inherently different

I am back in San Diego (North County to be exact, in Poway) for the first time in at least a decade and it has changed enough that figuring out where everything is can be confusing at times.

Still a wonderful place, but it is also weird in so much as the people seem to be, at least to me, stuck in the late 80s. I don’t think I’ve seen this much day-glo since I graduated from high school. People also seem older, even perfect strangers seemed to be older than they were when I lived here.

I’m enjoying the winter here as it has always been one of my favorite places to be when it’s cold. The smell of oak burning in fireplaces brings back a flood of memories.

And to those people who viewed my last post as uncharacteristic, I am still the same, mildly caustic, overly rational person… I just thought wishing for peace was infinitely better than wishing for bloodshed.

So I was watching “he’s just not into you,” which is a movie that was is based on a book that millions of desperate, delusional, or simply downright psychotic women bought because they believed it would enlighten them. I bet every single one of them is still single. Ask me why.

Let’s say that one day, you decide that you want a dog. Being a conscientious sort, you visit a kennel and decide upon an 8 week old puppy, big brown eyes, and floppy ears, cute as can be. You take the puppy home and give it attention, love, patience and understanding. You train it, hopefully through firm but painless reinforcement, to be a good dog… in other words, not to bite, pee in the house, beg, etc.

The puppy grows quickly into a healthy, well-trained, dog. The dog has made some mistakes here and there – soiled a rug, chewed on a shoe – but through firm and constant reinforcement, the dog has learned what is and what is not acceptable. Then one day, something happens.

The dog attacks another dog. Your first instinct is to forgive, but you know that this behavior is unacceptable and you let the dog know, in very certain terms, that you will not tolerate that behavior. A few months pass and the dog attacks another dog, provoked or unprovoked is not important, this time drawing blood.

Again, you practice patience and discipline the dog again, knowing that a dog that consistently attacks other dogs is not only unacceptable, but also dangerous. Despite every attempt to correct this behavior, the dog fails to learn. It attacks another dog, this time it kills. Knowing full well that you have made every attempt to control the dog, every attempt to socialize the animal, you know that this dog poses a danger to other dogs as well as humans because of its very aggressive nature. You have two choices; the first is to lock the dog up, preventing him from socializing with other animals. The second is to put the dog down, destroying any opportunity for future misbehavior.

A dog is a social animal by nature. Eliminating the ability to socialize isn’t necessarily going to eliminate the behavior, just postpone the behavior until the opportunity to attack presents itself yet again. The dog will then seek out ways to run free of restraint; escaping if need be to satisfy the urge to attack. The only real logical solution is to destroy the dog, eliminating the problem completely.

The same theory can be applied to inanimate objects as well. If you buy a car and the car is defective in such a way as to present a clear and present danger to you and the public, you try to fix it. If no appropriate solution can be found, the car is taken apart, the metal crushed and recycled, thus destroying the car. Destroying things that do not serve the public interest is a necessity.

Granted both of these examples are overly simplistic, but this is still logical thinking. In fact, I can’t be the only one who believes this analogy also applies to human beings. If, through constant example, a human being proves that he/she is incapable of living by the laws of a given society, that human being loses the right to be a member of that society. Taken further, if that human being proves that they have such little regard for human life that they take it without remorse or forethought to the ramifications, that person should be eliminated from the gene pool. Elimination of that human being is not only acceptable, but also necessary to promote the general well being of the society as a whole. This logic is clear to me and when anyone believes differently, I am truly perplexed.

Another perplexing thing is the amount of money it costs to allow these obviously guilty people the ability to appeal indefinitely. If these people had applied that same tenacious attitude they use to prevent their own deaths to preventing themselves from being in a position in which they could become killers, perhaps they wouldn’t have landed on Death Row in the first place.

Speaking of Death Row, there are currently 38 states with the death penalty. As of the fall of 2001, there were approximately 3,701 inmates awaiting justice on Death Row. Of those, 1,691 are white, 1,598 are African American. The remaining 412 inmates are lightly distributed among other races and genders. The usual argument about the Death Penalty unfairly being given to people of color is completely untrue.

Personally, I think once the death penalty is given to a criminal, it should be carried out the next day. Why wait? The whole argument about it being better to free 1000 criminals than execute one innocent man borders on insanity. Fry them all and spend the money on social programs that will, in the long run, educate some of these animals and prevent future violence. And while we’re at it, let’s legalize all drugs, even dangerous drugs like heroin. Why? Well, the initial result will be that millions of idiots will die, eliminating morons from the gene pool… it’s all about the gene pool for me.

