My weekend, in all it's glory

It was another one of those weird and wacky Southern California Weekends, a truly odd 48 hours. Settle in, this is quite a long post.

I was exceptionally happy to be leaving work on Friday. It isn’t that I don’t like work. I actually like it pretty well, give or take the days when it drains me of my will to live. It’s more like the feeling you would get during the Friday afternoons in high school. I spent quite a lot of time in high school with friends in classes, so I had a pretty good time. And yet Friday afternoon always promised that feeling of being freed, of having untold adventures ahead. I felt that way this past Friday night.

My Very Good Friend and I watched “Spanglish”, which turned out to be a much better film than we thought it would be. Adam Sandler really isn’t a bad actor if he isn’t playing Adam Sandler. I also jammed in the studio for a while on Friday night and came up with a very cool guitar riff that I thought could become a really great song if I did a little work on it and developed it a little. And then, before I knew it, the night was over.

I woke up to the sound of the phone on Saturday morning, at about 8 AM. It was one of my Very Good Friend’s sisters. My Very Good Friend was traveling down to San Diego on Saturday afternoon to hang out with her sisters and have some bonding time. I got up as she took the phone in bed and went out to watch Daft Punk’s house musical Interstella 5555; the 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem. Again, I didn’t have very high expectations. Again, I was impressed.

Before I go on, I must say a person must have an interest in both Anime and Daft Punk’s disco-licious music to enjoy this film. I have a stronger interest in Anime than in Daft Punk…their music can be a little repetitive. Still, I was highly impressed. It is a musical with no dialogue, telling a story with only images and the music. They were well paired, and I enjoyed it a lot. It was a very cool experiment, the art work was stunning in places, and the story was fun.

After watching the film I settled in with my morning paper, coffee, and Cheerios with a sliced banana. I usually find myself both highly entertained and highly annoyed when I read the paper. Living in Los Angeles will do that to a person. First of all, there was this picture of Michael Jackson’s supporters on the front page.

This doll is scary. No one should have a Michael Jackson doll, let alone someone old enough to know how creepy this guy is. I’m not saying he’s guilty…though my opinion of the matter is that he is. Just my opinion. However, the doll is just as creepy as he is! What really got me, though, is that if you look at one of the picket signs in the back it says “U.S. Policy Equals Tribal ____icide”. My guess is that the last word, which is obscured by the sign in front of it, is either “genocide” or “homicide.”

What I love about this is the fact that someone showed up at this Michael Jackson Love-Fest with whatever sign he or she endorsed at the time. I vowed, right then and there on the spot, that next time I know of people holding signs of support somewhere I am going to show up with a sign that has a completely random and unrelated message. Some ideas I had for the sign are:

I Like Chicken!
This little piggy went to the market
C.R.T = Cathode Ray Tube
Ban Picketing!
It’s My Right To Be Left!
I Don’t Know What This Sign Means!

The other thing that got me fired up was a picture of a guy from one of the houses that slid off the cliff in Laguna Beach last week with a caption that lamented the fact that he was only able to save 3 of his 50 or so prized surfboards. Sorry, I don't have a picture for this one.

Um, WTF? This dude can afford a house on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I’m supposed to feel sympathy for him because he lost a bunch of surfboards? Normal people don‘t buy houses that are prone to sliding off cliffs! For that matter, normal people also don’t invest in a collection of rare and priceless surfboards. What makes a surfboard rare and priceless anyway? Unless it’s the surfboard that Jesus himself used to ride the waves when Moses parted the Red Sea, I don’t see how it’s that valuable. Listen, surfer dude, you bought a house on the edge of a cliff. Did you not think, at some point in the process of purchasing the house, “Hey, I wonder if this house could ever possibly slide off this here cliff?” Your lack of forethought in this matter astounds me. Does money really make people this stupid? How can someone this dense make enough money to buy a house on a cliff in the first place? Such are the deep and ponderous questions that cross my mind after rubbing elbows with some of these people.

I was in the middle of ranting about this when the phone rang again. It was a call from the Republican Party for my Very Good Friend. She listened for about 10 seconds before saying “Listen, let’s cut to the chase here. I’m not going to give you any money. I’m not at all happy with the way some issues are being handled.” She was asked by our friendly local Republican beggar for an example of something we weren’t pleased with, to which she responded “our porous borders and illegal immigration.”

“I’m glad you brought that up, Mrs. Very Good Friend, because President Bush just recently put 23 border patrol agents in place along the border.”

