What Teenage Sitcoms Taught Me About Life

1. Laziness and bad grades won’t keep you from a good college
2. All Classes are a few minutes long
3. Loitering in hallways is as acceptable as going to class
4. Your standard locker can fit at least one person.
5. A friendly rivalry with a teacher or administrator is inevitable but they are actually trying to instill some life lesson.
6. Hang outs don’t expect you to pay for food
7. Summer Jobs are sources of amusing antics
1. Or brief mention at the start of September
8. Don’t worry the blind date will be a probably be a hottie
1. If not an import lesson to not judge people based on appearance will ensue
9. Bullies can come around to you side and lead to interesting situations.
10. All cliques are clichéd stereotypes
11. A nerd can build extraordinary devices as needed.
12. The nerd girl can become a cutie but you’ve probably ruined your chances by then.
13. Seek popularity above all else
14. Teachers don’t mind if you drop by their houses unannounced to ask for help with life’s problems.
15. A group of strangers with different backgrounds will become friends if forced to be around each other long enough
16. The school will only ever perform Romeo and Juliet, Our Town or if you’re lucky A Christmas Carol.
17. Driver’s ed will either involve car mock ups and an old movie of driving or a golf car. Either way be prepared for hilarity
18. All shop students are delinquents but their skills will come in handy when a party trashes someone’s house or car
19. The slang will beyond cutting edge
20. Once accepted into a clique you may leave temporarily but ultimately you have to go back.

Whatever happened to Wally George?

It must have been a weird day quite a long time ago, looking through the videos that the Blockbuster staff hadn’t reshelved. I forget what Al and I were looking for but Wally George came up and dropped a few videos in the drop box. Al waved. I, too much in shock, couldn’t think of anything to do. Now I’d do the raised fist greeting but then not so much.

He’s dead now, not Al, (he’s still up and kicking) which leaves the southland without a great white conservative hope. A man broadcasting on KODC from a crappy set somewhere in OC and yelling at pseudo liberal guests while his station runs phone sex ads. He was some kind of staple and now that he’s gone and, I haven’t found his NW equivalent, I miss him. Not in anyway that his politics swayed me. Hell the first time I watched him his guests were witches and I remember writing a letter (that may or may not have been sent) saying how he was dumb and the witches were hot. But that’s the sort of thing a kid would write, especially a kid buzzing on Dr. Pepper and the thrill of staying up all night.

Sure he was a kind of home grown Rush but with a John Wayne poster and doing spots for local business. Complaining about the state of things in front of a crowd of rabid white suburbanites, barely letting his guests get a word in but there was something about his toupeed head that made him worth watching. At least in those dead hours of the night after Are Oh Vee and before anything good would start up. Then again if I was lucky some bad movie would be on and I would watch Wally George. But I wonder about the guy, even if it’s a question of who’d win in a fight Wally George or Cal Worthington (without his dog Spot).

2HT Weekly Update 6

There was a time I was in one of those complete or have it cut moments before a show. We did our damnest to get all the kinks out but some just kept happening. Not even those little livable ones but sometimes it just wouldn’t work. We were tired, overworked and had tunnel vision. In other words the thing just wasn’t gonna happen. The guy who was in charge of finishing this looks at me and the other fellow with and says, ‘Failure is not an option’ and one of us says, ‘Failure is always an option’. Who said that became a point of contention.

Traffic-ters this week I failed at coming up with a weekly update that is up to the standards of my previous ones. Next week should be better… or I’ll fail then too. After all failure is always an option.

-Sal

Dreams of Midget Town

Most kids that grew up in Long Beach, Lakewood, and other outlaying cities have heard wild tales of a town with houses meant for tiny people. Some even went looking for this place only to come back with wild tales and a night gone. My story isn’t too much different.

It began at Bolsa Chica, like a lot of summer nights, with a bonfire burning and the boredom of a night spent hanging out in a parking lot doing the usual shit that teens get up to on summer nights or perhaps back to someone’s house for a few movies and then home by the time the sun rises. When the beach patrol rolled by saying the beach was closed and to get the hell out we piled into the whale that one guy drove, chucked our cups of coke and whiskey and he started driving. Leaving the beach and turning onto PCH, we end up at a parking lot sitting on car hoods listening to Rodney on the Roq, bumming cigarettes and being bored. We get to telling ghost stories and legends and someone brings up Midget Town and says they know the way. So we follow.

Fueled by youth, excitement and black velvet we head into a wealthier part of Long Beach. With the promise of glory and midget sized town stop at the Ferris Bueller house, ring the bell and run away screaming ‘Save Ferris’. Dashing through the dark streets and back alleys, we follow our guide and his strange directions. Stopping in places to double back and finally coming to a hedge ‘On the other side’s Midget Town’ he swears and we climb the thing. On the other side is the manicured grass of a golf course. He shrugs saying him and his cousins came through and there was Midget Town.

We start to argue.
The sound of a car pulling up stops us and we take off across the grass. All swearing it’s the cops come to get us. Through another set of bushes and doubling back through the streets we pile into the whale and take off.

A bit later at Denny’s we talk about the night. Like adventurers come back from fights with head hunters and pygmies, the weird and exotic inside the boundaries of the south land. Our waitress isn’t impressed with our round of cokes and sampler, our tales of near arrest and saving Ferris. Putting down the bill she tells us in her day Midget Town was up in Hollywood.

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Now playing: Don't Let's Start - They Might Be Giants
via FoxyTunes

2HT Weekly Update 5

This past week saw me contemplating what is really needed as far as modern conveniences. After all a decade ago would someone in my situation feel a near need for internet because the walk to the coffee shop (or library) is too much to send some mail? Or would this even factor as a problem.
I'm not sure if it did for me but breaking down and deciding checking mail without getting dressed is better than being that guy at the library that just rolled out of bed, put on some shoes and walked a few blocks to see if there are any new developments in my virtual life.

This disconnect is somewhat puzzling to me. I can't pinpoint when this need became so pronounced but a recent 'South Park' made me think about it then too. It had a dust bowl like feel but with the internet going down across the country and people going to California because they had a little internet there. Sure life has become overly connected to the point where some people purify themselves by not using the internet or cell phones for days and maybe it's like fasting for them. Transcendence by denial.

Whatever works for those folks, I guess.
-Sal

2HT Weekly Update 4