"The power of prayer" ...uh, are you fucking kidding me?

You hear Christians talk about the efficacy of prayer all the time.  It's something they just can't get enough of, they boast about it on bumper stickers, "Prayer works!," they offer it in place of actual advice, "Pray on it," they ask for others to  in  it in the form of If prayer worked, then God would not only have to listen to billions of petty requests all day long--he/she/it would also have to decide whether or not to "answer" each one of them--and when there are two (or two thousand) people praying for USC to win the National title and two thousand people are praying for UCLA to win...which two thousand get their way...

It's so preposterous--and impossibly dumb, yet 80% of Americans do it--and believe it works! (And in angels and devils and other equally absurd shit)  What the fuck is the matter with this country? Isn't this the year 2009? What the fuck has happened to us!?  

Velvet rope burns.

In Hollywood, there's lots of different places to go to when you want to "get your shwerve on," and each of them has their ultra-specific customer "brand." In other words, you would NEVER see the same posse of partiers at Coda on the dancefloor at The Rage. It would be like a Mormon Tabernacle choir group joining a Wicca drum circle in Venice--not bloody likely.

But, even Los Angeles boasts a wildly diverse number of clubs, discos and wine bars--there is one person you'll find at EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. He's not just seen at virtually every club in LA, he's also the pimpin'est, most powerful, most important, most feared, most ass-kissed and, ABOVE ALL, most unjustifiably cocky and inexplicably arrogant person there. Who is he? He's "The Guy With The List."

"TGWTL" is usually standing next to the bouncer at the door--he's too pretty to be a bouncer (and too much of a pussy). He scans the names on the clipboard with all of the speed and efficiency of a DMV employee using a Commodore 64--be sure to speak cleary when giving him your name and always (ALWAYS!) spell it out for him, slowly. Many a bewildered listee has been turned away, unjustly, because of TGWTL's unfamiliarty with the alphabet.

My new dentist...someday, I hope.

I have a new dentist, who's name is Dr. Frey. I can't afford him.  He's actually had People magazine articles written about him--okay, not about him, exactly, but about him giving some American Idol finalist a new grill, for free.  I am not an American Idol finalist (I wouldn't win a singing competition against William Hung) and I'm pretty sure he's going to want to get paid for his services.  I mean, you never know, maybe I'll go in for my appointment next week and he'll be all, "Oh it's my favorite new patient!  Brenda (a name I'm making up and giving to his receptionist), this patient's money is no good with me!  Don't even let her take out her checkbook when were finished today!  Okay? Okay!  Let's get started on that root canal!"  I am thinking about creating a website called "AdoptanAdult.com" and asking stangers to donate money to fund my dental work, since I'm unisured and have no way of coming up with the thousands of dollars I'm going to need to pay for my extensive dental work.

You know what? I just realized that it really, it truly sucks to be me right now. It sucks to be me because I am uninsured and I can't afford a dental procedure which, the longer I wait to take care of, the more expensive it becomes... It's fucking pathetic is what it is, really. You see, I'm not poor enough to qualify for health care which is given to every high-school-dropout unwed-teenage-mother in the nation...who may or may not have been born in this country and who may or may not have ever contributed a dime to social security or Medicare, or paid any federal or state income tax.

The bottom line is: I fucking hate myself for not brushing better, for not gargling longer, for not flossing more (or at all even), for not always eating dinner but never missing desert, for letting my husband talk me into getting my tongue pierced (a tongue piercing is the oral equivalent to a wrecking ball, you chip a tooth every time you try to whistle) and for that "bullimic" phase I had in high school. Your oral hygiene is a metaphor for your whole lazy, half-assed, immature attitude towards life--better start lookin' for a double-wide that takes pets and has a view of the interstate to move into so you can fit in with the rest of your Whiskey-Tango pals, dear.

I'm really cool...because I drive a convertible.

The title of my blog was meant to be ironic--but i kinda feel like revisiting something I talked about yesterday, which is my convertible. As I said, I have a convertible and make good use of it--the only time I'm in my car and the top is up is if a.) it's after dark and I'm driving in a bad part of Venice or b.) it's raining. But since a.) I don't smoke crack and b.) it rains like, never, the roof usually comes off when I'm at the wheel. The only thing is, what's so great about having a convertible is also kind of what's not so great about it. It's really nice to be able to get a tan and feel the wind in my hair (when it's breezy out--it's rare that anyone gets to go fast enough on an LA freeway to actually create a draft) and to share my latest pirated mashup single with nearby motorists--instead of feeling trapped inside this metal and glass cage every day for hours at a time. However, the downside is that there's no "protective barrier" between me and the rest of the outside world that I come upon as I'm driving. I've found that the "Sorry, I don't have any change," excuse isn't quite so effective in repelling a homeless person who can see your open ashtray overflowing with quarters and dimes and other shiny objects. The Harley Davidson's that thunder past you whenever you are least expecting it--with engines that are so loud and so quick and they get thisclose to your car--that I'm convinced my first heart attack will be caused by a member of the Hell's Angels. (Ironically, it was a member of the Hell's Angels which my mother claims sent her to the hospital for the first time ever due to "chest pains," but we'd driven to my parent's house in my car so...he wasn't on his bike or anything.)

