Black licorice and white chocolate

No, that is not a cheesily metaphorical and ultra-pretentious way of addressing the race division in our country. This is actually going to be a piece addressing the division between those who like and those who dislike certain fine candies. Both black licorice and white chocolate are very "love them or hate them" snacks - and in my experience, the "haters" seem to be the larger camp. But they are both favorites of mine - in fact, there are times when I certainly prefer them to their differently-colored counterparts.

Black licorice should really be called just "licorice," because the red variant has nothing at all to do with the original plant. It's simply a nice red-flavored candy in the traditional shape of a licorice stick. But the black stuff, on the other hand - well, it's one of the most intoxicating and unique tastes I know of. There's really not anything that tastes like it - it's not sweet in the same way that other candies are, which to me is what makes it so addictive. White chocolate is sort of the opposite - it's not *really* chocolate, they just call it that because it tends to come in a similar shape. And the taste is anything but unique - it's a very generic, sugary-sweet taste, which makes it all the more confusing to me that so many people consider it to be downright disgusting.

Now, I realize that it is a tad hypocritical for a notoriously picky eater such as myself to be so critical of the likes (or dislikes) of others. Perhaps. But while I am a firm believer in the "different strokes for different folks" mentality, it still blows my mind that tastes can be so different. I, for example, would never even consider eating tuna, which I consider the single foulest-smelling prepared dish on the planet - but there are many who feel the same way about white chocolate, which I consider perfectly harmless, and licorice, which I think of as an simply amazing sugar-drug. It's possible that this reversal is further evidence that my eating habits are in fact bizarre and not just eccentric. It could also be considered proof that I am in fact an alien.

And perhaps it is sad proof that I currently find myself short on topics, and am having to compose an essay based on something as trivial as what I am eating while I type.

The spirit of adventure is alive! (special photo essay)

A few days back, my friend Carl and I decided we were down for a hike. We settled on the San Elijo lagoon area, which doesn't look like much from the freeway, but is in fact rather large and has a good deal of hidden secrets. I already knew of a small series of caves tucked away in a canyon, and a rather nice hillside forest, but I was surprised to find a few new, and even more interesting, surprises. Our hike ended up stretching out to well over three hours, and taking us around the entire circumference of the lagoon itself. By the end we were hungry, thirsty, tired and mousquito-ridden. Fortunately, we snapped a good deal of pictures, which speak far louder than words. And now, for your enjoyment, a special photo essay.



The more civilized side of the lagoon. Some nice houses, but not enough adventure for my tastes.



The main cave, complete with ancient native american cave drawings of pot leaves and mushrooms.



A view from out of the main cave. Notice the extremely tall cliff in the background with footholds all the way up. Even an adventurer like myself can hardly imagine climbing up something like that - and keep in mind that this area is known as the ideal stoner spot. I wonder sometimes just how many teenage deaths have occured here...



A shot back down the narrow chasm that must be navigated to reach the cave area. It's hard to get a good shot of it, but the rock to the right is carved to look like a giant dragon's head.



Some of the carvings on top of the dragon's head are quite elaborate. This one, in case you are blind, is a turtle.



A nice panoramic shot of the complete area which we covered. Taken from the area just beyond the caves, where few dare tread (aside from us, of course, and some couple trying to find a quiet spot to make out. I wonder what they must have thought we were up there for...)



Some sort of water-release device in the center of the marsh. It looks to me like a puzzle from that old computer game "Myst." Set all of these devices to flow just right, and find a blue page!



The action shot of the day. Finding ourselves on the opposite end of the lagoon from my car, Carl and I decided to trek back across the train tracks. Halfway across, a train came along - at which point we realized that there were only a few feet of ground on either side of the bridge where we could be safe from pounding steam-driven wheels. You can't tell from this shot, but we are kind of huddled on the very edge of the dirt, about to fall into murky swamp water, and sheilding our heads to avoid getting pelted by loose rocks that might be thrown aside by the train. I exaggerate a little, of course, but it was still a rather exciting moment.



