• Re: Neutrinos

The first rule of writing is this: Everything – and I mean everything – is a metaphor for life.

You can take any little phenomenon that occurs and use it to illustrate some general principal or philosophy. This is why you have books like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; it’s also why I was able to write a paper in college that used the X-men movies as examples of Kierkegaardian theology (I got a B).

At first this seems difficult, but the more you think about it, the more obvious it becomes: because everything is by definition part of life, everything must say something about life. Once you grasp this, you’ll have fodder for self-help books, novels, poems, greeting cards, etc. to last you till you die. (It doesn’t mean that people will buy them, though.)

Regarding neutrinos, neutrinos are tiny particles that come and go without anybody really noticing or caring. It is unclear what purpose they serve. It’s kind of like life.

The second rule of writing is: Keep it short.

• Re: Watching paint dry.

As Gary anxiously watched the first coat of paint dry, it became clear to him that he would need a second one to sufficiently conceal the blood splatter.

I feel like I owe Mary H.K. Choi an apology. I’m not taking back the things I said in my previous post (I just read two of her articles on The Awl – research! – and they definitely confirm my general assessment), and I’m only kind of apologizing for the tone of the article (I’ve never been good at speaking the truth in love).

No, the thing I’m most sorry about, the thing that’s been causing me to lose sleep at night, is how poorly written my own article was. I honestly think that, based on the writing alone, that may have been the worst post on this blog. (The ideas may have also been the worst ever presented on this blog – they’re probably neck and neck with those of City of idiots… or is it? – but that’s a different story).

I guess what bothers me the most about that post is its utter lack of focus. I count at least three different theses being presented there in the most convoluted and poorly defended way. The first thesis is presented in the title “Smart, attractive, somewhat arrogant women are the bane of my existence.” Sounds like it could have made for an entertaining read, but as it turns out I had to justify the title by adding a two-sentence parenthetical postscript to the entry, because the post itself has nothing to do with the title. The second thesis is an argument for what makes writing good. I seem to be saying that writing needs to be easily accessible to be good, which I don’t even really believe. The third thesis is a rant against New Yorkers for being shallow and pretentious. But even if they are, who the crap cares?

I probably could have written a decently-entertaining post on any one of those three ideas (Try me: give me a topic, any topic, and I’ll write a decently-entertaining post about it), but instead I mashed all three theses together in such a way that you could only conclude that the post had no point at all.

I really wish I had let that one sit over night so I could have given it a solid revision the next day, but I was feeding off the anger of the moment and letting it sit might have caused me to change my mind about the whole thing, or at least caused me to pick one of the theses to write about.

And the most embarrassing thing about the post is that I took a time-out in the middle of it to praise my own writing abilities. I use my poorest writing to praise my writing. It would have been ironic genius had I done it on purpose.

In my defense, I have been busier lately, doing actual writing (just got my first paid gig! We’ll see if I ever actually get paid, though…), which is leaving me precious little time for blogging, and so my posts have to be less frequent and less polished.

Anyway… I apologize, Mary H.K. Choi. You’re smart and talented, and you deserve well-written criticism.

As a peace offering, I am linking to Flicked Off, with Mary HK Choi: ‘Avatar’, your very enthusiastic film review that appeared in The Awl on December 18, 2009. I did laugh a few times, although it was hard for me to read your article and listen to music at the same time. Also, I hated Avatar.

Some readers may be thinking, “Really, LA Desconocido? Your first post in two months and you’re still talking about Mary H.K. Choi? Is that all you’ve been thinking about this whole time?”

The answer is yes.

(Mary H.K. Choi, if you’re reading this, and you’re not, I actually do apologize. I just want to entertain, but it’s kind of poor form for me to do it at your expense when, in all likelihood, you’ll never read this and you’ll never have a chance to defend yourself. If it’s any consolation, I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t think you could handle it.)

Two weeks ago, on November 17th, I vowed to never again read another one of Mary H.K. Choi’s “Townies” columns on The New York Times online. Today I broke that vow, and I’d regret it if doing so hadn’t given me the urge to blog about it.

“Townies” is “a series about life in New York written by the novelists, journalists and essayists who live there, appear[ing] every Thursday.” Had I read that description of “Townies” beforehand, perhaps I never would have started reading it in the first place.

I was introduced to “Townies” and Mary H.K. Choi (November’s “Townies” contributor) while goofing off at work a few weeks ago – November 10th to be exact. The title of that particular entry was “Going Korean,” and can be found here. Since moving to Los Angeles a year and a half ago, I’ve kind of thrust myself into the Korean community, partly by accident, partly by choice, and partly by force, and so now I’m suddenly interested in all things Korean, and so I had to read the column.

