THE RELOCATION CHRONICLES, CHAPTER FOUR: POPPED CULTURE

One of the things I miss most about my New York apartment is that, no matter which direction I turned, I was always within walking distance of some kind of museum, theater, foreign restaurant or, to be fair, some unidentifiable odor. In short, I was never at a loss for culture at its best.

Even LA natives seem to agree that this city is severely lacking in that department. Unless you're in the mood to eat, shop or drive up the coast, there's really nothing to do here. Maybe it's because I was exposed to so much of the arts at such a young age (and not the kind of "exposed" that Los Angeles is so familiar with), but this really annoys me.

It's also totally obnoxious that a lot of people here really don't seem to care. I literally get really excited every time I'm introduced to something that constitutes a "cultural" occurrence. Take, for example, my friend Tina- she's in her mid-twenties, but already makes my life seem like an epic fail. She's a sought-after electric cellist that was considered a prodigy in elementary school and has played all over the world, including in the orchestras for movies and TV shows. She's also performed at the Grammys and MTV awards, appeared in music videos, been nominated for a bunch of shit and has basically made me question what the hell it is I've been doing with myself. You can check out her stuff here. It will blow your mind.

Anyway, I went to see her perform with a jazz band last week and she was gracious enough to put me on the guest list and give me a "plus one." It was short notice, but the few people I asked to attend the show with me "didn't like jazz" so they wouldn't go.



Are you serious? I mean, I'm not a huge fan of the genre but I can appreciate the amount of talent it takes to learn the craft. Second, I don't care if it was a two-hour show where I had to listen to her recite the Dragon Tales theme song, beatnik style. Tina is my friend, and I'll support her. She asked me to go, so I went, and she sounded unbelievable.

BTW, one of the movies that Tina was featured in was Inception. I just saw it on Friday, and dude, seriously, see this fucking film. It's one of the greatest cinematic achievements of the last ten years. I'm a huge Christopher Nolan fan, especially after what he accomplished with The Dark Knight, and after this whole sequel/remake cataclysm Hollywood's been insisting on lately, I'll pretty much check out any original project they come up with that isn't in 3-D. Plus: sci-fi!



Note: I have an on-going competition with my brother over who sees awesome movies first. So far he's beaten me with Batman Begins, Spider-Man 2, Watchmen, The Dark Knight and Star Trek (by half an hour!). This time I finally won by TWO WHOLE DAYS, and now that I wrote this he's probably going to post some dickhead comment about how I always lose anyway.

A-hole.

HA HA!

My brother, as well as my friends back home, would throw the girls in this building in front of a speeding train. The other day I was in the elevator, and some bleach addict in nine-inch heels stepped in. She was carrying three shopping bags and a tiny purse with an even tinier dog inside, and was also balancing some 1,000 dollar drink from Starbucks while she nursed an iPhone under her chin. BTW, she looked like she was about 16, which probably meant that she was either 12 or 25.

Legally Stupid

The ridiculous conversation she was having on her cell went like this:

"Oh my God, I know... Oh my God, I know... Oh my God, I know... TOTALLY! OMG! Oh my God, I know." It was the longest elevator ride of my life. I wanted to push her down the shaft. If this moron saw Inception or anything with a remotely original concept her head would explode like that dude in Scanners.

What really pissed me off, however, is when I went to dinner with my dad this weekend. We went to this sushi place that has really awesome spicy shrimp that I love, and we were seated next to this group of guys that I knew immediately were total douches thanks to their beanies and Ed Hardy shirts (the unmistakeable symbol of douchebaggery). My dad and I tried to carry on normal conversation and enjoy our food, but I couldn't but help but overhear these assmonkeys discussing an unlucky group of girls that unfortunately weren't there to defend themselves.

During the next half hour, I learned way more than I cared to about these girls' favorite sexual positions, "sexting" abilities, and booty call rankings. The youngest female in the group had just turned 21 and this winner assumed that he was "definitely more mature" than she was. Also, all these girls were all apparently "all over" these guys' "flavor." I almost spit out my drink.

First of all, I think not. The only one of them whose physical appearance didn't make me dry heave resembled a gargoyle in heat.

I'd tap that.

And really- "flavor?" This is Beverly Hills, and it isn't 1992.

One of the other losers then started complaining about how girls can't tell the difference between sex and love, which of course is true, because I've wound up proposing marriage to every guy I've ever slept with. Then he went on to explain how this is why cheating is bad when girls do it, but doesn't mean shit if a guy fucks somebody else, because men don't ever love anyone they have sex with. Hear that sound? That's my pants unzipping for you, right away! If I hadn't been with my dad I would have dropped my plate facedown in his lap. Luckily our check came and I didn't have to listen to any more of these clowns' brilliant witticism.



That's an astonishing amount of asshole that I didn't even know existed. If you're going to insist on being a complete retard, do it in the privacy of your own house, not in a public forum where people can hear you and have access to knives. Not only was I sitting next to them, but there were two other tables full of women within earshot of their imbecilic conversation, and I know we all heard them. Miraculously we all managed not to poison their food.

What the fuck is going on in people's heads? Has it really reached that point where everybody has just stopped trying? Does no one have any original thoughts anymore? When I listen to my friend play the cello, or see a movie like Inception, I actually think about how pathetic it is that I'm energized by projects that don't try to replicate something that I've already seen, sometimes as recently as three years ago (take a hint, Spider-Man franchise!). I hope this movie is the box office hit of the year, because maybe idiots like this will learn something.

Probably not, though.