The Shins are now streaming their new album,Wincing the Night Away, on their myspace page following in the heels of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. What is this? Christmas in January? I am one happy man tonight.
Let me just say I hope this nascent tradition of sneak peaks continues!
Categories: Music
The other day my wife and I tried out for a game show.
Lingo.
It’s the number one show on the Game Show Network. I’ve never seen it before but I saw an ad on craigslist looking for newlyweds and answered it. I figured I’m good at word games, why not? They called us up and told us to come in the next week. We played the game online a half dozen times to get ready.
My wife left work early and met me and we drove down to Sunset Gower Studios for the audition. We waited in the small reception area with other would-be contestants, some even studying a dictionary. It’s funny how you size up your competition, quickly presuming whether someone is intelligent or a dullard. I admit it, I initially thought everyone else looked less intelligent than me.
But, I then thought, how fucking smart do I look to them?
Someone from the show came and got us and led us to a little room within the studios. They took a Polaroid of us and gave us questionaires to fill out. Stuff like:
What’s the most unusual job you’ve ever had? Please explain.
It almost seemed like a myspace survey to me.
Do you have any unusual habits?
None that I’m going to tell you.
What’s one thing about you that you can’t tell by looking at you?
Only one thing?
Eventually when we’d filled out the application a producer came bubbling into the room with a pink scarf wrapped around her bony neck. “Hi everyone.” We all clapped and whistled because we were told to show her “energy” and we just finished watching an episode where a team won 35,000 dollars. Let’s just say the energy was electric.
There were about 15-20 teams, not everyone fit in the small room, would-be contestants watched from outside. One by one the teams went up in front of the producer and answered her questions while a man filmed us in a small camera. Even though the tiny, drab room was far removed from the pressures of a real life studio when I got up there my heart raced and my brain seemed to take forever to process her questions. I felt like an idiot.
She asked my wife about her job and Marina cracked a joke Cancer not being cured yet that had the room laughing, Marina works in oncology, but mostlythey were laughing because they thought a shot at $70,000 was on the line. The producer then asked me what I did and I came up with some lie about website design. You see, they don’t want any “entertainment” related fields so I couldn’t say I work in television. That’s the last thing they want. It said it very clearly at the top of the application. DO NOT WRITE ANY ENTERTAINMENT FIELDS. So I made up a profession and cracked a lame joke instead. “I write content for a variety of websites, all legal, of course.”
The room filled with crickets.
Then it was time to play the game.
The way Lingo works is they give you the first letter of a five-letter word. The secret word.
Then you guess a 5-letter word and they will tell you if any of the letters in your guess are in the secret word and whether or not you guessed them in the correct location.
Our word was S_ _ _ _ _. Marina went first, guessed START.
They wrote down now S_ _ _ _ T.
Meaning that the word begins with an S and ends with a T.
I froze. I couldn’t think of one damn word that started with a S and ends in a T.
Marina helped. You’re allowed to help your partner. She told me, “shirt.”
So I mumbled, “Shirt. S-H-I-R-T.” No letters.
We answered incorrectly a few more times. At one point I even guessed a 6-letter word and started to spell it out. Pretty much I blanked. Marina did better, but we sucked. When we reached the final line, the producer threw us a bone. “Give them a letter.”
The PA wrote. SL_ _ T
It was my turn. I blurted out, “Sleet. S-L-E-E-T.”
“Oh, close. Any guesses out there?” A couple of people yelled out from the crowd, “slept!”
It was SLEPT. Like that it was over. We sat down.
Walking out of the studio, Marina laughed, “there’s no way they’re going to use us.”
“You never know,” I said. “They may be in a bind for newlyweds.”
“Yeah right,” she said.
“They might,” I lied. “Miracles do happen. It snowed in LA.”
Categories: Culture · Random · Television
Yesterday the heroes in the DEA raided a bunch of medical marijuana dispensaries across Los Angeles. The commandos stormed the stores in bulletproof vests and face masks. What were they afraid? A little second hand buzz? Pussies. Is there nothing else in this world this money could be spent on? (Environment, New Orleans, Health Care, etc.) The scumbags barely warned the city before they pulled off these raids, even though the voters of the state approved Prop 215 more than ten years ago.
From the LA times:
Federal agents Wednesday raided 11 medical marijuana outlets in Los Angeles County, seizing several thousand pounds of processed drug, hundreds of marijuana plants, an array of guns and bagfuls of cash.
The simultaneous raids, part of an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, were the largest such operation in the county in recent memory. Five dispensaries in West Hollywood were raided with the other six in Venice, Hollywood, Sherman Oaks and Woodland Hills.
The action by federal agents angered some local officials and was taken despite a state law permitting possession and cultivation of marijuana for qualified medical patients.
This War on Drugs is absurd. What is this? Some kind of surge? Why the hell are we still staying the course on madness? The prisons are overflowing. Criminals are reaping the profits. The drug consumption in this country hasn’t changed a bit. So far this year 39, 000 people have been arrested and over 2 billion spent. For what? You can see a running clock of the totals here. As I wrote this sentence, 6 more people were arrested for marijuana across America.
Yes, you’d have to be an idiot not to notice the large increase in Medicinal Cannabis shops across LA, and yes, I’m sure plenty of people are riding the system to secure choice weed; but does that give the Feds the right to stick their nose in our business? Shouldn’t they be out chasing terrorists or something? If the city hadn’t felt the need to step in, why the hell did some bureaucrats in Washington feel compelled to hassle these caregivers? So much for State’s Rights when it comes to how much mercy we’re willing to show our sick and terminally ill.
Tonight, someone in Los Angeles is having a rough time coping with their medicines, or arrousing an appetite, or just generally dealing with their pain because the DEA had something to prove, had to spend some of that yearly budget so there’ll be more funds next year. Someone with Cancer, with AIDS. Even Newt Fucking Gingrich was in favor of medical marijuana. West Hollywood recently passed a law making marijuana the lowest of priorities for its police force. For the Feds to come into its borders and arrest its citizens over this matter is appalling. Never did I imagine after 215 was passed that in ten years we’d still have the federal government fighting us on this.
There is a protest at 8:30 am Thursday in front of the West Hollywood City Hall. I know it’s early in the morning but perhaps if you work in the area you can stop by. It’s located at 8300 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069.
Like I said, this affects real people. This makes life harder for many, many folks for whom life is already incredibly hard. For guys like this.
As a result of the raids, Eastman estimated that perhaps 2,000 people who ordinarily would buy marijuana for medical purposes “won’t be able to get their medicine tomorrow. And it’s not like they can go to Sav-On or Thrifty.”
This is ridiculous. With all we’re battling out there in the world it would be nice if our own government weren’t so tyrannical and bullheaded about issues of decency and mercy. The War on Drugs is a travesty, a misguided failure.
The War on Medical Marijuana, however, is an act of brutality.
Categories: Los Angeles · Politics
