Why not?

"So you think you can tap dance?"

Or better:

"So you think you can whittle?"

In terms of viewer entertainment, aren't they all just about equal?

All I've got

If Zenyatta is supposed to be one of the greatest ten racehorses of all time, how come no one had ever heard of her before last week? Admittedly, I don't know much about the sport of kings. But aren't there huge, triple-crown races where we'd have seen her run before? Or at least heard her name? How do things like this happen so suddenly? Overnight, something like this goes from obscurity to the topic of every sports TV show, and seemingly everyone's lips. For such an esoteric sport, it's odd how for a short time, its popularity skyrockets. Like soccer in America, during the World Cup.

Too bad the band in those Free Credit Report.com commercials came out after the Barenaked Ladies. Those mainstream, no-talent hacks would've been huge ten years ago, if they'd come first. Guys in the commercials, I mean.

Copycat

Why are athletes so lacking in originality? Why hasn't someone, over lo these many decades, come up with a better football celebration than the gatorade bath? How come the baseball pie-in-the-face-during-interview hasn't been updated?

The world needs more Ohcocincos.

Melted Leftovers

Read a story about three Colombia grads, who stumbled into the confectionary business. Unable to find work upon graduation, one moved back with his parents. Another went with him, suffering the particular indignity of moving home with someone else's parents.

After a movie, they inadvertently left a bunch of snacks in the car, which melted together. After, two bet the third he wouldn't eat the resulting mix of chocolate, gummi bears, popcorn and what ever else. Not only did he win the bet, but also he actually enjoyed it. So of course, in Walter Mitty style, they borrow $, and started a candy company.

What's interesting isn't that they staggered blindly into some ridiculous candy concoction, via a hot automobile. No. How can three guys who graduated Ivy not find work? And their best prospect is the result of forgetfulness?

Who knows what they were searching for. Or how? How many jobs they'd refused? How motivated they were? But what chance do any of the rest of us stand if Ivy League kids go unemployed?

During the planning stages of my LA move, my stepdad asked how much money I had saved. It was then that I realized that the financial reports on television, and NPR statistical analysis all became real to me. My annual cost-of-living raises hadn't nearly kept pace with the actual cost of living. Not only did I have no money banked, I'm in truth poorer than I was five years ago. Twenty-plus years of work, and what do I have to show?

Our parents didn't have unpaid internships, probationary periods, three-part interviews, or fears about their jobs suddenly vanishing to the Philippines, after 20 years.

Worried this may make me sound a Tea Partier. Just the opposite. I don't blame the politicians for "taking" my country, so much as I blame businesses, their policies, for diminishing the already undervalued worth of the American worker. Also the American public, who allows this to happen without making much noise.

Am leaving food in my car for a couple of days, hoping for the best.

Social Network

Washing dishes, where I do most of my best thinking, I realized how much inane stuff people post on their facebook pages. Not that this is any particularly searing insight, in itself. However, I wonder why we do this? Is it an attempt to justify one's existence? It is saying "my life isn't a total waste. Look at all this stuff I did today?" A pat on the back, reminding oneself that they'd done more than merely breathe and exist for another day?

Upon further reflection, might it not have the exact opposite effect? At some point, doesn't the inevitable, inescapable question "Look at how banal, uninspiring, and mind-numbingly monotonous a day in my life actually is" have to be answered. "And why, except for how boring someone else's life would have to be by comparison, would I ever imagine that that someone else might give even one iota of a shit about all this tremendously boring stuff I'm up to?" I mean, how completely horrible would someone else's life life have to be, for them to give even the tiniest of a shit?

Or are we all just so tremendously bored, that even the smallest of events seems mildly interesting, when we're bored to death, sitting in our cubes?

Perhaps it's just that we pay attention to our friend's activities, b/c their our friends?

I haven't figured it out yet.

And, hey, this isn't a criticism. I'm as guilty of this as anyone. Just wonder why.

And another thing: people who back into parking spots are weird. At the very least, they have a touch of OCD. Probably worse.

