Halloween Suicide

In 7th grade, my friend hung himself a couple of days before Halloween. I learned about it from a couple of crying girls the following morning outside of the junior high. At that age, half of everything you hear about someone else is mere gossip, so I kept watching the school buses, expecting to see him get off one and confirm that it was all a horrible rumor. With each bus that emptied without him, his death felt more real.

Halloween is an especially inopportune for a peer to take his life. Everywhere we looked, the morbid decorations were no longer playful, but yet another reminder of death.

I found it inopportune for another reason, too. We still went out trick-or-treating that year despite the somber mood. At some point in the trek between houses, someone referenced the topic we were all trying to avoid. I chimed in, "I don't get why he didn't at least wait until after trick-or-treating."

I cringe when I think back to that comment. I honestly wasn't trying to trivialize the matter, that was legitimately how I felt. If you're going to kill yourself, fine, but take advantage of the free candy first!

Really, though, the quip speaks to just how young we were. My number one concern then was maximizing the number of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in my pillowcase… there's no way a 12-year-old was capable of making such a final decision about his own mortality.

The Break-In

There was a break-in at my house last week. Sort of.

I was there just sitting in the living room when my front door popped wide open. I figured it was my roommate, who had left to run an errand not long before, returning, but it wound up being a strange man.

"Hi?" I said. He mumbled something incomprehensible and let himself up the stairs. Perplexed, I sprinted toward the staircase to try to catch him, which is when I encountered two women - presumably a mother and teenager daughter - letting themselves into my house as well.

"What is going on?" I asked.
"We're here to look at the apartment," the younger one said.
"Uh, why?" I said.
"The room for rent. He's showing us the room for rent."
"I.. wha… uh… there's no room for rent. I live here."

We continued to try to hash out the details a bit more, but I realized the longer I talked to the women, the longer the man upstairs was unattended. "Look, you're welcome to come in, but there's no room for rent here," I said before running to find the man. [I probably didn't have to be so nice as to invite potential intruders in, but I was frantic and unsure of how to deal with the situation.]

Upstairs, I found the man stumbling up and down the hallway. When I got a good look at this face, I realized he might be a former neighbor of mine who I hadn't seen in a long time, but he looked especially sickly. It didn't seem like he was stealing anything, so I asked, "Are you all right?" and kind of gently coaxed him back downstairs. I couldn't understand his mumbled Spanish, but I was pretty sure he wasn't a threat to me.

At the women's request, I called the landlady to see if there was actually a room for rent anywhere in the compound. She told me no, and urged me to call the police to get the people out of my place. I told her that it probably wasn't necessary because whatever was going on seemed like a mistake, not malicious.

It turns out it was my old neighbor after all. He had spent a long time in the hospital after being diagnosed with a brain tumor and his mind wasn't right anymore. He wasn't just sort of confused, he was terribly confused, and somehow the ladies got pulled into his story that my apartment was for rent. The women apologized profusely, but I assured them there was nothing to apologize for, and we called the man's daughter to come take care of him.

Meanwhile, we're being more proactive about locking the door because you never know when someone's going to let themselves in and try to rent out your home when you're not looking.

Go Back From Where You Came From

"I'm sorry, if the people don't like how they are treated here, go back from where you came from… Isn't this a free country, you can like or dislike who you want?????" - Nadine, in defense of racism 

I wrote a fairly unremarkable article "8 Politicians as Racist as Paula Deen". I haven't followed the Deen controversy but I thought I'd capitalize on using her name as click bait (no scruples!). I initially resisted reading the comments because I knew exactly what to expect and that they would surely infuriate me, but I finally gave in.

A lot of people came to defend Paula Deen - presumably they didn't read the article and realize that she was basically referenced in passing. We've all used these words before, some argued. (We have?) "Being PC is bringing this country down" another said. Others asked why rappers could say the n-word. Still others wanted to make sure we knew who the real racists are: all of those minorities that pick on white people. But I'd also like to award bonus points to the people who were happy to criticize Deen's racist language… which they did by using misogynistic language. Haha, that "floozy"/"fat bitch" got what she deserved.

The introductory quote from Nadine may be the most egregious example, but there are other honorary mentions from the thread:

• John, who considers racial slurs "slang" that he only uses when someone cuts him off in traffic, assuring us that he is otherwise not racist.
• Cat, who refused to read the article any further once she saw Michele Bachmann's name listed. (Yeah, where would anyone get off calling HER a bigot?)
• Rolf, who floats the idea that the Republicans mentioned in the article are probably actually Democrats who spent their careers pretending to be Republicans in an attempt to tarnish the party's reputation. Good theory!
• The dozen or so people who want to give John McCain a pass for saying "gook" and promising to continue using the term because he was a POW. I agree that his circumstances complicate things a bit, but I guarantee a lot of those people don't even give a second thought to Guantanamo Bay. 

