Dear fellow Americans,

Please like soccer more.

I went to my first pro match tonight, Chivas USA vs. Toronto FC, in the beautiful SoCal summer evening weather down in Carson. It wasn’t a particularly good game; Chivas won 2-0. But it was about a gajillion times more stimulating than the Dodgers-Astros game I attended last month (despite the return of Manny Ramirez, no offense to the awesome peeps who provided the tickets and who I enjoyed spending the time with, despite the game). That Dodgers game was about the most boring sporting event I have ever attended, and I’ve been to baseball games before.

Soccer should be perfect for us short-attention-spanners! Ninety minutes (granted that’s less time for getting drunk), no stopping except for halftime, noisemaking and merriment the entire time. There’s speed, skill, great footwork—even theatrics. I swear, Chivas is the dramatic-est team ever (I know, it’s supposed to be “most dramatic,” but I really feel that “dramatic-est” gets my point across best—it’s more dramatic than “most dramatic”). This guy, I think it was Sacha Klejstan, took a fall that would put Jim Carrey to shame. He tripped—A LITTLE. But you wouldn’t know it, ’cause this guy was the real deal: His head snapped back, arms flew up; he hit the ground and started rolling like he was ON FIRE. I was delighted.

Anyway, stop loving baseball. It’s a waste of —well, just about everything. I mean, they don’t even do anything. They STAND AROUND AND SPIT. Of course, I guess that’s as good a definition as any for “great American pastime.”

While reading an AP article about the discovery of lynching victim Emmitt Till’s original glass-topped casket amid piles of garbage and old caskets in the cemetery where workers are accused of a large-scale scheme to dig up bodies, dump them willy-nilly, and resell burial plots, I came across this quote from the eternal font of wisdom that is the Rev. Jesse Jackson:

Jackson said he was stunned by the treatment of the casket. “I think that the thieves in this situation have no regard for history of humanity,” he said.

Oh, Reverend. You know, ’cause thieves by definition always consider and respect the rights of society and individuals.

I’m a little sick to my stomach after watching the clip of Jon and Kate announcing their separation. We all knew it was coming, yada yada, and I’ve been disgusted with them for a while. One morning in Burbank I was approached by an E! camera crew wanting me to comment; I declined but later wished I’d agreed, once I found out they wanted people to wish the Gosselins a happy anniversary. I would’ve said no on national TV, that I can’t believe what they’re doing to their children on national TV. At any rate, curiosity got the best of me and I watched the “divorce clip” online. Check out the language they’re using:

Kate Gosselin:

The kids will remain living in their house; I’ve always called this their house. I will remain here as well, during my portion of having them. Jon will also come here when it is his days, and we will flip-flop that way.

Jon Gosselin:

They love it here, this is their house. We bought this house for them, not for us. The security, the room, the land, all for them.

Um, gosh, it really sounds like you guys were planning to be together forever. All for them? Their house? The conclusion one draws here is that the kids are entirely on their own, and they truly do have actual parental units, that will move in and out of their lives, disconnected, willy-nilly. To continue the show under such an arrangement is unconscionable. Let’s rename it Shame on Jon & Kate.

And now I say, with just a hint of irony, thank God for the Duggars.

ADDENDUM: Reading further reports, I see that Jon is quoted as saying, “We are no different than other couples and parents who are facing a crossroads in their marriage.” Except for that whole filming-it-all-for-national-TV thing. Except for that.

Apparently there are a definitive eight personality types that it’s preferable to avoid. According to Shine’s Brett Blumenthal. 

They are: (naturally) Debbie Downers, Judgmental Jims, Manipulative Marys, Narcissistic Nancys, Disrespectful Dannys — so far so good — Insincere Illisas… What? I’ve never heard of a woman named Illisa, at least with that spelling. You couldn’t go for something like Irene, or Ian, or Ingrid, or Isabel/Izzy, or Isaac? …Dream-Killing Keiths? This begs for a D name, not a K moniker. Dream-Killing David or Doreen or Dirk, perhaps. And last, Never-Enough Nellies? I’m pretty sure Nellie already has a pejorative designation attached to it. There are really no other N names to affix to that descriptor? Ned, Nathan, Nora, Natalie, Nicole, Nelson…

I recently discovered—well not “discovered,” I knew about it, so actually “utilized for the first time”—a bike path not far from my home. I don’t have a bike because I have nowhere to store one and no way to transport one, so I strapped on my in-line skates and my brother brought his skateboard and we went on a roll. As we neared our starting point, having traveled the length of the path and back, I noticed parked in front of a house an old limo, paint worn through in places, striping on the side partially torn off. 

Which made me wonder: What does one do with an old limousine? You can’t really chauffeur anyone in it. Well, you can; it’s still functional, but no one who’d pay for a limo would pay for a limo like that. You can’t turn it into a kitsch car, like a hearse or an old ambulance. What is the shelf life of a limo anyway? I suppose there’s definitely a niche for a retro ’70s limo, were it restored and tricked out. But there’s that middle ground, one that’s maybe 10 or 15 years old—not old enough to be slick, not new enough to be hip. 

So where do limos go to die? Do they just sit in purgatory for a while? Are they cannibalized. Oh, the misfortune to be born a limo.

Stopped at the Costco with my bro the other night for some cheap hot dogs. We ran inside to browse a bit first, and Ian picked up The Economist, which had Jacob Zuma, the leading candidate for the presidency of South Africa, on the cover with the headline “Africa’s Next Big Man: Trusting Jacob Zuma.” To which Ian responded, “You’ve got to be kidding me. Trust this guy?” and proceeded to explain to my ignorant self who Zuma was. Among the topics, beyond the several hundred corruption charges he’s had brought against him over time,  was Zuma’s acquittal on rape charges a couple years ago; he admitted to consensual unprotected sex with a woman he knew to be HIV positive, noting that he showered afterward to reduce the risk of transmission, despite being head of the National AIDS Council. And we wonder why Africa is such a hornet’s nest of atrocities and depraved humanity. Maybe I’m being harsh. But this launched us into a discussion of how messed up the continent is and how unjust it is that humans have to live in the conditions they endure there. 