Okay, I promise never to mention the kind of car I drive ever again. That subject has been fullly exhausted and beaten to death. I promise, no more references will be made by me about my vehicle in any future blog unless it's to talk about the fact that I don't have one anymore, and how much cooler I am because of the new model of car I drive.

Yet more evidence to support my theory: I will die in my car.

I was the victim of "road rage' the other day--and it was scary. It's alright, I'm okay and everything--but I was pretty shooken up. For a few minutes after it happened my hands were trembling like Britney before her morning cocktail and valium chaser.

Let me preface my "road rage" story by making the following admission: I, myself, am not the most patient, most defensive, least agressive or angry driver out there. I've been known to drop the F-bomb (attaching a YOU! to, as well as a rather redundant hand gesture as visual "back-up," in case they are out of range of my audio sentiment.)

However--I am not a complete asshole who looks for reasons to hurl expletives at innocent commuters who's only driving error was to have entered my "sphere of automotive influence."
I'm an agressive driver, I'll admit--but I'm also very careful and aware of my fellow commuters. I never block intersections or driveways when driving down gridlocked streets, I watch for cross-coming traffic and allow them room to get through rather than suffer my same paralytic-traffic fate, and I do not enter an intersection until I know I will be able to exit it.

Now, here's what happened. I was traveling eastbound on Washington Blvd. A massive, cream-colored, pre-millennium, Jackie-O era Cadillac with a 60-something-year-old caucasian (shocker!) douche-bag at the helm is blocking both eastbound lanes as he waits for the traffic to receed to the rather significant degree he needs in order to safely paddle his boat across to the other side. Since he's estimating this to be about 3 or 4 minutes and it's 3:55 pm in the afternoon on a Thursday in the county of Los Angeles--me and my fellow eastbound traveling motorists are fucked. I look at the man, shake my head and indicate my frustration by giving him the universal "are you fucking kidding me?" face and he replies, in kind, with the universal "Yeah, yeah, I see you, buddy." face. Well, after opportunity after opportunity came and went, I realized that he had lost the bold and reckless spirit he demonstrated in the moments before that got him where he is and that, having lost his nerve, he was now waiting for "the perfect storm" to occur, traffic-wise. He was waiting for two equally observant and sympathetic drivers traveling westbound on Washington to stop (even though there was no stop sign or traffic light at that intersection which requires them to do so, unless traffic becomes gridlocked--which it has not) to notice him in time to come to a complete stop (speed limit: 35 mph) and to risk being rear-ended by unsuspecting, motorists. I realized that he did not care that he was blocking myself and the dozens of cars that had by now stacked up behind me, many of them honking their horns in frustration. I, too, became increasingly angry and, emboldened by the growing crowd of fellow drivers who's travel plans were being needlessly thwarted by one selfish, stubborn, arrogant dickhead. I inched forward towards his driver's side door, my hand now pressed firmly down on my horn, the other hand motioning him to "Back Up or Move Forward--just GET OUT OF THE WAY!" The man, who had been keeping his head turned in the opposite direction from me--looking for the opening that it seemed would never come--suddenly spun around in my direction, his face twisted into a rictus of righteous indignance and wrinkled rage that will haunt my dreams... Then, before I could react (and even if i'd had time to react, what, I wonder, would I have done differently?) he opened his door, jumped out of his vehicle and in seconds, it seemed, was screaming--his face only inches away from mine--the following words: "Fuck you, you ugly fucking cunt! You stupid, ugly slut. I hope you fucking die, bitch!" I was so stunned, so scared and shocked I didn't even look over at him, I just kept my eyes straight ahead, praying to wake up, hoping I was only dreaming. Then, in my side view mirror, I can see the man in the car directly behind me getting out of his car, shouting and moving aggressively towards the old man who has, at this point, walked back over to his car. He guns his engine and nearly t-bones a woman in a Ford Explorer who manages to swerve out of his path as he finally crosses the street. The guy, my "knight in shining armor," walks up and asks if I'm okay--which was really sweet, god bless him, but I was in such a state of shock I couldn't do anything other than just nod hurriedly and indicate that I needed to drive and get out of everyone's way. I watched him getting smaller and smaller in my rear view mirror as he walked back to his car and got back in. Then, realizing that I was shaking violently, I turned onto a side street and took some deep breaths. I calmed down after a few minutes and got back on the road.

One thing that I forgot to mention that's kind of important is the fact that I have a convertible and one thing that ramped up the fear factor for me during this whole exchange was how vulnerable I was to this man. I suddenly realized that I couldn't do anything to really protect myself from him if he decided to physically assault me. Sure I could roll up my window, but he could easily just reach over the top of my window and throttle me if he felt like it. It freaked me out, realizing that as the man was hurtling towards me with this bloodthirsty, deranged look on his face. I'm serious, I though to myself--"Oh my god, this man is a fucking lunatic and he's going to strangle me to death right here in front of everybody, and all these people are going to be really inconvenienced and late for their appointments. This sucks." I always thought that I'd probably die in my car, but I never would have guessed this was how would go down.