My favorite discovery of the day: the ruins of a long-abandoned water treatment facility, hidden behind some trees in the middle of the marsh. I think of all the sinister things this place may have been used for - but I'm sure that the truth is far less interesting.



A cheesy artsy shot taken from inside the ruins. Very much like something you'd see on the wall of a motel room, if that room were decorated by goths.



A blurry shot of the mysterious ladder we found inside the ruins. What did it once lead to? A series of subterranean tunnels? A large underground factory? If my past spelunking experience is any indication of a pattern, it's probably a small, boring room with some pipes. So it's probably better to let the mystery be.



Me playing around in the ruins. Carl said that we should contribute this shot as a label pic for Jones Soda. But alas, it's not in black and white.

The long, long voyage

MARIJUANA!

As far as I can tell, that is the proper spelling of the word. All capital letters, with an exclamation mark, just like it's pronounced. I've seen that some people prefer to pronounce it as a normal word - however, I have never heard a single stoned person refer to it with anything less than the most extreme emphasis. So in this piece, which concerns my personal experiences with the drug (my opinions on the political debate are for another column), I will use the more dynamic of the two alternate spellings.

I have trouble seeing MARIJUANA! as a social activity (partially because its effects leave me rather unsociable, for reasons I will soon explain). No, I prefer to approach it as an expiriment, to be used only when someone is feeling especially experimental. I've always considered myself an "explorer" (i.e. someone who gets a big kick out of seeing as much of the world as possible, and learning as much as I can before I eventually die), but not until two years ago had I ever felt a need to scope out the very large field of mind alteration. I had always assumed that pot and alcohol would do little aside from limit the mindpower of the user, turning him or her into a much more intellectually limited person. But in a moment of spontanaety, I decided to join some of my friends for what I believe is called the smoking of a bowl. And five minutes after my first hit, I realized...

...that I had been completely correct. Pot turned me into an idiot - and not just any idiot, a hyperactive child. I became myself age 5 - obsessed with drawing, wandering around in a haze, and rolling around on the couch and floor when I grew tired of jumping about. In retrospect, it was a bit embarrasing - and I am extremely glad that the only people present were my closest friends. Of course, my embarrasment did not stop me from repeating the procedure on several later dates - I was anxious to see if, as some people claim, the effects would lessen with each use.

They most certainly did not - and in fact, the second and third times yielded even more serious reactions. I loudly sang "The Long Voyage" (a favorite song of mine by Hector Zazou featuring Suzanne Vega and John Cale), interspercing the actual lyrics with shouts of "a fucking VOYAGE! A VOYAGE!" I slid around on the floor, walking along the base of the walls as if they were ground. I claimed to be my friend's cat and violently headbutted people. It's not that the drug is what brought out this behaviour, it's just what made it impossible for me to tell myself "no, that is probably a bad idea." What's even more amazing is that the effects lasted well into the next day. Our morning trip to the beach was punctuated with demented squeals as I bodysurfed - and of course, repeated questions about whether or not my friends had heard about the voyage. It's kind of as if I became a different person with the same memories, yet with none of the self-control or intelligence that I am actually proud of.

But as regressive and shameful as my stoned self is, I have learned quite a bit from him. No, the inner workings of the universe did not reveal themselves before my eyes (as the hippie cliche goes), and in fact the experience didn't really give me any answers at all. But it raised new questions, which is in some ways more important. For instance, whatever might have been on my mind the first timed I smoked couldn't have been more important than the question of identity which has been on my mind since. Am I in fact the well-adjusted, easygoing, and intelligent person that I think I am? Or is the spastic lunatic which reveals himself minutes after intake the real me, who I've forcibly covered up to create the illusion of sophistication? Am I too pretentious for my own good, as my overelaborate wording in this essay is leading me to believe? Or am I, as I insisted multiple times the last time I used the drug, a moose?