Hollywood Theatre

Went to the movies tonight, the first time since moving. Saw Winter's Bone, at the Los Feliz cinema. Both film and venue, were fantastic. Surprised the ticket only cost $9.50. Snacks and treats were bargains, too. Hooray LA!

About the film:

1- color palette was almost completely washed out, which fit
2- lead (who was quite good) suggested a young Renee Zellweger
3- in film, southerners are almost always portrayed as dumb, curiously odd, suspicious, rebellious, unkempt, uneducated hayseeds. With good reason...
4- actor who plays Kenny Powers brother in "East Bound and Down" (John Hawkes) has skills
5- the story was inventive, unpredictable and compelling

Differences between movie-going in LA vs Boston:

1- Room was dead silent throughout the entire film
2- Lights stayed down until the credits ended
3- No one left tuntil credits were over

During the walk home, all I could think was "I wish Tim lived out here. We need to be writing, and making films."

Don't Miss Out!

"...find out all you want to know about today's hottest christian rock bands..."

This I honestly heard on the radio last Sunday.

Is there anything, anyone has ever wanted to know about any christian rock band, hot or not? Is today's god rock so much different from that of the 80s? 90s? Don't we all pretty much know more than we'd like, as it is? "Believe in God. Blah blah blah. Exult his name. Blah blah blah. Resist Satan and his endless, hedonistic temptations. Don't knock up your girlfriend, do drugs, or vote for socialist democrats..." We need to attend some meet-and-greet, to hear this framed in a "God is cool" Q&A?

Then there's this, on Facebook:

"Sarah Palin...Many people who like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers like her..."

What's the correlation? Are Viking types more likely to throw their inestimable political weight behind Speaker Pelosi? Does this heretofore unknown affiliation vary by sport? Canuck fans could prefer Dick Cheney, while the Cardinal faithful were staunchly in Edwards camp. Does factoring the college game affect this equation? Might Ole Miss fans might surprise, and support Kucinich in '12. And what of those who prefer individual sports, like tennis and golf? Has anyone got a handle on their political leanings?

Perhaps the point is how desperately we need to be part of something larger than ourselves? Or how we self medicate, using the healing waters of consumerism? Salesmen desperately hawk their wares. Savvy marketers plumb the darkest recesses of human frailty, endlessly searching for weak seems which, when under just the proper amount of tension, produce overwhelming feelings such as "I can't live one more solitary instant without that asymmetrical Ikea rug!" Or "I know what we'll do: let's go down to the Today show, jump up and down and wave our hands around like seizure patients, on the off chance that someone we know might—just might—see us on TV for a split second, behaving like absolute mental patients. Our friends after will, rather than rightly criticizing us for so eagerly searching for a stop-watch measure of Warhol's 15 minutes, hold us in even higher regard, impressed at our conspicuous exhibition, and unrelenting pursuit of such desire. Want to go?"

Never a Dull Moment

On way to local farmers' market, saw a stick-thin girl with pink hair, wearing shorts that would more reasonably be described as panties, talking on her cell, and walking a British bulldog.

Every day LA reminds me I live in LA.

...if only it would remind me what it's like to have a jobbie job.

Top of the Mornin'

Either I just heard one of my neighbors having the greatest sex of all time, or they had the volume on their porn blasting. Either way is good, I guess...

Dinner two nights back was pita and hummus, along with a handful of red grapes. Munching on strawberries while typing. Tonight's menu featured sauteed mushrooms, lettuce, and hummus inside, you guessed it, pita. Out for drinks w my buddy matt, our servers were called Tiffany and "Coco."

I most certainly live in SoCal...

One week without cable/internet was all I could stand. Brief stints at the library did little to make up for my feeling of being completely out of circulation. Had international hostilities been declared, I'd have never known. Surprised to find it much more difficult living without the latter than former. Which must be some statement about life in our post-modern world, though I haven't got the slightest what-what.

Aside from having to move my car for street cleaning every two seconds for street cleaning, LA has been a revelation. Not until one leaves is it so starkly apparent how cold and aloof the Boston subculture truly is. Not that I believe people here are intrinsically any more friendly. Just more open and outgoing.