I told him about Kevin Carter’s Pulitzer-winning photo of a starving Sudanese girl stalked by a vulture. It’s an image I often come back to; the horror of it is unreal. I find it unfathomable that in a time when information is so readily available to so many people, there is still such a Dark Ages mentality in so many places. Obviously those who wish to retain power have a strong motivation to keep people in the dark.  

Which took us to what we take for granted. A rundown: I get to eat every day. I have a bed I can sleep in every night. I have fresh drinkable water available whenever I want to drink it. I can take a shower as long as I want to; I don’t have to bathe once a month in the river. I have enough clothes that I could probably go several weeks without wearing anything twice. I own a car, I don’t have to live in it, and I can afford the gas I need to run it. We use our tap water for almost nothing but running down the drain—flushing away excrement, washing dishes. I in fact have dishes, and cupboards to keep them in. 

It’s almost obscene, the contrast between the lives of people in developed countries such as ours, and those in crumbling backward countries in which the “governments” are at the mercy of rebels. The people, many living in desolate, drought-ravaged areas, are dependent on shipments of aid food and medicine, which are quickly commandeered by warlords. One might ask why these people don’t simply move on to areas that can sustain them. Here’s where the problem of borders, even environmental preservation, comes in. It negates the possibility of returning to the nomadic lifestyle that our predecessors relied upon. You go where the game is, you follow the water. But when hunting on the animal preserve is illegal and there’s a border you can’t cross, what do you do? When aid food is shipped in, one may become reliant upon it; you might liken it to the line that welfare walks. In a book-on-CD I listened to last year, Po Bronson’s What Should I Do With My Life?, he told the story of a Native American man who went out and educated himself in a number of administrative and financial areas, then brought that information back to the reservation to help his kin learn to support themselves, make their own money, rather than relying on handout restitution from the U.S. government. It was the taking of this money that kept them under the thumb of someone else. 

I’m getting off track here. It’s a true conundrum, how to deal with places where inhabitants don’t have access to basic amenities and are simultaneously prevented from pursuing a more primitive way of life in which they could attempt to provide those needs for themselves. It’s an atrocity that in the 21st century, any human doesn’t have clean water to drink.What can be done? I titled this post the way I did because it’s hard after pondering these things to go back to the life you take for granted every day. I can devote my time and donate my money to charities that do work in these destitute places. But it seems paltry. Little wonder so many people stick their heads in the sand about it. Living in L.A. is a strange thing, that I both adore and abhor at the same time. Never have I been in a place where you can see so many so clearly self-involved. Here they live in a metropolitan conglomeration with a population nearing 18 million, yet each person’s world includes but a fraction of that. I hate self-involved people at the same time that I love them: It’s truly as if they believe they are the only people on the planet who matter. But can you blame them?

So, this guy. This guy, 93-year-old Tsutomu Yamaguchi, has been certified as a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima—and the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. The AP reports that Yamaguchi visited Hiroshima for a business trip and suffered severe upper-body burns in the first detonation, after which he returned to Nagasaki just in time for the second attack.

My pal Casey is the one sent me the link, adding “Talk about being an unlucky bastard.” I beg to differ. The guy survived TWO NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS. Doesn’t that qualify him instead as a lucky bastard? It’s a wash, really. Yamaguchi was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong (right?) time — twice. And he was lucky enough to live through it — twice. The lucky and the unlucky cancel each other out, so I guess that basically negates the whole thing. He’s just a man. And after all, he has lived to be 93. So how bad could it really be?

You guys heard that song by relatively fresh-to-the-scene alternative group Anberlin, “Feel Good Drag”? I’d heard it on the radio a few times and couldn’t help but make some comparisons to one of my favorite groups, A Perfect Circle. The guitar has a similar tone and strum style. (I’m not a musician, so forgive me for my inadequate descriptions of the technique.) But more captivating is lead singer Stephen Christian’s vocal timbre, which bears a striking resemblance to Circle and Tool’s sublime frontman Maynard James Keenan. A sweet smooth singing voice, paired with a rougher shouting chorus voice, though Keenan’s has more depth and fullness. I am not convinced yet that with his Johnny Rzeznick emo mullet, Christian has the icon/maverick potential to reach Keenan heights. But with the voice, he’s got a good start.

Although Circle (Thirteenth Step is a masterpiece) and Tool (click here for my favorite Tool jam) are both so far relatively unmatched in musicality and composition, except in comparison to each other, I look forward to hearing Anberlin try to rise to their level. They will need to up the ante on drums, though. How does Nathan Young expect to rival prodigies like Josh Freese and Danny Carey with a setup like his? Maybe he just needs to make more money first…

Sarah said I should write a blog since I was bored. And it’s true, I have been neglecting my little nook on the web—failing to tend my Internet garden. It will produce no fruit that way. I was so gung ho last year; but in my defense I confessed sometime during that extended bout of blogorrhea that I was a phase person.

So what precipitated this sudden disinterest in the child of my mindwomb? It’s a good little blog, with lot of varied and interesting content. 

You know what I think it is? I took a break and now I’m out of practice! This blog I’m writing right now, it’s like pulling teeth. 

Or else it’s that my blog has reached its terrible twos. It resists me at every turn. It doesn’t want to be held anymore. It’s testing its independence? See how it gets along without me, though.

1. Click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2. Click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last section of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3. Click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4. Use design software of your choice to put it all together.