I immediately found myself criticizing Ms. Choi’s writing. Her word choice, sentence structure, cultural references, and overall tone just drip with that “I’m better than you” attitude so stereotypical of the New York intelligentsia. (Read it. You’ll see what I mean by the second sentence, and you’ll be convinced by the third paragraph.) I can picture her looking over a sentence she just wrote, smiling and saying, out loud, “Now that’s a good sentence.”

In short, I felt threatened, and to maintain some level of self-respect I saw no other option but to take Ms. Choi down a few notches, down to my level and hopefully lower.

Furthermore, I felt jealous, because Ms. Choi is everything I wish I was. She’s a successful (though she does claim to be broke), nationally-read, professional writer whose works get comments like “Can’t get enough of these” (Dorothy, New York). She’s witty. Her vocabulary is larger than mine. She lives in New York. She has an interesting story (Korean heritage, lived in Hong Kong until she turned 14, moved to Texas, now lives in New York), while I, as a white American male, have the most boring story of any American demographic.

(If I have anything on Ms. Choi, it’s that my writing feels more natural than hers, is more accessible to The People, for which I take some pride.)

Like her, I think I’m better than everybody else. I just don’t have other people telling me so.

People who know me know that I was very close to moving to New York City instead of Los Angeles. I really wanted to, and until recently I could really see myself living there. I resented Los Angeles for being the city I had to live in if I wanted to pursue screenwriting.

But the longer I’ve lived in Los Angeles, and the more I read The New York Times, the more I doubt my ability to stomach New York City.

It’s not because I’m feeling more at home in LA, because I’m not. It’s because I’ve come to realize that LA and NYC are two sides to the same coin. Both cities attract ambitious, career-focused people. To move to one of these cities is to pursue a personal dream, is to be self-centered.

Furthermore, both cities are entirely obsessed with one common thing: IMAGE. (And when I refer to Los Angeles and New York, I’m referring to the popular, not altogether untrue stereotypes and overgeneralizations of these cities.) The obsession with image is easier to mark in Angelenos, because the image is entirely exterior. In LA, you’re judged by what you wear and what kind of car you drive. But in New York, the image is more intellectual – it’s the need to appear to be the smartest person in the room. Watch a Woody Allen movie (I recommend Annie Hall) or read a Maureen Dowd article, or a Mary H.K. Choi article for that matter. (Notice how proud they are of being New Yorkers, which is the whole point of the “Townies” series.) These New Yorkers are very smart, and, knowing that, they see no need for self-reflection. They want to become smarter, but they see no need to become better. They see no need to change.

These New Yorkers may be more well-educated than Angelenos, but look and you’ll see that the two groups are differently but equally lacking in depth. Their existence is entirely predicated on being better than other people. I’m convinced that Los Angeles and New York City wouldn’t exist as we know them if there weren’t other cities for them to feel superior to.

So what am I saying, that Mary H.K. Choi is shallow? Yes. Is she really? I don’t know; I’ve never met her, not that I’m a  particularly trustworthy judge of character (just look at this utterly hypocritical blog post).

So what’s my point again? Did I really just write 800 words bashing a writer for enabling my own inferiority complex?

(About the title of this post, my close friends know that I have a tendency to crush on stuck-up, arrogant women. I’ve never met Mary H.K. Choi, but I’m sure that if I did, I would instantly fall in love with her.)

“Speaking in Tongues” – Mary H.K. Choi, The New York Times, December 1, 2010

I’m not expecting a Pulitzer for this post (<– false modesty). But honestly, I may be writing it more from obligation than any great desire to communicate anything. I’ve wanted to write an update for a while, but I haven’t felt inspired, and I’ve always managed to find an excuse to put it off. But the Steeler game just ended (WIN! I think it’s about time for a Steeler Super Bowl victory. It’s been too long.), and Conan’s TBS premier is in an hour and twenty minutes, and I just recently finished writing another rough draft of a screenplay. The house is empty.

Well, shoot, I guess I’ll update my blog. I have nothing better to do.

How to explain my absence? Here are a few reasons:

1. I’ve been focusing my creativity on screenwriting. No, it’s true! I haven’t even written a review in forever. I wanted to write one on The Social Network, but I didn’t. While we’re on the subject, though, I will say that 2010 has been a better year for movies than 2009.

2. Besides writing, the other things consuming my time, energy, and brainpower are not for public consumption, things like work and women. I mean, if ______ found out from a mutual friend that I was blogging about her, it could create an awkward situation. And the same applies if my boss found out that _______.

