Slogans and jingles

“Nationwide is on your side.”
“… and as always, keep the faith.”
“… and to Viewers Like You.”
“Mac tonight!”
トンカツ食べたい!

“Dos, beinte dos, beinte dos, beinte dos.”

A humble queja

I live with my mother in her one-bedroom apartment along with my 25 year-old brother. This is the apartment where, as a teenager, thought I was most self-aware; felt the most hopeful and genuinely optimistic about life than at any other time; had my one and only phone interview with a professor for admission to the private liberal arts college I ended up attending and graduating from; and turned 18, among other things.

In two weeks I turn 27.  At almost 27, I am back with my mother because I don’t earn enough or have enough money.  If I am lucky, I can get through one month paying just bills without overdraft fees charged to my checking account.  The jobs I have don’t offer guaranteed work or set hours hence my monthly income is inconsistent hence monthly bills not being paid on time occasionally hence unnecessary stress on my body and soul.

I have food, shelter, water, and company, even if I don’t want it.  What is there to complain about?  Besides my teenage expectations of what my adulthood would be like, I don’t know what else to think about life except that time is money, the world functions on money, and life everywhere is a pyramid scheme.

How did Jimmy Fallon get his own late night talk show?

Anyone? Can someone explain how this guy got his own late night slot on NBC for all of America to watch at twelve-thirty-five a.m. if they wanted to, after Jay Leno and now Conan O’Brien? He has no standup or improvisational skills – he proves it to Americans every weeknight. The only possible explanation is that he’s good looking. He is attractive, he knows it and he uses his cute looks to his advantage, and he does it well. The only two moments I remember he distinguished himself well on screen was in the dance number he did with Parker Posey for the Pepsi commercial. The other was in the filmflop “Fever Pitch” where he was angry – at some point in the movie – at his girlfriend. He did well mad.
Jimmy Fallon is the symbol of my generation of young people. He is proof that no one needs acting talent to pursue fame or a primetime network slot for an hour-long variety show.

Poisoned picture perfections

They say to proactivate your face if it’s all out of place

Shine the light on the pretty parts and keep the shaded at bay

Pull from the shelf the packaged stuff and brush it on

Hide the ugly parts until it’s time to rush to the emergency room

Where they’ll break it to you,

You’ll need more than a mop and broom to uncover the layers of grime under the layers of powdered products.

Remember when we were told not to put people in place based on their face

when telephones and cameras captured rarer moments.

December

Los Angeles Decembers are nice. I think more senior folks aged 45+ like them more than those under 45. Most people aged 45+ (according to my generalized fact-not-checked statistics) prefer warmer climates than dramatic changes in weather. Since the tender young age of probably 3-ish, when I finally caught on to the idea of Santa Clause and associated the friendly bearded man with presents, one of my annual wishes on my Christmas list that I mailed to Santa Clause at the North Pole was for snow.  I couldn’t understand why it didn’t snow in Baldwin Park when it did everywhere else on television.

Later on, in college, I finally accepted the fact that Southern California is a desert and thus will never snow in Los Angeles.  The generally cooler weather in the daytime and chili weather in the evening is good enough for now.

Maybe Santa lost my wishlist.

Interlude: new favorite song of the day, “When they fight, they fight” by The Generationals

I will not compromise and settle for a snow machine.  We’re going to band together and make it freakin’ snow in East L.A.

The series of questions series, part 2

Why do cholos almost always have pitbulls?

Why do cholos use ropes as leashes for their pitbulls?

Why is life so damn hard?

How and why do people make life so damn complicated?

Why not tribal living?

What’s the simpler life?

Why so much business and commerce (or vice versa, or one or the other)?

What’s the big deal?

What is the deal?

Why do hot dogs come in packs of 10 and buns in packs of 8?

Need me some scrilla

I need scrilla.  You need scrilla. We all need scrilla. Why? Because scrilla has become the unnatural part of the nature of things.  Scrilla has corrupted the minds. Scrilla’s got brothers and sisters going crazy.

Holla to the scrilla that takes and takes and takes

the dignities away, leaving but only ounces of souls at their stakes

When you can’t cry in real life, watch movies

We all have problems.  Some of us have the same problems right now, some of us have completely different problems from each other, and some of us share some some of the same problems, the problems that lie in the shared space of a ven diagram.

So why is it so difficult, and for some, seemingly impossible, to find solutions to these problems?  Is the only barrier between someone’s problem and the needed solution himself?  Does that barrier simply lie in one’s thinking?

I don’t know.  And to say that that’s true is a cheap copout.

What do you do?  How do you get through the shit?  How do you swim through a seemingly endless sea of shit?

One homeopathic remedy (or unhealthy distraction): Watch films. And sitcoms.  And eat and drink.  To each his own.  But definitely watch films.  It helps to pass the hours in the day.  Watch the kind of films that aim to give the audience universal perspectives on the human condition, on his/her existence, on the possibilities man/woman has the power to access their infinite empathy for their fellow man.

Suggestions:

The Color of Paradise

Ice Age

Monsters, Inc.

La lengua de las mariposas

がらがらぺ

Growing up, the first thing my mother would tell me and my brother to do when we got home from school was to wash our hands, our face, our feet, and to gargle our mouths.
She would say it like this:
はい、お帰りなさい。手と顔をあらって、足も。あとがらがらぺ。いま早く！
Sometimes she’d say it in English, like this:
Hai, okaerinasai. (welcome home) Wash face, wash hands, wash feet, garagarape. Ima hayaku! (right now, hurry up!)
Garagarape is an onomatopoeia for “gargle.” She wanted us to gargle our mouths because of all the dirty air we inhaled throughout the day.

Laugh out loud funny

Things that make me (and others possibly) laugh hysterically:

1. Rob Schneider’s portrayal of a Hawaiian Filipino local in the film 50 First Dates
2. Kenny in Kenny vs. Spenny
3. Da Ali G Show

4. Flight of the Conchords