Who knows. I may smoke MARIJUANA! again before I die, or I may not. It is defenitely a fun thing to do on occasion - but now that those questions have been asked, it seems counterproductive to bring them up again. I'm not going to make any progress if my mind isn't at it's best, and if I don't make progress than I'm going to stagnate. That I would rather not do, because this is a voyage. A long, long fucking voyage.

When burdens seem to overcome, there's a higher power

And that power is: country and western music!

Country is one of those genres which, along with rap and sometimes reggae, recieves much scorn even from people who claim to be open minded. I would need four or five hands to count the number of times I have heard someone, in response to the question "what music do you like," reply with "I like everything... except for rap and country." Now, my extreme love of hip-hop is something which I've already devoted one essay to - but although my collection of country isn't as big as certain other genres, it does include a lot of my favorite songs and artists, and is a style which people certainly shouldn't write off so easily.

The sad thing is, the anti-country attitude is sort of understandable. A good deal of the material currently marketed as "country" is in fact little more than straight pop music, maybe with a few slide guitars thrown on as an afterthought. Shania Twain is the textbook example of how far country has strayed from its roots - it's upbeat, it's girly, it's overproduced, and is the last thing I think of when I think of "the country" (i.e. scruffy men in beards who like to drink a lot and wear stupid hats). And this poppification is not a recent development - I can trace it back to Garth Brooks, although as I am not a scholar on country history, it could go back even farther.

Even someone like me, who likes to consider himself open-minded, bought his first country album as a joke. The record was "Satan Is Real" by the Louvin Brothers, purchased solely due to the novelty that the front cover looked like this:

.

And while the hilarity of the album's opening spoken-word track had me at first convinced that yes, I had found yet another great bad album - it was followed by my surprise at the extreme quality of the songs. These were not goofy throwaways, they were well-written songs delivered in an extremely catchy manner, with strange harmonies and all the atmosphere of that masterpiece film "Raising Arizona." As much as I wanted to dismiss the album as a funny one, I couldn't fight the fact that I actually enjoyed it - in fact, I even felt "cool" listening to it (in a ridiculously retro way).

My interest in country grew from there. I started listening to big names like Johnny Cash (who, for some reason, is the only country musician that country-haters still love) and Willie Nelson (who isn't really pure country, if you ask me, but is still unbelievably good). Also forgotten stars like Tenessee Ernie Ford, and the actor Jack Palance (whose 1969 self-titled album is, without a doubt, the best album ever recorded by an actor, even beating William Shatner's "Transformed Man"). And there is still much more out there I have yet to get into - I'd love to play it like I'm a country expert, but for now I'll have to settle for being an interested party.

Still, there is far too much material out there which makes it hard for people like me to mantain interest. The most insulting modern country album I have ever heard is "Put The O Back In Country" by Shooter Jennings. He's Waylon's son, which you'd figure would give him some ability to distinguish quality from crap. But that's not the case - his album sounds like "Achy Breaky Heart" backed up with heavy instruments (apparently Shooter has worked as a stand-in for Axl Rose, which is no surprise considering how butt-rockey most of the arrangements on the record are). What is most offensive about all of this is that the lyrics are all about, you know, keeping it real, getting country back to it's roots, showing these modern pussies the sound of the *true* west, etc. Example:

You take a little country and a little rock and roll
A little Neil Young and a little George Jones
A little Merle Haggard and a little bit of the Stones
Add a little Cash and a whole lotta Waylon
You know there ain’t no soul on the radio
Let’s put the O back in country

Now, imagine those lyrics sung in a style which doesn't even pretend to recall any of those artists named. Imagine them sung in the style of, say, a little Leann Rimes crossed with a lot of Kid Rock. Perhaps Shooter really is just too dumb to know what artists his album sounds like - or maybe he thinks that the ten-second soundclip of George Jones he stuck on there is country enough to excuse a full album's worth of annoying pop rock songs. Songs which could possibly pass for a Great White reunion album (if only Great White had a fetish for singing about past stars with more talent than they).