Ultimately, I don't care much about figuring out the extent of Paula Deen's racism. Frankly, I have some relatives whose racism I need to worry about before some second-rate celebrity I've never paid attention to previously. But I do find it interesting that while Deen gets canned, U.S. politicians can actually get re-elected after displaying bigotry. Especially because their views - due to their powerful positions - contribute to institutional racism, which causes far more damage than someone who might say a slur out of ignorance rather than hate.

So when Mayor Michael Bloomberg responds to accusations of discrimination for NYC's Stop and Frisk policies by saying he thinks MORE minorities should be searched, I find that really problematic. When Bachmann names ways that black families were better off during slavery, I find that super upsetting, too. And when Bob Allen, a Florida Representative, gets caught trying to pay for gay sex and tries to excuse it by saying he was in the presence of black men and was willing to agree to anything not to get mugged that's… well, actually, that one's just hilarious. "I'm so afraid that a black man might hurt me that I tried to pay him money and offered him oral sex for my own safety" might be the funniest story I've ever heard.

Ahhhhhh, It's Escaping!

That's my butt, y'all. No comment on whose hand.

Viewing the Law as Lawless

I don’t pay attention to tabloid news like Casey Anthony, but this Los Angeles former cop turned cop killer saga is fascinating.

Christopher Dorner is crazy. Let’s make that clear upfront. But I read his manifesto, and what’s most surprising is that – for a guy who has clearly lost it - there are long stretches of his message that aren’t super crazy. Foremost, Dorner provides detailed accounts of LAPD’s corruption, addressing the department’s racism, cronyism, and lying. He alleges that when he reported an officer for excessive use of force, a panel of officers that were the accused cop’s friends not only found the officer not guilty despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, but fired Dorner for fabricating the story – in essence punishing him for breaking the unwritten no-snitch rule amongst cops.

I take this story with a grain of salt. From my amateur diagnosis, Dorner is not of sane mind, so it is very plausible he made up or exaggerated his accusations. However, it is also very plausible that his story is legitimate. His story corresponds with everything I know about my local police force. We give police the ultimate authority with no oversight or true accountability; until we have outside parties that police the police, corruption will run rampant.

Still, true or not, the story is not even close to a justification for murder. From his letter, it seems to me that when he was wronged for attempting to do the right thing, and the experience skewed his own sense of right or wrong. Having his life ruined for standing up to alleged corruption, he went off the deep end and developed a warped sense of morality. Viewing the law as lawless, he’s now pursuing his own brand of vigilante justice, considering himself a martyr to his own cause.

I say “martyr” because Dorner clearly does not expect to come out of this alive. His writing is a farewell and the ramblings of a man who wants to share every last thought he has before departing this world. In essence, he couldn’t help but make shout-outs to celebrities. I also wouldn’t be content to die without first sharing my fondness for Ellen Degeneres and Christoph Waltz. (If I made that last statement in jest, it is only barely so.)

But how does Dorner go from a man who lost his career standing up for a homeless man who was allegedly beaten to a man who now kills in cold blood? My guess is that he’s exploiting our media’s obsession with mass murderers. Previously, Dorner has tried to draw attention to LAPD’s corruption to no avail. Now that he kills some people, his story reaches a large audience. Suddenly, everyone listens to what he had to say.

For crying out loud, Dorner’s note even advocates for gun control. Even the murderers are calling for gun reform! It’s ridiculous. He talks about how he obtained his weapons and even suggests how it could have been prevented. The man has decided to sacrifice his own life in an attempt to change society.

Of course, he’s going about it all wrong. Becoming a serial killer may bring him fame, but it won’t lend much credence to his cause. In fact, people are going to be so repulsed by his actions that they’re going to automatically disagree with his stances. Any validity to his stories of LAPD corruption will now be summarily dismissed as the rantings of an insane man. And, in fairness, he is an insane man - because it shouldn’t take too much of a clear head to realize that a killing spree will accomplish none of the reform he’s hoping for.

I’m a firm believer in Audre Lorde’s essay, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” You can’t defeat violent oppression with violent oppression. I don’t have the solutions for bringing about positive societal change, but I am confident that murdering police officers and their family members is not one of them.