Well, we’re back on the mainland. I’ve just spent the last week running around San Francisco trying to stay warm. Now I’m at the Oakland Airport waiting for my flight down to San Diego, where I’ll be staying for the next few weeks while I generate some interview requests from Bay Area companies. I’m looking forward to spending some time with my brother and my nephews mostly. I’ve missed a great deal of my younger brother’s milestones including the birth of his youngest son, Damian. It will be fun getting to know him, now that he is a little older than the last time I saw him (during the terrible twos). Kids don’t really become fun to deal with until they’re around 5 or 6 when they start questioning everything and everyone. Up until then they’re pretty much just shit manufacturers. I know some of you parent types will disagree with me, thinking your little angel is/was different. Let me be the first to break it to you… your child isn’t special unless he/she wears an impact helmet and drives a mechanized wheelchair.

So the Red Queen and I are moving back to the mainland. After 5 years here on the valley isle, the move is welcomed and despised in equal measure. On the positive side, this move allows me to once again enjoy fabulous restaurants and glorious food (prepared by someone else for a change!). On the negative side, we’re leaving one of the most naturally beautiful places on the planet. Sure, San Francisco and San Diego have their allure, but a early morning walk on an abandoned tropical beach while whales cavort not 100 yards away also has its allure).

Not that the packing and the logistical considerations kept me from posting (I’ve just not felt it lately), but now we’re down to the final days (we move on the 3rd of December). It will be nice to be near friends and family for the holidays.

The Red Queen and I caught David Sedaris last night at the MACC. I’ve seen him before, but his show is always different, each presentation features new or unpublished works. He’s probably among the top five American essayists and hope he continues to write (and read) for years and years to come.

I’m of the mindset that musical artists have a responsibility to maintain some level of separation from other musical artists. I mean, it’s ok to do a mash up or feature another artist on a song or two, but when that influence changes the landscape of one artist’s music forever? A fan has to draw the line somewhere. If I could remove any musician from history, chances are it would be Neil Young. While I know many people think he is a musical genius, I’m not one of them. To me, he is a lot more like Corky from Life Goes On with more hair and a guitar.

A long time ago, in a land far away, I discovered a rock band that was quite possibly the last great rock & roll show. They had the perfect blend of musical ability, showmanship, and social consciousness. These are the very things that turn rock stars into rock gods. Short of having some kind of urban legend attached to your name like David Bowie and Mick Jagger, it is musical genius that can set you apart from your contemporaries.

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For your reading pleasure, my work in progress… Love and Death.

                                                         FADE IN:

      EXT. ROAD TO NOWHERE - DAY

      A heavy mist hides most of a lonely stretch of road somewhere
      in the mountains. The silence is broken by the faraway sound
      of an engine rising and fading as it shifts from gear to
      gear. The sound grows louder, more urgent until finally...

      A high performance sports car erupts sideways through the
      mist, pulling plumes of it in its back draft. The car seems
      to drift too far left and goes into a sidelong skid.

      It slides left, then right and just when we think the driver
      is regaining control of the powerful sports car, it tips,
      catching its meaty tires in the macadam and rolls over...
      side over side, bits and pieces flying from the wreckage;
      glass, metal and rubber scattering in all directions.

      After a countless number of flips, the car comes to rest
      upside down, next to a signpost that warns drivers of the
      dangerous curves next 15 miles.

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Could it be true? Can one of my favorite books of all-time really be translated into film? I’d think not, and while I like Ang Lee as a director, I just don’t think he has the chops to pull this tricky story off. Sure, he’s adept at pushing actors around, but as we saw with THE HULK, he has really no clue when it comes to CGI, which is pretty much the only way to get a 1600 lb tiger to interact with a little boy. I guess we’ll see…

Ang Lee hasn’t had much mainstream success since he won an Oscar for directing “Brokeback Mountain” a few years back. His follow-up was the hard-to-distribute NC-17-rated Chinese period romance “Lust, Caution.” Then, this past summer he released the much broader “Taking Woodstock,” a comic look at a singular true story behind the scenes of the legendary music festival, and it failed to find an audience (I recommend seeing it when it hits DVD on December 15, specifically for Imelda Staunton, who deserves an Oscar already).