All That Happens In A Week

Seven whole days. Hello again, dear blog world.

This week whizzed by, I worked a whole lot, and before you know it, it's another Sunday and I realized I haven't written here at all. I sometimes get amazed by how quickly it all goes, how quickly time passes. I don't know why that's the case, but I suppose I still remember those days from my childhood where a week seemed like an eternity for something to happen. So, here's a few things that happened to me this past week:

Barack Came to LA: I really wanted to go to the Barack Obama rally this past Tuesday afternoon. I know that thousands of people went to it which is pretty cool given that it was at two in the afternoon. Why did thousands come out? Well, we all know Barack's inspiring. He's smart. He's got vision. He dresses better than Hillary Clinton. And...(drum roll please!) the real reason some folks probably showed up... he's really hot! The man is seriously good looking and I would have liked to go just to see if he's as smokin' in person as he is on my tv screen. Alas, I had a meeting I couldn't get out of but he got good press in LA.

El Rocker Disses Annie Lennox: At first my youngest son would sing along to Red Hot Chili Pepper songs in the car. Next, he started belting out "Smells Like Teen Spirit" for no good reason. Then, his Aunty Kye got him a soccer ball-shaped acoustic guitar. Now, I have a bonafide rock star in my house.

When we're at home, that guitar is strapped on El Rocker at all times. I get demands like, "I wanna watch rock videos." The more theatrical the performers (30 Seconds to Mars, I'm talking about you) the more he likes it. The other night I was watching Vh1 Classic and the video for the Eurythmic's "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)" comes on. I'm reliving the good ole days of the 1980's, singing along and having a great time. Is El Rocker singing along? Oh no, this is what he had to say:

El Rocker: Who's she?
Me: That's Annie Lennox.
El Rocker: She needs a guitar. Yuck. Turn it off, mommy! Turn it off!

I decided that I hate those eHarmony.com commercials: "I love everything about him. She's perfect just the way she is." And then the in-love couple stares at each other and kisses. Oh please. Does that sound like the "honeymoon" phase of love or what? Sure, you can say that when you're on a tv commercial and you're being paid to say that. You say that when you've been with the person for two years not ten and they haven't left a half eaten bowl of ice cream out on the coffee table overnight. And then there's the creepy founder of it all, Dr. whatever his name is... I'll just stop there.

Rain +LA = Traffic Disaster: It rained on Thursday. Not the light sprinkle type thing we've been getting but a real ground-soaking rain.

Pros of the rain: My car is clean again. The plants needed water and they got it. Now, lets move on to...

Cons of the rain: People here cannot drive in rain. It's like there's an unwritten law that the minute it starts raining, everybody forgets to turn on their headlights and they start to drive faster and more recklessly. And then they slam on their brakes, skid all over the place and crash into each other. Traffic turns into a real nightmare. How bad, you wonder? Well, I had a meeting out in Huntington Park on Thursday afternoon. It took me an hour and fifteen minutes to get there from downtown, normally a half hour trip, and on the way home, almost two hours...and it would have been much longer except that I finally gave up on the freeway and jumped on surface streets.

Lucky Number Six: I went to the dentist on Friday morning and, for the first time in my life, I have cavities. In fact, I have six cavities. Oh sure, they're all really teeny-tiny ones but I was depressed all afternoon. I liked being able to say that I didn't have any cavities at all. And now that's over. Sob. It must be the soy chai's I've gotten addicted to over the past year.

So, Sunday rolls back around again and the most important thing of all happened to me this morning, but I won't tell you about it. Thankfully, there' s no rain in the forecast. No clouds in the sky, only the clouds in my heart. Tonight is the Oscar's. I honestly don't know if I will watch or not. I'm still suffering from post traumatic stress disorder over Three-6-Mafia winning for best song last year.

Regardless, I solemnly swear to see you all tomorrow.

For Rent: Roof For Your Rock Video

There's a certain rooftop in downtown LA that seems to constantly be rented out by wannabe rock stars filming their music videos. It's right across the street from my office.

This would be great if we got some great bands filming over there, someone like The Killers, Jet, or Depeche Mode. Someone like the Raconteurs or AFI. I'd be glued to the window with binoculars to watch that! Except, the reality is that none of those bands would go for this "rock on a roof in downtown LA" concept. It's already been done very well... by a little Irish band called U2.

Remember "Where The Streets Have No Name"? Of course you do! Remember how U2 rocked skid row so hard the cops had to come? Yeah, that was a truly innovative concept back then. Nowadays, I think the building realtor must tell these hopeful stars that it's the same roof where my Irish brothers caused such brilliant chaos. They must sell the promise of U2 karma.

I can just hear the director and production people renting the space and then telling the musicians, "Filming a video on a roof down here worked for U2. Don't worry if that concept's already been done. It's gonna work for you all too. You guys are going to be bigger than Bono one day."

The rockers come ready in their black clothes and their tattoos. They either have short spiky hair or the long shaggy mane. They also seem to be able to fling their limbs about in ways I didn't think were humanly possible.

Today we had a group called Finger-Eleven over on the roof. Apparently, the group used to call themselves the Rainbow Butt Monkeys. Yes, you read that correctly. I'm going to type it again in color just to make myself laugh. Rainbow Butt Monkeys!

They may have dropped that name but, come on! Once you've had a name like that, you can't just change it to Finger Eleven and expect folks like me to not still laugh at the old name. Imagine Finger Eleven performing at the MTV Video Music Awards. "Straight from Ontario, it's the Rainbow Butt Monkeys. I mean, Finger Eleven!"

How do I know they're even called Finger-Eleven, let alone their former colorful primate body-part name? Oh, because they had to do about 100 takes of their video. Every time they did a take, the song got blasted all through my section of downtown. It was so loud! We heard it so much that one of my colleagues actually jotted down some of the lyrics. We googled them and found out the song is titled "Paralyzer"...because it's so bad, it's going to paralyze everyone's eardrums! Imagine hearing this for a good six hours while you're at work:

"I'm not paralyzed but I seem to be struck by you
I want to make you move
because you're standing still
if your body matches what your eyes can do
you'll probably move right through me on my way to you"

Okaay then... None of us could figure out what that's all supposed to mean but based on what we heard, one of my colleagues came up with a better video treatment for them. They should have been McDonald's fries getting ready to be eaten by some hot girl. They could try to escape but, no, the girl's a paralyzer and she's going to drown them in ketchup and eat them!

Can I tell you how grateful we were when they took breaks to get their makeup touched up by the nice makeup artist in the pink sweater?

Unfortunately, Rainbow Butt Monkeys, I mean Finger Eleven, it's not the U2 roof. That roof, and that video concept, is actually a couple of blocks down and is reserved for bands that can really play.

Thanks for the entertainment, but please, don't come back tomorrow.