Meanwhile, the local police departments have only managed to demonstrate their incompetence thus far by – in two separate incidents - shooting innocent people who happened to be driving a vehicle similar to Dorner’s. If you can’t even determine someone’s identity, perhaps you shouldn’t try to kill them. But it is a clear illustration of LAPD’s routine excessive use of force. Way to prove Dorner’s point, idiots. It’s also clear from the fact that they didn’t even try to apprehend these utterly incorrect “suspects” that there is no chance Dorner will survive the manhunt. As dangerous as Dorner is for his weapons, he is even more dangerous to LAPD if he is able to continue talking. They want him silenced.

I got invited to a protest outside of LAPD HQ tonight, but I am staying clear for my own safety. In some regards, it is dangerous to go to a police station when a known police killer is on the loose. Truthfully, however, I am more frightened of the officers themselves who are obviously on edge. They’ve got snipers on the roof! I’ve seen the police crack down on peaceful dissent with brute force, so I am wary of experiencing a situation where they feel legitimately threatened.

Stay safe, Los Angeles. Even when this “ends”, these problems are far from over.

Holmes Is Where the Heart Is

Uhhhh...? No, Facebook, I'm pretty sure I don't know Aurora shooter James Holmes. Is my online profile so troubling that an algorithm thinks we might be friends?

For the record, I don't know Alfred either.  

Murder in the Shower

I got bored in the shower this week (what are you supposed to do in there anyway?!) and I decided to use my roommate's stray hairs to write the word "MURDER" on the shower wall. I thought it would be funny, but I worried that it might come across as passive aggressive, like I was really upset that she left her hair in the shower.

More than worrying about being perceived as passive aggressive, I suppose I should have considered how creepy that would be. When she saw "MURDER", she took a photo of it to show her coworkers to ask if they thought it indicated some crazy guy had snuck into the house. Nope, just a crazy guy who happens to pay to live there with her. 

I assured her that it was a joke and I probably was not actually going to murder her. She seemed to buy it, which might be dumb given that years ago I accidentally threatened her grandmother with a  knife. 

Today she "retaliated" by rearranging her hair into a tic-tac-toe board. That seems like a much nicer way to communicate with your roommate. I, of course, put my X in the middle square; it may be a gross game of shower hair tic-tac-toe, but I'm playing to win!

Mugged

While walking downtown today, I passed a tiny woman located on the other side of a fence who was pointing at something behind me for some reason. As I turned my head to see what she was gesturing toward, I heard a man's voice behind me shout, "Hey!" Before I could even see what the matter was, I felt a thump against my backside.

I screamed, probably like a girl, and practically fell to my knees. I'm being mugged, I thought. I'm being attacked!

There was no mugger, however. It was a large piece of styrofoam blowing in the wind. After it struck me, it continued blowing up the sidewalk and then into the road. Both the woman and the man, who apparently had been trying to warn me that a giant square of stryofoam was floating in my direction, smiled at my overreaction. You know they're going to be repeating that story for the next couple of weeks.

Yeah, things are going great in my life. I thought a piece of litter was trying to kill me.

The Bit of Truth in Geraldo's Controversial Hoodie Statements

So let me be clear, I'm not a Geraldo fan. When he said, "I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin's death as George Zimmerman was," he proved himself a dingy once again. While I can't say with 100% certainty that George Zimmerman is "guilty", I've seen enough evidence that goes well beyond a reasonable doubt to say that he's responsible and definitely should have been arrested by now. At best, Zimmerman is a racist. His strange vigilante attitude also screams either mentally ill or delusional to me.

But as for the hoodie debate itself… I'll say something most people don't want to acknowledge:
I wear hoodies to look more intimidating. It's a conscious fashion choice I make when I'm walking alone in a place my friends worry is too dangerous or homicide-y.

I'm a non-threatening, short, white guy. Having a hoodie drape over my head disguises my identity and (hopefully) makes me look a bit more menacing. You're a lot less likely to mess with a guy whose face you can barely see.

For example, I was walking alone down a street at about midnight with a baggy hoodie on when I began to approach an old man also on a late night stroll. He looked over the shoulder at me and I can tell I frightened him. He tried to pick up the pace to get away from me, but he was old, so he was still going at a pace slower than I would naturally overtake him. At first I went slow so I wouldn't frighten him more, but I finally decided I just needed to go ahead and pass him to get the encounter over with rather than seem like I was stalking him for a prolonged period.

As I walked by him, he actually jumped in fear, so I apologized and pulled off my hood. He seemed so relieved to see my face… my smiling white face. Then he apologized for being so scared of me, though I'm pretty sure he would have had his fears validated rather than apologizing had he seen another race under the hood.

