Black residents comes at political peril.”

“A new dawn for Latino politicians in L.A. County’s ‘corridor of corruption’”: Part 4 ends up in SELA. KEY QUOTE: “William Faulkner famously wrote that the past is never dead because it hasn’t even passed. In SELA, the past is just an election away.”

“The political trees of Latino Los Angeles”: Gracias for the idea, Padilla! (Steve Padilla. Not Imelda. Or Alex. Or Ackley).

You made it this far down? Gracias! Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram while you’re down here by clicking on their logos down below. Don’t forget to forward this newsletter to your compadres y comadres! You can’t get me tacos anymore, but you sure as hell can give them — and more — to the O.C. Catholic Worker!