The collection of words on the OC

When I was dating this girl in 2003, I was just out of college and using every friend I had to try to get a job. My link from her lead me to Fox Studios on Pico. This was about July of that year. The whole place was abuzz about “The OC.” They were saying it was going to be huge, it was supposed to be next great show. I mean a show about teenagers in Orange County? You have to be kidding me.

Almost four years later, I feel like I lost a friend, and more so, a text that represented where I was for a period of my life.

When season 2 came on, it was in late 2004. It had switched from Wed to Thursday night, and seeing that I worked that night, I was in a bind (this was in the early days of TIVO and torrent TV sites). I talked to my boss and arranged so that I could take the 8-9 hour off to watch the OC. Admitting you have a problem is the first step.

By the time it ended, even with all of the false hurdles, even with the needless Luke interjection, suddenly, it was back, and for the first time, I guess I felt I knew LA was my home.

Living alone in LA was scary once I left college. I had no base, I had only marginal ideas of where to go, and all I had was a car, a house, and a phone.

What I was lacking was a family, a girlfriend, and a home.

Thankfully, within a month of me getting me own place, my favorite uncle wound up moving from the OC to Brentwood.

For a year or two, I lived with a broken heart, always thinking salvation was in the arms of someone else.

If becoming a man is anything, it’s that self importance is valued only on the self, and not the others. That and the whole concept is overrated.

The things that matter in life are friends, family, and a sense of home.

I’ll live in LA for years to come. At least I think I will. The reason I still love the OC, even underneath the shit of it all, was that I was finding myself, and the greatest comfort and joy I could pin myself to was a TV show about teenagers.

What is it they say about text’s finding you?

(continued...)

Dave’s short words on celeb culture.

Anna Nicole’s death is the American newsmedia equivalent of a winning the lottery, which as the obvious metaphor would be, the same kind of life Anna Nicole had.

From hillbilly, to stripper, to national icon, to a Naked Gun star sex pot, to pill popper, to rehab, to sex pot, to shill, to lucky mother, to corpse.

Save the life of her baby child, I wish this had happened about 5 years ago.

Let’s just do Fitz here.

“There are no second acts in American Life.”

He was right, but he was wrong about one thing. For a largely Christian nation, we are a culture that loves the idea of resurrection and redemption.

Anna Nicole didn’t deserve a resurrection, and the fact her life was turned around because of a TV show which lead her to be comfortable is a bitter bowl of pudding, not because she was given the shot, but because it came at her expense “it’s not supposed to be funny, it just is” was the tagline. She deserved, as a human, a chance to live her life in relative peace, free of her 15 minute baggage.

Maybe blondes have more fun. Maybe that’s (along with two other reasons) we were attracted to her enough to care about her more than a normal supermodel. Maybe it was her naïve stupidity (or yokel charm) that made her endearing enough to actually follow her…by which I mean we would be sympathetic to her plight in the basic struggles on a new level.

The problem I have is this… she doesn’t deserve this send off. She deserves a quiet send off. An emotional note of sorrow, and a wish for her family’s best.

Steaze said this when the 10 p news came on. “She lived more in 39 years than most live in 5 lifetimes.”

Yeah. I agree.

++++

To sour this mood, I think of one of the lost classics of the 1990’s. 1998 had 5 great films.

Saving Private Ryan #1 of the decade
Rushmore #3 of the decade
Out of Sight
The Truman Show

And a Simple Plan.

No one remembers a Simple Plan. A genuine masterpiece from Sam Raimi, it’s a harrowing tale of suspicious fortune that ends in the worst way. Normal, poor people get a shot a great life, and then see the dream fade away due to greed and lack of trust.

The movie follows Bill Paxton (Hank) through this as the narrative. He is in, if I remember, 100% of the film’s actions.

His brother Jacob, played by Billy Bob Thornton, has a speech that goes something like this:

“I ain’t really ever been in love, or even really been with a girl. I remember one time a few years ago I started getting affection from this real pretty girl, and for a couple of weeks, we went along, her interested in me, going on dates. I remember one time we went for a walk, in the park, and she held my hand. I know it’s not much, but it was special, because, that’s about the best I ever had. Later on, I learned she was only doing it because of a bet with her friends, that I was a game. I don’t know, it still was nice. I think about that, even if it wasn’t real. It’d be nice to have that for real, once in my life. But I know that’s not really how it’s supposed to be.”

In one of those “what’s wrong with America” opines, that about sums up how I feel. Why waste time a blond who was given it all.

In the end, it just makes it all feel worse in compared to them, they were charmed, we were not. When we feel a sense of superiority when they falter, or conversely a sense of empathy when those who never did anything to contribute to life but pick the right numbers, it makes us worse as a people.

