As I still reel from creeping culture shock over these past three weeks since returning to my native Southern California, I'm amazed at how easy it is to revel in first world culture.
Southern California is on FIRE - literally! Currently there are about twenty-something fires out of control throughout the southland. I flip on the tube and the news flash says 'Breaking News - Lake Piru'. That's where I went to elementary school with Dave McCutcheon - Piru elementary. They are saying there's no current danger to the condor preserve behind the lake where they used to shoot the Dukes of Hazards and that Magic Mountain to the east is safe, reporting from News Chopper 2. I could go on and on about the southland fires but the media is doing such a good job there's really no need. I can say that over the course of the entire day the sky was blanketed in this smokey orange-filtered haze that changed the color temperature of the light dramatically. This is a once every-other-year type of natural disaster with the hot easterly Santa Ana winds, something that we SoCal natives are used to.
What's up with 'Cavemen' - the new comedy on ABC? I mean the Geico commercials were funny and the premiere episode a few weeks ago was... mildly entertaining, even borderline clever at times - "Eagle! And I just got this yesterday!!" says Andy, in reference to his Nintendo Wii golf game - but WTF?! I guess it has something to do with discrimination... the cavemen just want to be seen as regular people? But they're not regular people, they're cavemen! They just want to be treated like regular people. "Hope you like the smell of RUBBER!" was the best line so far in tonight's episode.
Even though the fires have tragically forced hundreds of thousands of residents and movie stars from their homes, it still makes for good TV entertainment news. Here in LA its hard to tell what's news anymore. "See John Travolta fly over the fires..."
Other current TV shows I've caught up with since I've been home: Dancing with the Stars, David Letterman (rerun with Jude Law hopped up on blow, Sara Silverman and John Fogerty), Carpoolers (on now), The Daily Show, The Colbert Report (the one where he announced that he was thinking of announcing whether or not he will run for the Presidency), CSI-Miami, a bit of South Park and... a whole bunch more that I don't have the time or energy to write about. [There was more to this brilliant social commentary but I came back to reformat this post and it went bye bye - oh well]
Did I mention that LA was on fire?!