And there's the difference between me and Trayvon: I get to wear a hoodie and feel more secure, while for Trayvon, that hoodie signals open season, apparently. That, my friends, is what we call white privilege. What's more, I get to take off my hood and no longer look intimidating. But Trayvon? In or out of that hoodie, Zimmerman considered him a threat.

Leap Year Birthdays

I intended to write about Leap Year birthdays today, but am slightly deterred now that Parks and Recreation already covered that topic this past week. (Side note: I'm going to a Parks and Rec-themed party tonight, can you think of anything better to do with your bonus day?) All the same, I did once have a friend, Chris, who was born on a Leap Day, so let's do this anyway.

Birthdays are everything when you're little, so considering that, Chris was pretty good-natured about only having a proper birthday every four years. Things would have probably gone better for him, however, had my first grade teacher not taunted him for it. I distinctly remember her leading the class in a chant of, "Chris is only one! Chris is still a baby! Chris is only one! Chris is still a baby!" As six-and-seven-year-olds, it was fun to laugh at a baby.

I used to love my first grade teacher, but looking back, I think I loved her out of fear. She was like an emotionally manipulative dictator. She had a cardboard box known as "The Whiners' Box" that you'd have to go stand in if you were caught crying or complaining (which is the natural result of a teacher-led chant that you are a baby). She'd also announce to the whole class if she caught you picking your nose, which is every little kid's #1 hobby. And there's the time when my friend Vivek, a math prodigy and future Harvard student who was bussed to the high school to take advanced math classes even in elementary school, missed one question on a first-grade level standardized math test we all had to take. Obviously, he was disappointed for making what must have been a careless mistake, but my teacher honed in on his insecurity and had the class chant, "Vivek got one wrong!" until he cried. Then he had to go stand in the Whiners' Box.

As for Leap Baby Chris, he eventually had the last laugh. He proved he was anything but a baby when he hit puberty well before the rest of us. By the end of elementary school, none of us kids were shaving yet, except for Chris, who actually had to shave his face every day out of necessity. Not bad for a "3" year-old.

Anyhoo, Happy 7th birthday, Chris. And I hope my first grade teacher uses her Leap Day to take a flying leap.

Nightraider

Even though sleep should be a reprieve from waking life, I tend to bring the stress in my life into my unconscious moments, too.

In college, when I was burdened with essays, I'd go to sleep and dream about working on the essays to the point where I'd just decide to get up and work on them since it was consuming my every thought anyway.

When I started teaching, it overwhelmed me to the point that I sleep-dialed (the tired man's drunk dial) a friend to check on a student, and would routinely wake up and freak out that a giant bed had replaced the desks in my classroom until minutes later I would grasp that I was in my bedroom, not at school.

Another time, after considering the horrors of war, in my sleep I took off my sock and hung it on the wall as a sign of surrender.

And now it's happening again. Ever since the raid of Occupy LA, I dream a lot about it. Some of the Occupy delegates warned us beforehand that some people wouldn't be mentally strong enough to handle watching the scene unfold, but I didn't think that would apply to me.

I'm terrified of the police state. Last night I dreamt that my home was being raided by the police. So caught up in my dream narrative, I sleptwalked and put my wallet in my pocket so I'd have my ID on me when I was arrested. In the morning, my side hurt because I had actually slept on my wallet. I can't believe that the dream was so real to me that I got out of bed to do that.

Nightmares are generally an exaggeration of real thoughts, but it doesn't help to have my conscious mind corroborate my nightmares. I really do fret to see those in power overriding other's constitutional rights because they can get away with it.

A friend of mine agrees with the concepts of the movement but will not participate in any manner out of fear of repercussions. He very pointedly asked, "What if you don't succeed?" His feeling is that if the corruption is as systematic as some suspect, that makes you vulnerable should the powers that be stay in power.

I'm not really a conspiracy theorist, and I don't yet think things are that bad that protesters will start mysteriously disappearing on a grand scale, though I do believe we are setting the precedent to have such things happen in the future if we don't solve it soon. However, I do realize there's a risk in speaking out against the government... a risk, as I see it, that's worth taking.

The word "patriot" has been co-opted to mean not questioning authority and blindly declaring the US the best country in the world. And the only way to honestly believe that right now is to not pay attention to all of our country's problems. I believe that the US has the ability to be the best country in the world, but that's going to require changes. What's more patriotic than trying to improve your country?

So, yeah, I'm fairly scared, but not deterred. Any screaming in the night that may result from my participation just mirrors all of the screaming we should be doing during the day.

My Firsthand Account of the Occupy Los Angeles Raid

I stood with the 99% in defending the Occupy Los Angeles encampment around City Hall last night. While I witnessed no outlandish displays of violence, what I did see still terrified me, so I want to share my account for all who couldn’t see the madness in person.