Save your tears for the Johnny Carson’s, the George Harrison’s, and the Mel Blanc’s. They did something for all of us, they connected us through art, not through news. Those are the only entertainers worth shedding tears for. They united us, not just in entertainment, but in because they did their part as artists to make the world feel smaller, and a bit more welcome, because growing up in America, it's hard not to be touched by one, if not all three of the aforementioned. When they pass, a part of who we were goes with them. That's the funeral of a great artist, that the result of a great life's end.

The rest are just dots on the grand maps of life, distractions from the real journey. I’m ashamed, as an American, that Anna Nicole Smith was even a dot, and doubly ashamed that we’re reporting on her death. It was her and her families loss, not ours.

(continued...)

What I care about in the deepest of senses.

Then endgame for me is this.

I am 46. I am married, and I am sitting in my kitchen around 6pm. My kids have come home from school, and me and my wife of some years, are there, with a bottle of wine, the roast or any form of dinner for that matter, is in the oven. One of my friends and his wife and kids are over for the night, (let’s call it a Saturday, so they are staying the guest room) and we are getting ready for supper, us adults gathered round the island talking about nothing, or talking about everything, it doesn’t matter save the locale.

This is what I want. For the longest I have figured, this is what I want, and to do so I have always figured film or books to do this for me. I’d gladly suffer the arrows of outrageous misfortune to do so, and I don’t think I am alone in such a scene.

Along the way, I’d hope to help the aspects of life that I care about.

And while life suffers on the human form in some of the worst ways (US in Iraq, Darfur, the general shittiness of impoverished childhood in third world countries) it’s hard to fathom I would care about these.

While there is an argument that saving the whales is the ultimate act of commercial benevolence, it’s hard to decry the point once you have gotten to that level of financial freedom.

Earth is beyond special. Even if it’s one of a many thousand or just one of 10 in the galaxy that supports life to the point where we are now, it’s special because it’s our planet.

So if I were rich, I’d probably pay money to those hurt by natural acts like Katrina or the 2004 Tsunami, but that’s only trying to help other human beings. Yeah, it’s needed, but at the same time, it’s just giving money to people who are living here on Earth, and last I checked, we aren’t the only ones here. Come to that notion, we aren’t the only thing that makes Earth so special.

If I were a rich and generous soul, I’d leave the masses of people up to fate, only helping when they needed it (on this note, Darfur needs attention and military force, not just money), but to the vitality of Earth itself.

Mind you, before you think I am all Greenpeace and so on, I am still not sold on Global Warming. Until I have proof that can be definitively connected, I am not going to believe it’s not more that the planet adjusting with time. Earth has never been stable, even if we do curb greenhouse gases and global warming is true, it doesn’t mean that Earth is acting any different… this is a planet that is not stable enough for long term life, humans just were smart enough to adapt themselves.

Though I do care about preservation. Not about the lemur in Ghana that is near extinction due to fallibility to crop manifestation.

I care about whales.

Really, that’s all I care about.

Whales are the coolest thing outside of humans that evolution has ever made. Dolphins are up there, as are sharks, but to think of a great beast, Melville had it right. There is nothing more impressive than a giant creature that roams and dominates a world on our planet that we have no true conception of. While it’s one thing to look for life on other planets terrestrial, we still have a whole world of creatures oceanic, and seeing that they can live in the 70% of the Earth that we cannot, the great creatures deserve our care. For they are what we are not… they are what make Earth so special. If you don’t buy into this, I ask, how much would you pay to see a Killer Whale fight a T Rex.

I thought so.

So I go to blue whales.



Blue Whales are, in my opinion, the coolest thing in the world. While we have Lake Baikal, Bryce Canyon, African Elephants, AIDS (I’m not trying to be curt here, but there is an organism that is designed only to kill the top form of life. Yeah it sucks, but on a scientific level, it’s a unique device of the Earth’s self correction. It’s horrible for us, it’s probably good for the planet), and the Boundary Waters. We have so much in life that we can experience, but yet, the best things that the Earth has ever given us are dying, maybe in part due to our involvement.

The greatest creature on Earth by measure of size, it’s a relative pacifist, living on only the plantation of the sea.

And yet our lives on the sea to find food and life providing necessities may lead to the end of the Blue Whale.

200 tons (400,000 pounds, that’s close to half a million, mind you) and they still are the hunted.

This is the great creature of mystery and awe on Earth.

And that’s my attraction.

I just hope they survive me and my generation.



This is a gift we have been given while we exist. That’s why I care about blue (and all) whales.

(continued...)