it's certainly possible to do them at a distance - just much, much tougher. 

Quite the distance from where you mentioned.

He drives a car with doors that open funny, too, and every day, he has to drive that car 45 minutes to work and drive it back home for 45 minutes.He professes to love his alone time in his commute and he loves his challenging job, but for the love of Christ that's an hour and a half a day of prime time down the crapper five or six days a week.

Landlording from a distance should be done with local property management.

I’d love to understand a little bit more about your experience managing long distance.

However, if I were to purchase a property, I'd face a minimum 45-minute commute, which is impractical for a ~10-minute showing as an agent.

If it's a long-distance rehab, Facetime it.Do this often enough and it will limit (not 100% eliminate) the chances of missing something. 

For particulars, you to invest in the desert areas driving distance to SoCal as you can get into them with 30-40k.

Not sure how long the commute would be exactly but sometimes you have to sacrifice some comforts for long term goals.

As a starter, I recommend reading “Long-Distance Real Estate Investing: How to Buy, Rehab, and Manage Out-of-State Rental Properties”(if you still haven't).