Truthfully, I was still a bit weary after staying up most of the night Sunday, the night the raid was initially supposed to occur. Whether the police ever planned to actually raid on Sunday night was irrelevant, I suppose, because they couldn’t have. Not effectively, anyway, our numbers were too strong. But maintaining those numbers permanently was never going to be feasible, so the cops waited until we were tired and depleted. When word spread that it looked like the raid would actually happen, I cancelled my plans and got down there immediately. I didn’t think we could stop the evacuation, but that wasn’t going to stop me from voicing my opinion and standing in solidarity.

While I occupy full time in my mind, I rarely physically occupy. I’m not out there camping at night. For me the camp is a symbol, a symbol that I obviously want to see stand. That said, I know the movement is strong and will continue with or without tents. But it’s not just a symbol for many who live there. About 1/3 of the campers are homeless. I hate when critics bring up this statistic as if to suggest their numbers shouldn’t count – as though the homeless haven’t been affected most drastically by bad economic policies and have no grievances about the system like the other protesters. At the encampment, the homeless have found something they can’t find elsewhere in LA – a safe place to pitch a tent, regular and free access to a bathroom and food, and most importantly, a community that not only acknowledges but includes them. Shame on a society that deprives people of so much and wants to take this away from them, too.

But anyway, you want to hear about the raid. About a thousand protesters amassed in support of the park, less than half of Sunday’s count. Like Sunday, however, there was a lot of listlessness. The protesters were just waiting for the police to make a move. While there was some strategizing (kudos to those who climbed trees and made capture especially difficult for the police), given that it’s a peaceful demonstration, there was no need to plan a counterattack. However, we all had our theories on how the police would handle the situation. Even though we all knew it was going to happen, the manner in which the police invaded took us all by surprise.

Without warning, hundreds of officers came out of nowhere storming the protesters. They emerged running from streets, alleys, and even City Hall itself to surround the park. It was like a well-choreographed scene from a hundred million dollar action movie. Their swift movement was brilliant and caused the crowd to run, scream, and cry. I’ve never shouted the word “fuck” so much in my life. We were very blatantly under attack.

Here’s the thing – they didn’t have to actually be shooting at you to make you feel attacked. In that instance, when hundreds of armed people in riot gear are charging right at you, everything in your gut says, “We are about to die.” And I say that as someone who always thought the police were going to behave. We still haven’t healed from the Rodney King era, and after the mistakes of other cities like Oakland and New York City, I figured the LAPD would go to great lengths to avoid a PR nightmare. But even if they didn’t brutalize most of us physically, they certainly did it psychologically. They purposely made us all feel like we were about to be slaughtered. Tactical, sure, but remember these are extreme measures against people who were guilty of staying in a park after hours. The same park the Mayor promised protesters they could stay in as long as they wanted until a sudden change of heart, undoubtedly do to corporate and political pressure.

Rather quickly, the police had circled various areas, trapping everyone in. People who wanted to go home were not permitted to leave. Officers would say, “You can get out over there,” and point in some direction, even though there was no exit. Every few minutes, the police lines would move in closer to make protesters feel more claustrophobic and imprisoned. Once we were all successfully divided and corralled, the police finally announced we were an unlawful assembly and that we had ten minutes to disperse. They claimed to make this proclamation on behalf of the “people of California”, which the protesters rightfully heckled, “We ARE the people of California.” Many attendees panicked because, despite a ten-minute warning, they still weren’t letting anyone leave. Was this a trick?

I was stuck in a section next to some mainstream reporters who had not been cleared to cover Occupy LA. Beforehand, the LAPD threatened that all media in the park who hadn’t been handpicked by LAPD itself would be subject to arrest no different than protesters. The reporters, like the protesters, probably figured there would be at least some warning before being kettled, so they were visibly nervous and frustrated when the police denied them an opportunity to exit. I hope they report this experience, but I suspect that

The initial ten-minute timeframe expired so as to thoroughly frighten all the would-be dispersers who couldn’t disperse. Then another ten-minute warning was issued, and after a few minutes of that, protesters trapped in the street areas were permitted to exit. Those who remained in the streets would be the first to be arrested, as they wanted to clear out that area first and establish an even stronger perimeter. I wanted to be in the park for the big showdown, but that was no longer an option. When the police swarmed initially, I tried to rush into the park, but was blocked out, so I missed out on that opportunity, although a couple of my friends managed to get inside. So at this point, I had the choice of being civilly disobedient on the street and being in the first group hauled away, or to cross to the other side of the police line and watch from a greater distance, which was the option that myself and most of the demonstrators in my area chose. My feeling is that if I’m going to keep participating in demonstrations, I need to limit my arrests to when I’m not given an option to step away at the last minute, though I have a lot of admiration for the 292 Angelinos who stood their ground. The nearly 300 that were arrested were/are held on $5000 bail (talk about excessive). Many of the lawyers had assumed the protesters who did not resist arrest would just be cited and released due to the prisons already being full (heck, Lindsay Lohan was just SENTENCED to hard time and left after an hour), but they clearly wanted to make an example and scare them from participating again. That much is evident.

