It's a Dull Life

It's hard to go back to your day job after you've spent all weekend with your friends listening to beautiful music under a clear desert sky and perfecting your tan, (I also refer to this as finally, really living). I hope to share my Coachella stories very soon. In the interim here's a brief summary of the tail end of Coachella Day 1 via a text message I sent to my friend Jenna around 2AM last Friday:


Couldnt find car after coachella. Walked an hour. Found car. Cant find freeway. In twilight zone. Just squatted n peed 1 gallon. Now ankles r moist.

The Dreaded Cobalt

Three weeks ago a German car hit my Korean car, and the worst part of the whole ordeal was that I had to drive a Chevy Cobalt for a week.



My insurance covers car rental, but only up to $25 per day. Thus, I had my choice of a Chevy Cobalt or paying more to drive a larger American car I was more likely to crash. I took the Cobalt, but damn, it was a shitty car. In fact, I was not 400 feet off the repair shop/rental lot when I cried out (a la Angelina Jolie in Changeling) "I want MY car baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!" In fact, driving the Dreaded Cobalt for a week was like driving school purgatory for me: at every turn I gripped the steering wheel in fear.

To be fair, my family had American cars for years. I learned to drive in a Saturn. My first car was a Plymouth Acclaim and in college the mystery behind my Mercury Mystique was when it would break and where you would be stranded. After college I bought a foreign car. I like my Hyundai Elantra, it felt comfortable from the first test drive. In fact, you may recall that I bought it en route to Los Angeles when the Mystique died. But oh, this Cobalt. Seriously, it was such a shitty car. Truly. I understand the shock of driving a different car, but I've driven Rob's Toyota, Claudia's Honda, and John's Saab and this was by far the most uncomfortable car I think I've ever sat in. It just seemed poorly designed in general--like no thought was put into the person who would be driving the vehicle. And yes, this was the "no frills" version, but I once had a Hyundai Accent rental and while that's a cheap-o car too, it was no where near as bad as the Cobalt. This was a 2008 Cobalt too! It wasn't at all ergonomic. The first thing I noticed was that the gas and the brake were not adjacent to each other; the gas was set further back, while the brake was closer to my foot. This created more foot movement to get from gas to brake, which was jarring at first, and continued to be. The seats were uncomfortable, the locks were in hard to reach places, you had to manually turn off the radio when you turned off the car. The car had some minor "features" like a digital fuel gauge and a thermometer, but I gladly would have traded these for an armrest. It had a CD player, but I would have preferred a vanity mirror in the visor. A lack of such minor conveniences was surprising.

It was a scary ride too. The mirrors almost seemed warped in that objects/other cars looked too close or too far from the vehicle. It was somewhat disorienting. At one point I had to slam on the brakes in a residential area. A man attempted a left turn in front of my car without seeing me (ironically this was the type of collision that put me in the Cobalt). Slamming on my brakes produced a really scary screech and skid, much different than the quick, reassuring brakes of my Elantra. I learned early on that the brakes were scary, which was further incentive not to speed, and a wise choice indeed as the Cobalt frightened me at speeds over 40 mph.

Today I got MY car baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack, and thanks to the Cobalt, I am now extremely thankful and grateful for my little Hyundai. But honestly, now I truly understand why GM is in the shitter: make a shitty product and it won't sell. I don't know who would test drive a Cobalt and want to buy it. It's unfortunate because should any of the American automakers fail a lot of people will be out of work.

The Potty Dance

So I haven't really been watching Days of Our Lives as regularly as I used to, but today I sat down and popped in my tape from Monday. Thank god I did, because I discovered this:

1-800-DENTIST

What the hell is up with those 1-800-DENTIST commercials? I realize they've been around for years, but I demand answers. I watch the local news while I get ready for work in the morning. I have a soft spot for local news, especially in Los Angeles, because the packages can be melodramatic, and the anchors and reporters sometimes look like plastic surgery freak shows. Anyway, during the newscast there are a ton of ads for 1-800-DENTIST. You've seen them. That creepy chi-mo (child molester) type spokesman, and now they've introduced Irritating Lady With Nasal Voice. Frequently they interact in a cardboard elevator where he begs her to get a root canal and she refuses. We, the presupposed moronic consumer and supposed to watch and think, "No, Irritating Lady! Go to the dentist! You don't want gingivitis, not gingivitis!!1!" Who watches these shit-tastic ads and thinks, "Gee, that seems like a professional, reputable company that knows what it's talking about, I will call them today." If anything, it gives what is probably a harmless (800) number a shady aura, and forces one to question their business sense. And are these ads supposed to be funny or serious? Because they just leave me feeling uncomfortable. And who the hell is creating said ads? The rich owner's semi-retarded son a la some Adam Sandler film?

The final straw was when I encountered this bus ad during my morning commute. This was so ridiculous, that I risked an accident to photograph it:


This is the shittiest thing ever. So many questions and observations:
1. Couldn't you have paid for a better stock photo?
2. Couldn't an intern have taken a picture of their cell phone?
3. My sister and I had totally had a pair of walkie talkies circa 1994 that looked just like that.

1-800-DENTIST, seriously, it's time you hired a reputable advertising firm.

Wall Street Shot My Blog

While it was fun to scream "Burn, Baby, Burn" during those first few weeks when Wall Street was imploding upon itself, in recent months it has become painfully obvious that the New Great Depression is affecting all of us, in ways large and small.

Recently, the "indie" station out here in LA decided to close up shop and move online rather than play Katy Perry between Spoon and TV on the Radio to make ends meet. When I first moved to Los Angeles, I was surprised that a station like Indie 103.1 could exist in a market this large. They played The Smiths during rush hour. They played all the Coachella bands before Coachella: M.I.A., Hot Chip, MGMT. They introduced me to new bands that are playing Coachella this year: A Place to Bury Strangers, Ghostland Observatory. They filled the space between college radio and Clear Channel rather nicely. And they folded.

This morning I got a cold slap in the face when I sat down at my desk, still in a haze from last nights Oscar party--by "party" I mean getting trashed with friends, eating to the point of vomiting, and screaming at the TV for a few hours--to read that my favorite blog was being folded into the armpit of a shittier blog.

Defamer, the self-proclaimed "LA Gossip Rag" (and it really was), was my favorite daytime blog for several years. I learned today that Defamer is becoming a series of blog posts on Gawker.com. All the vicious, witty, delicious writers I loved are leaving, and I'm feeling lost, scared, and disoriented. What the fuck am I supposed to do during the day now? I lead a happy double life as a frequent Defamer commenter. Today I wandered the internet alone and confused. Where was I supposed to go? Sure, plenty of blogs do the whole "snark" thing, but Defamer talked Hollywood Industry news, celebrity gossip, and random nuggests of campy absurdity with an acerbic eloquence that was hysterical.

You'll recall my infamous Corey Feldman concert experience. Defamer posted my story. Oh, Defamer! You live on in name only, as the bloggers who coined and carried on your signature style have now departed. Mark Lisanti started it all and Seth Abramovich followed in his footsteps. Lisanti has a Tumblr page which is great but too sporadic to give me the fix levels I now require to feed my addiction.

Salt on the wound was had this afternoon when I visited FourFour for a little solace only to learn that Rich is taking a break. Why? WHY!?

I really feel lost.

It's a strange feeling because regularly commenting on a blog makes you feel connected with the other commenters and the writers. It happens even though you don't know who these people are, where they live, or what they look like. I'll miss reading these people's comments and posts--I'll miss them--but what is "them"? I don't even know these people. And yet I do; I know the witty quips they make, and I know we've got a similar sense of humor. In reality, maybe all I know about a commenter named "JudgeFudge" are whatever qualities I attribute to him/her in my head. Mercy. It makes you feel even more alone in the world when you think about how disconnected, numb, and jaded we've all become. We seek out some little online niche to express our funny bitter selves and then when that cyber world is snatched away we remember the reality of our existence and it suddenly seems sad and small.



Oh, Defamer. R.I.P.