In short - Shooter Jennings may have good intentions in trying to make country hip and rocking, but in the end all he exists as is yet another reason why most people my age would rather be caught in a car crash than in the country department at their local music store. It would seem that the only thing that can keep the roots of country alive is those roots themselves - if you're a country hater and "Pitfall" by the Louvin Bros. doesn't convince you that you're missing out on something, then perhaps you should be reading a different blog.

465 square miles of hell

Los Angeles is an amazing city. And also, one which I despise.

Which is part of what makes it so fascinating, and why I am so entertained by my visits there. To me, L.A. is a perfect example of a city gone wrong. Rather than building up, like most of New England's more compact cities have done, L.A. built outward, stretching what could have been one huge city into about seven, under the false moniker of a "county." In my view, a county would require being able to tell where one city ends and the next begins. And yet, there's no way to tell that you've left Santa Monica and entered Hollywood - aside from the gradual change in the buildings from "classy new mini-mall" to "converted old movie theater." The identity of each zone is really just a way of keeping track of where you are - there are no real borders, just an endless sprawl of run-down buildings and out of date track homes.

I actually wonder sometimes who chose the names for some of these sub-cities. Some of them seem to have their names chosen to illustrate the exact opposite of what the place actually looks like. "Garden Grove" for example doesn't have any gardens, and while "Long Beach" might sound like a nice place to go surfing, it's actually the home of a 15-or-so-square mile industrial zone - right in the heart of the world's most polluted city.

I will admit, however, that I am quite grateful to Long Beach, for being home to what might be my favorite part of LA. Right on the edge of said industrial zone, and extremely visible from the freeway, is a gargantuan rusty factory complete with steel towers, rickety walkways, and pipes which bleed smoke into the sky. Now, as if this weren't amusingly post-apocolyptic enough on its own, some 9-11 fanatics felt a need to erect a gigantic American flag on the side of this structure - unwittingly creating a real-life political cartoon. There is no way to look at this structure now without seeing it as some sort of commentary on the United States as a worn-down factory whose only purpose is to pump thick black smog all over the place. Not to sound like too much of a leftist - but come on. It's hard to take a flag on the side of a facility like that as an inspiring symbol of patriotism.



Other divisions of note include:

Hollywood, where you can see hip, trendy young people try out new fashions which may (but will probably not) end up taking the rest of the west coast by storm.

Beverly Hills, an impossible-to-navigate labyrinth of ridiculously fancy houses, where I can tell you from experience it is impossible to find a gas station.

Santa Monica, the trendy shopping district which is for the most part just a gigantic strip mall exactly like the ones in your hometown (although it does house one of the best comic book shops I've ever been to).

Anaheim, which has Disneyland and very little else worth noting.

And of course, there is downtown L.A., which to me is the most surreal. Very tall office buildings, with no streetside entrances. As far as I can tell, you enter these buildings through a series of underground parking lots, which are only accessible by way of freeway off-ramp. In place of these street entrances are blocks and blocks of small stands selling fruits, papers, discounted toys, and other cheap merchandise to what seems to be the downtown area's population - an extensive community of homeless people. Imagine a crowded mall in Santa Monica, but with all of the fancy designer clothes replaced with rags and newspapers. It's something of a harrowing experience - to see this many people living in extreme poverty only a handful of miles from the strikingly wealthy Bel Aire.

There is a lot of debate over which of these areas are part of LA and which are cities of their own. I once went out with a girl from Anaheim, who was adamant that her hometown was a part of L.A.'s southern neighbor Orange County, despite the fact that it is most certainly not. The reason for this, as I see it, is that I am not the only person who hates L.A. - even people who live well within its borders would rather consider themselves outsiders. I can't blame them - I wouldn't move to L.A. if I were paid to, and if I did have the misfortune to be born there, I would be out as soon as money allowed.