Now outside of the perimeter, we became a chanting mob of hundreds on the other side of the barricade. From time to time, the police would push us backward a few feet. At one point, I was at the front and was getting bumped with an officer’s baton as he kept demanding we step back. The baton was held the long way and not painful in itself, but I was getting crushed between the officer’s pushing me in one direction and the pushing back by the crowd trying to stand its ground. “Stop shoving!” I screamed at the officer. After all, they were trying to get us back a few feet for no purpose other than to display their power.

From that distance, I wasn’t able to witness the events in the park for myself, though I’ve since seen YouTube videos of guns being pointed in unarmed protesters’ faces and others being shoved to the ground by officers. What I did see was the crowd growing rowdy on the outside of the police line, wishing to show support to the hundreds being arrested in the park. Effectively, what the police did was push the people away from the park and to the other side of where they were standing, but that did not succeed in breaking up the protest. Now people were just assembled in the streets forty yards away from the park. Eventually the police had to declare this new gathering an “unlawful assembly” and try to disperse that too, which involved some baton whacking and what would probably look like comical chase scenes if Benny Hill music was playing as a soundtrack. It wasn’t so amusing in the moment, however.

When one of these sudden clashes/chases broke out with police and protesters, that’s when my friends and I sprinted down the street away from the scene. Even getting out was a fiasco. A cop who said she would escort me through police lines grabbed me by the arm (without warning – it wasn’t especially rough or anything, but it’s scary when you’re all of the sudden grabbed by an officer after everything else that had gone down) and an officer at the other end of the street still didn’t want to let me through. The officer holding me asked what she was supposed to do with me, then, if not let me leave. Yet again, there’s a lot of “you must leave the area/you can’t leave the area” and finally the second officer gruffly let me pass. My car was behind a separate barricade. I probably would have had a lot more trouble getting back to it were there not a business man parked next to me who was also waiting to have access to his car. An officer first searched my car with a flashlight, and then when given the go-ahead, I was again restrained by having both arms grabbed (again, not that forcefully, BUT STILL) when escorted to my car.

The press conference afterward made me sick. The mayor and the police officials cheered themselves on doing a perfect job. First, let’s give them some credit: to my knowledge there were no tear gas, no rubber bullets, and seemingly fewer police violations than in other such raids, but I think at least half of that credit is shared with the protesters whose response to the police’s advances did not make them feel like they had to use such measures. But while you can give the police kudos for the execution, you can never call it a job worth doing. There was no reason for that kind of intimidation for that petty of an infraction.

For as much as I’ve been watching live feeds of Occupy scuffles in other cities, I didn’t fully grasp the extent to which we live in a police state until I saw the police swarm on peaceful people with my own eyes. If this is indeed “the finest moment in the history of the LAPD” as Mayor Villaraigosa said, then the LAPD should be ashamed. Shouldn’t their finest moment involve protecting and serving LA residents rather than suppressing them? My friend recently had her home robbed of her valuables and you know what LAPD told her? They can’t investigate or do anything about it because they are understaffed and under-funded. Yet they can afford to pay 1400 officers to terrorize and apprehend a few hundred campers who have the first amendment on their side.

And I think that’s perhaps the most frustrating conclusion I’ve drawn: the LAPD is powerful, clearly capable of pulling together a masterful plan to take down an opposing operation. So why aren’t they harnessing this man and brainpower against the rampant gang violence or any of the other things that make this city notoriously unsafe?

Witnessing this all unfold, seeing how the people at top so desperately want to squash this movement just cements my commitment to the cause even more. But there are so many rich entities working against it that the only way this populous movement will succeed is to genuinely have the population behind it. So I urge you to not just acknowledge that what’s happening is wrong, but to find a way to participate civically to change our current course.

(Above photo from the Guardian; I like their signs.)

Art for Fart's Sake

Hey artists, you better step up your game, because I just spotted the world's greatest public art installation: a transgendered ballerina clown.

You can find this gem, which features a motorized kicking leg, on the CVS building in Venice. But beware - it's terrifying. Allison actually shielded her face and asked that we move away from it as soon as possible.