“WOW! 23 WHOLE BORDER PATROL AGENTS?? Well, that’ll solve the problem won’t it?” my Very Good Friend responded. She gave them one last curt goodbye and hung up.

I swear, I’m not making it up. I cannot believe that some telemarketing script writer thought this was a good way to illustrate that the issue of illegal immigration is being handled by our esteemed leader! What a brainless idiot! We laughed about this all morning.

Then I noticed an article about a change in area codes here in Southern California that had residents all fired up. As if there aren’t enough issues to tackle here. I understand being slightly annoyed about having to tell people that you have a new area code, but these people are upset because the area code “310” means “money” here in Southern California. If their area code changes, how will the let everyone know subtly just how filthy stinking rich they are? The following picture is of the owners of "310 Tattoo", I think. They are not happy about the proposed changes.

I took off to run errands, bought a homeless guy a hamburger, turned my shirts over to the cleaners for washing and pressing, got some prescriptions filled, and sang at the top of my lungs in the car to Boston’s song “Don’t Look Back.” A guilty pleasure, I’ll admit.

I laid down for a nap at 4, thinking I would just rest my eyes. I woke up at 8 as the sun was setting. Uh-oh. This was a bad thing. How was I ever going to get to sleep if I slept all evening?

I went into the spare bedroom to work on some drum tracks on the computer there when I heard the fire engine in the distance. This is not a rare occurrence where we live; there’s a fire station not for from our place so we often get fire trucks screaming by in the night. Los Angeles isn’t exactly a “sleepy little hamlet.”

The first sign of trouble was when the fire truck didn’t go screaming by. I heard it stop outside our window, which certainly got my attention. The fire dudes jumped out and went to aid someone on the far side of a car on the far side of the street. I didn’t know what was happening, but judging by their movements they stretched someone out on the ground. I realized this was a serious situation when they started performing CPR immediately. The sound of sirens interrupted the night again, this time from the ambulance as it turned the corner onto our street and pulled up to the scene. The EMTs jumped out and immediately went to aid the threatened individual. I don’t know the gender of the person in trouble or what the full story was. I do know that one of the guys in the apartment across the street was extremely distraught and agitated.

As they got the ill person on the gurney to put them into the ambulance, the agitated guy ran into the apartment and returned a short time later with a couple of bottles of pills. I was too far away to tell, but immediately this raised my concern that it was a suicide. Another possibility is heart failure of some kind, but there aren’t that many people over the age of 35 that live in the apartments in our area. I guess it could be a lot of things, really. For some reason, though, suicide seemed the most likely cause. Maybe it’s from my days as a Mental Health Counselor at a “behavioral health hospital” or volunteering at hospitals or working in residence halls as a R.A. It just seemed like that kind of trouble.

As they were putting the person in the ambulance, I heard the agitated man ask the EMTs if the person was breathing and they said “no.” He hit his car with his fist, ran up the stairs toward the entrance to the apartment courtyard, and collapsed in a heap sobbing.

It’s no wonder I dreamed that I threatened my mom, dad, and sister with committing suicide if they didn’t start loving me more.

I was heartbroken for the guy. I really hope it all turned out ok. It didn’t look like it would but I also wasn’t there at the hospital. (I found out today that the person did pass away on Saturday night.)

I spent the evening recording and playing…it was a good time.

On Sunday I decided to take in an afternoon show of the new Star Wars. I know, I know…it was my second time seeing it and this makes me a little bit of a nerd. It’s eye candy, and my eyes like candy.

How could a movie become such a bizarre experience? Well, let’s start with the girl and her dad behind me. She was a freshman in college and talked a mile a minute. If you own the DVD of The Incredibles, watch the short film “Jack-Jack Attack!”. This girl was, basically, Cari the babysitter.

She was also boy crazy. For Fraternity boys. Uh Oh for her father…those fraternity boys are trouble. I know…I was one.

Then the four people with light sabers showed up. These were no ordinary toy light sabers. No, these were neon tubes that light up and made that light saber humming sound. The uber-nerds had arrived.

Finally, some older people sat behind me and to my left. I have nothing against older people…I’m becoming one myself. But I do not like wet slurping sounds coming from old people. I have no idea what they were doing, and I prefer to leave it that way. One guy hacked up a lung, too. That’s always a little bothersome.

So, that’s my story. In interesting weekend, to say the least. But it was a weekend full of life. With a touch of death, which is a part of life. All in all, I’m very happy to be me after this weekend.