But despite my words of hatred for the city itself, I rather enjoy visiting. There's something especially thought-provoking about seeing so much ugliness packed into one city (or seven, depending on who you ask). Every time I drive north, I have to drive through roughly 465 miles of hell - trust me, it can sure help to put things in perspective.

Bad rock lyrics, volume 1:

There are no shortage of bad rock lyrics. Some of them are even in extremely good songs (I still insist that "I'm a rocket man! A rocket man!" is a mighty dissapointing lyric for such a lovely melody), but the worst ones seem to make their homes in songs that are relatively shitty to begin with. In my opinion, most of the worst lyrics are the ones which sound perfectly fine at first - but the more you try to attach meaning to them, the more nonsensical they begin to sound. For example, take this nugget from Nickelback's "How You Remind Me," which is a shit song in addition to having shit lyrics:

This is how you remind me
Of what I really am
This is how you remind me
And this is how you remind me
Of what I really am
This is how you remind me

Okay, so - aside from being annoyingly repetetive, does anyone have any clue what he's talking about? I'm not referring to the fact that we still don't know "what he really is" - that part is kind of suspenseful. The song becomes a little more interesting if we treat it as a mystery - exactly what *is* this guy? We already know that he (groan) "never made it as a wise man, couldn't cut it as a poor man stealing." So there is our first hint - he's not smart, and he's not lower class. And he doesn't steal, although he may have tried it at some point. Also, he is (groan again) "tired of living as a blind man." So, if we do what we can to translate all of these clues, then we can come up with a reasonable guess as to who this guy is: dumb and middle class. And maybe he's had some sort of vision problems, but now he has glasses so he is no longer blind. I don't know.

No, what really gets me about this song is this: he doesn't ever tell us *what* reminds him of what he really is. How does this person he is singing to remind him? "This is how you remind me of what I really am" - that's not even a complete sentence! What is this person doing? Is he/she telling him what he really is? Does he/she leave notes around the house, in an attempt to get him to recall his true identity? Maybe he should change the line to "these notes are how you remind me," to be a bit more specific. But if that is the case, then where does the whole poor/blind/dumb thing come in? Perhaps he is singing to a poor, blind, wise man, who just by sitting there reminds him that he is none of these things.

But here's my favorite analysis, and the only one which seems to make sense. He's singing to himself, see, and "this" is in reference to the song itself. So basically, what he's saying is: "whiny, shitty songs like this are how I remind myself that I am a whiny, shitty, stupid middle class white kid." Oh well, at least he's honest about it... I have no idea why he has to remind himself so many times, though. Or why he feels a need to remind anyone with a car radio of it every half hour or so...

Bullshit and all of its variants

"I've been sick of bullshit for awhile. And there's nothing worse than when it's coming out of my own mouth."

This line was one of mine, from a conversation with my close friend Bob. His response was "Wow, I don't know if that could be said any better," and I immediately realized that I had just written an excellent and very true quote, and by complete accident at that.

The immediate reference was to dating around, which I consider to be one of the sad necessities of finding a companion. "Sad" because it more often than not results in bullshit coming from at least one of the parties involved, sometimes both. Most of the time it's only "birdshit," which I define as mild bullshit, but it can easily grow to the point where full lies are being told, which, pardon my repetition, is BULL-SHIT.

To use examples:

"Birdshit" would be talking to a girl and telling her that you used to work at a radio station when you in fact only worked for your college radio. Basically, stretching the truth to make you out as a cooler person than you actually are. It still isn't very nice or honest, but it doesn't feel as bad - which unfortunately means that you can very often let your birdshit pile up into something unmanagable. A giant mound of birdshit is pretty hard to deal with, whether you're the one who created it or the one who has to swallow it.