Naturally, this reaction got me thinking: why did Venice even want this crazy thing amidst a row of otherwise chic stores on Main Street? Somehow I doubt CVS commissioned it. In search of an explanation, I located the artist's statement:

The Venice Boardwalk is full of all kinds of people in all sorts of outfits and the atmosphere is very festive with many live street performances taking place, especially on weekends. This sculpture is an accommodation or resolution of opposites in one. Not only does this image bring the male and female together into one figure, but also, two opposite types of performers are represented: the formal classical ballet dancer and the traditional street performer. Of course, this public sculpture might push the envelope in ‘taste’, but if you have ever walked the Venice Boardwalk on a Sunday afternoon, you might understand why this figure is right at home.

I love how, in addition to bullshitting, he managed to be condescending, too. Why not just say, "Yo freaks, I made this freaky art because it's what you freaky freaks deserve."?

Sensing Evil

Standing outside while conversing at a party, several of us kept finding ourselves in the dark. The motion sensor light that illuminated our area turned off frequently, but it was fickle and pretty arbitrary in what would turn it back on. We would jump up and down and wave our arms to no avail, only to later have someone bend over to itch, causing the light to return.

On one occasion of prolonged darkness, we tried everything short of doing the hokey pokey to make the light return, but after no success, we resigned ourselves to just chatting in the dark. Then, an unfamiliar long-haired guy who had been sitting alone and silently in a broken rocking chair nearby stood up. As he walked by, the light picked up on his movement and finally turned back on. Before we could even thank him, he told us, "It only turns on when it senses evil."

We laughed - a bit awkwardly because he seemed sorta creepy - but it was also genuinely funny. However, rather than saying "just kidding" or staying to prove he was actually friendly as I would have done in the situation, he just walked away, leaving his "evil" line to just linger.

I encountered someone who is either the personification of evil or really knows how to commit to his jokes.

Connectiwhat?

In fourth grade, I took a test where I had to label every state on map of America. Not only that, but every state had to be spelled correctly, so this wasn't just a geography exam, it was a spelling test, too.

I studied a lot for that test, and when I handed it in, I was confident that I had scored 100%. But when it was handed back to us the next day, I discovered that I had gotten one wrong. Was it Missouri? That's a tough one, but no. How about Delaware? The vowels are confusing in that one, but nope, I got that one. How about Massachusetts? I studied forever to remember which letters were doubled and which were not, and managed to do that successfully, too.

It turns out that I got Connecticut - or as I believed it to be, "Conneticut" - wrong. I could spell 49 states, but to miss that one was tragic. I say that not because I'm a perfectionist, but because that was my own state - the one and only state I had ever lived in.

I guess I didn't even bother to study Connecticut, because I already knew it... or thought I did. Why does Connecticut need three Cs anyway? That's pretty excessive for a state full of moderates.

To this day, I live in fear that I will make that same mistake again, saying "CONNECT - I - CUT" aloud to myself whenever writing the state's name. It's just one of many complexes I developed while living there.

Eyebrows

Eyebrows scare me. Not actively, because they're subtle little things - I can go weeks without remembering eyebrows exist. Then suddenly I'll notice someone's eyebrows and freak out and then start looking at everyone's eyebrows. Why are there hairy strips sitting on our foreheads? Who thought that was a good idea?

We'd look even sillier without them, a friend pointed out. Would we, though? Whoopi Goldberg doesn't need eyebrows. For the first twenty-six years of my life, I didn't even notice she didn't have eyebrows, and I've seen Sister Act 2 at least seven times. Granted, once you've seen that they're missing (are they in the witness protection program, too, Sister Whoopi?), you can't un-see it, but clearly they aren't necessary.

Wikipedia argues that eyebrows are "important to human communication and facial expression", but Whoopi is an Oscar-winning actress. If she can communicate and emote that well without eyebrows, who needs 'em? If they're not good enough for Whoopi, they're not good enough for me.

The Change-Up

From Welcome to this Blog, Bitch:


Sure, this movie has been done a hundred times before, but this time the characters accidentally trade bodies by urinating in a fountain at the same time! Adam and I saw the trailer for The Change-Up before Bridesmaids, and when it concluded, we both said “wow” simultaneously. For half a second, I was afraid that maybe we would switch bodies after making identical sarcastic comments in unison. Imagine the hilarious antics that would ensue.

Urban Iditarod 2011: Oregon Trail

What happens when you and your friends dress up like frontiersmen and women and push a covered wagon down the Venice boardwalk? You end up having to literally flee from the cops. And that is a really sweaty and difficult thing to do when you are drunk and in full costume.

