Why did I study Electrical Engineering? Because my father told me to. He was the guy helping light up stars at Paramount. ‘It’s a good living, kid,’ he told me. ‘But you can make an even better living if you get your college degree.’ That wasn’t a suggestion; that was an order. I was going to college. As a kid I showed some facility for math and taking apart and putting stuff together. As a teenager I had no damn idea what I wanted to do in life – except drive the clapped-out 1970s mustard-yellow Dodge Dart Swinger that I bought for $725 after eighteen months of an afterschool job disemboweling old jalopies in a wrecking yard down the street from us. How I loved that idiot car. It took me to and from Cal State every day as I pursued that degree in Electrical Engineering to please Dad. I had no real interest in Electrical Engineering. I had no real interest in anything except the Los Angeles Dodgers and my Dodge Dart. Back then Dad would often complain that I was just Mister Blah. Middling grades. Middling interest in the world around me. Middling curiosity in current affairs or even the issues menacing the ’hood. Mister Blah. Dad’s name for me. And one which really got up my nose – because I knew it to be true. I had a minor talent when it came to getting a busted radio to work again and a dad who wanted to brag to his fellow cable and lights guys at the studio that even his less than sparky youngest child was advancing in the world by doing Electrical Engineering at an okay college. I knew Cal State was as middling as my grades – but I didn’t have the academic muscle to find some better niche in the U Cal system. Still, Dad was pleased. Naturally he expected me to live at home – and abide, without an argument, by his midnight curfew rule (1 a.m. on the weekends after I turned twenty-one). Just as he informed me from the get-go that if I didn’t maintain a minimum B average I was going to be responsible for the $1275 per annum that it cost him to send me to Cal State in 1980. I did all that was expected for me – and even managed a B+ average. Only twice in four years did I breach his curfew – and Dad let it ride. Because he knew I was playing the game, buckling down, doing his bidding. Why did I do what was demanded of me? Truth be told I couldn’t figure out what else to do with myself.