"Bullshit" I would define as the really bad stuff - lies. For example, telling a girl that you really like her when in fact you have very little interest in her. There are many reasons that people tell bullshit, from honorable ones (i.e. not wanting to hurt said girl, and playing along with her emotions to make things easier for her) to selfish and hurtful ones (i.e. just wanting to get in her pants, which sadly is the more common variant). But whatever your justification, bullshit is never worth it. While birdshit is not good either, it's relatively easy to hose off - bullshit, on the other hand, is a huge hassle to clean and usually just grows larger and smellier the longer you leave it there.

I must admit, I have been on both sides of these situations. While I have been bullshitted and birdshitted by various girls, I have unfortunately done my share of it myself. I am not proud of this, and this is the reason I am somewhat ambivalent towards the whole dating scene. I expect to be told some lies in my life, but I really feel like a hypocrite hearing myself tell them - and yet, the honesty approach is something which is very difficult to apply when just getting to know someone. But as in most cases, the difficult approach is most often the right one to take. B-shits of both types are crutches, which we need because truth can hurt the person telling it as much as it hurts the person it is told to. Some people can live with using these crutches, and yes there is a temptation for me to use them too. But at the end of a date, I tend to feel a lot better knowing I got through it on nothing but my own two legs.

Sorry for all of the metaphor. I realize that, aside from just being a tad pretentious, it creates mental images of people walking around on crutches made out of animal shit. Again, my apologies.

We can learn a lot from Yul Brynner:

First off let me say: Us men are pretty much screwed when it comes to hair. While women can choose from literally hundreds of different styles, with very few of them being notably unpleasant on the eye, men have, I would say... ten or so styles which do not appear at all ridiculous. Some guys can pull off variants, but it's very gutsy and risky. Unfortunately, not all men realize this, and a good 20% of the male population stick with bad haircuts, blisfully unaware that they appear quite unattractive to members of both sexes (not to mention frightening to children and small animals).

Some of these styles have received their fair share of ridicule - I mean, we've all told mullet jokes, and we've all snickered behind the backs of those skinny guys who still think a mohawk will make them look tougher. But for me, the most hilarious of bad men's hairstyles is the curly long hair. What strikes me as so comical is that most of the men who wear it seem to fancy themselves tough guy longhair rock and rollers, a la Sammy Hagar or maybe Steve Vai. But they don't look like Sammy Hagar. They look like "Weird" Al Yankovic. Every one of them. When they are unshaven (which I'm sure they think of as a sign of "being on the road"), it just gets worse, because Weird Al has a moustache. I'm sure everyone reading this knows what I'm talking about - even if it was just once, at some point in your life, you must have seen a guy who just made you think "whoa, Weird Al!" Surely it's not just me and those girls from "Ghost World"...

HOWEVER. The long curly hair is not even the worst of the worst. No, there is a hairstyle even more ridiculous, believe it or not. I refer to, of course, the toupee which ATTEMPTS to mimic long curly hair. You may think I'm just making it up, but there are no less than three regular customers at my work who sport this exact 'do. The first doesn't seem to comb it, and therefore looks like an opossum died on his head. The second pulls it off a bit better, and only looks like a shaggy poodle died on him. Bad hairpiece guy #3 appears to have four large rat skins draped over his scalp - one in the center, one in the back, and the others over each ear. Perhaps one more makes up his moustache, I can't tell. A word of advice: if you are balding, then just let yourself go bald. It looks way better than trying to hide it, trust me. And if you absolutely must cover your scalp, then for the love of god don't try to relive your rockin' youth doing it. Be subtle about it. You can be "that guy who might wear a hairpiece." Or you can be "that guy who is obviously wearing a hairpiece, good god what is that thing on his head, no woman will ever sleep with that person again, he should tie that thing into a noose and put himself out of his misery" guy. The choice is all yours.

Let Yul Brynner teach us a lesson. Less is more. If you go bald, there's nothing wrong with staying that way.