The event is the Urban Iditarod. It's a secret pub crawl in which a few hundred people form teams, "borrow" a shopping cart, dress in themed costumes, get inebriated, and make a spectacle of themselves in public. Since I'm good at all of those things, I participated in 2009 and 2010 as well.



My team chose Oregon Trail as our theme this year because it's nostalgic, cholera jokes are the best, and my friends are creative enough to make a rockin' covered wagon out of a shopping cart with just a sheet, some cardboard, and hula hoops. In addition to a lot of pioneers, we had a couple of Indians ("No offense" Ben's shirt read), an ox, and a buffalo. Even though there are no official "winners," the other teams were declaring us the winners because of how slick we looked when we reached the starting line.

Unfortunately the cops, who are wise to our ways after the years, were also waiting at the starting point and started issuing tickets before the event even began. I don't blame the police entirely. They'll give you some leeway when there's some plausible deniability; for example, our team consumes all of our beverages from soda and water bottles. However, when you are openly shotgunning Bud Lites next to the cops, they're going to ticket you, and if you give them guff for it, they're going to cuff you.

Rather than running between pubs like in the past, we ended up just fleeing from the police. We ran down random alleys and barely had a proper chance to catch our breaths. At one point we were trapped between a deep puddle and an oncoming police car and the other teams were shouting at us to quickly "calk the wagon and float it across." It was exhilarating in that sense, though I personally wasn't too worried about being arrested. Cuz let's get real here: more than racial profiling, cops douche profile. When they randomly start citing people, of course they're going to go choose the guy with an lewd statement scrawled on his wifebeater or the girl with her boobs spilling out of her outfit. If anyone were to ask, we were just a bunch of historical re-enactors who got mixed up with the wrong crowd.

Since other people had already quit, gotten lost, or in a few cases been apprehended, we no longer had the benefit of "safety in numbers." Once people started getting ticketed for stolen shopping carts, we dropped out of the race and made a beach day out of it. We stayed in costume and danced jigs to the bluegrass cover songs we brought and made a spectacle of ourselves all over again. In a way it was actually better once we were separated from the other teams, because we looked even nuttier to people out of context.

I love all of my fellow Oregon Trailers, and I'm glad to see that none of us fell prey to dysentery, snake bites, or even the police for that matter. Though we made it to the Pacific Ocean, we didn't quite make it to Oregon. Maybe we'll try again next year, but I'm going to need a year to think about it.

State of the Hostage Situation

So tonight was fun. Watched the State of the Union while drinking a lot, as any good American should. We started sipping at every utterance of the word "future," which comes up a lot as it turns out when the president doesn't have much good to say about the present. Still, the "future" references seemed a little taunting to most of the people in attendance... is every politician old-as-fuck these days? It's as if Obama were speaking to a convalescent home; most of those people were closer to death than Gabrielle Giffords. Speaking of Giffords, if you thought Obama would wait a full five seconds before mentioning her name, clearly you're new to politics.

Following the speech, I went to a comedy show. The transition from one drunkenly hilarious spectacle to the next was nearly seamless. Well, that is until I became involved in a hostage situation at the show. The details aren't entirely clear, but elsewhere in the same building someone was holding someone else hostage at gunpoint, which led to a standoff with dozens of police officers. The audience was on lockdown and couldn't leave the room. I hadn't been planning on leaving the room anytime soon, but you'd be surprised at how claustrophobic you start to feel when a whole bunch of people with guns are restricting your movements.

Anyway, I made it home safely and the state of our union is strong... even if downtown Los Angeles has once again proven why it is uninhabitable. I had hoped to channel some positive thoughts to go to bed with, but I instead received a new blog comment on a post I wrote more than a year ago to celebrate (read: mock) Bryan Adams's 50th birthday. In addition to skewering several of his embarrassing songs, I had made an off-the-cuff remark about the film Prince of Thieves. Apparently "Anonymous" (if that is your real name!) took offense to this comment, saying: "Prince of Thieves was a great movie. If you disagree then I suggest you get your head examined, and also look into having a new (good) sense of taste transplanted into the sad thing you laughingly call your brain." It's true, I can't refer to my own brain without laughing. But who let Kevin Costner on the internet?

Omnipotent Facebook

Facebook's sidebar is suggesting that I look at old wedding photographs of a couple who was divorced within a year.

So I realize that Facebook knows my vital information, friends, hobbies, and spending habits... but now it has discerned my sense of humor, too? I'd be really frightened right now if I weren't too busy chuckling at the bride and groom's misfortune.