3. I feel like Los Angeles is just not that weird to me anymore. Part of my original purpose in starting this blog was to analyze the quirks of LA from an East Coast perspective, a Pittsburgher’s perspective, even. But things that I would have blogged about a year ago don’t seem nearly as blogworthy anymore. For example, I had a few more interesting encounters on the bus. I’ve met several more artists and musicians, which is nice, because it’s something I know I complained about in an earlier post.

Some of you might remember my post from 3/15/2010 entitled “LA Stranger: 0; his friends: ???” Well, that kind of thing has become more frequent, the main difference being that Lent is over.

More and more of my friends from back East are growing up: getting married, buying houses, having kids. But in LA, at 26, I’m still far too young for that kind of thing. Last night I had dinner with a bunch of people from church. I’m pretty sure I was the youngest person at the table, and yet I believe everyone there was still single.

But again, that’s become normal to me.

I like to eat my lunch in the courtyard kitty-corner to my office building. There are a couple tables and benches; one of them is usually unoccupied, but it doesn’t always stop me when people are sitting at both. Eating there allows me to enjoy (or endure) the sunshine, breathe the fresh Downtown L.A. air, people watch, read, and, best of all, get out of my office building.

Occasionally someone will approach me and talk to me, usually asking for money.

But not always.

It’s Friday. I’m reading The Red Pony, John Steinbeck’s short novel, when a guy runs up the few stairs to the courtyard. Whatever beverage is in the open bottle in the black plastic bag in his hand, I can smell it in his breath. His eyes look in two different directions, focusing on neither of them.

Seeing that I’m reading a book, he feels the overwhelming urge to tell me about his favorite.

“Great Shipwrecks and Castaways!” he says. “Best book I ever read! Alexander Selkirk! True stories! Not fiction!”

He’s really excited. He just has to tell me about this book, so he sits down next to me.

So I close my book and try to convince myself that listening to this guy is the most important thing I could possible do.

And he tells me the story:

“This British man gets shipwrecked on a reef for a really long time! The ocean gives him all the sushi he needs. Finally, a British ship spots him – but, man, they must have thought he was the devil himself. His hair was so long he must have looked like a goat. The sailors on the ship didn’t want to pick him up!”

His voice starts to waver. I can see his eyes brimming with tears.

“And so the man raises his hands in the air and calls out, ‘Jesus Christ is my lord and savior!’ And the ship picked him up.”

After that, my friend stands up and walks  off, shouting back something about how he loves “Manic Monday” by the Bengals and how I need to be there.

Amazon.com: Great Shipwrecks and Castaways

YouTube: The Bengals, “Manic Monday”

Reasons not to use the Los Angeles Metro system:

1. LA is too sprawled out.

2. It’s slow.

3. The subway doesn’t go far enough.

4. Buses don’t run frequently or late enough.

5. A drunk guy might bleed on you.

I’m sitting on the bus, somewhere toward the middle, looking out the window, when a man stumbles to the front. He’s clearly drunk. He might be homeless. His bare butt is hanging out of his pants. He approaches the other riders, one by one, presumably asking for money although I can’t hear what he’s saying. Nobody is comfortable with the situation – some people decline by shaking their heads and avoiding eye contact; some people are less polite. I’m cycling through my own responses – one thing’s for sure, I am not giving this guy any money. I’ll probably go with, “Sorry, bro.” But he never gets the chance to ask me.

When one man raises his voice and bluntly tells the drunk guy not to get in his face like that, the drunk guy yells in return.

Meanwhile, I guess the drunk guy’s butt is a little too close to a certain young man’s face. With no warning, this young man stands up, yells at the drunk guy, and punches him several times in the face.

The drunk guy, caught completely off his guard, collapses on the ground, lip busted open, bleeding all over himself. He wipes his mouth with his hand and finally manages to get to his seat, grabbing the poles with his bloody hand, leaving bloody hand prints all over the bus. He sat down next to someone he seemed to know – a woman who seemed a lot more together – could’ve been his social worker or maybe just a friend who cared. She helped wipe off his face.

And I’m thinking, “Someone should really wipe the blood off these poles.”

The young man sits back down right where he was. The bus keeps going to its next stop. The bus driver turns around and tells the drunk guy and his social worker that he needs to get off the bus.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he charges back for round two with the young man, who is more than ready for him.

This time it’s not just a few quick punches to the face. The young man, being fit and not drunk, trounces the drunk guy. He keeps punching long after it’s clear that the drunk can’t defend himself.

Most everybody else starts getting off the bus. The social worker runs to the front and breaks up the fight – she’s crying, “Stop! Stop!”

I leave, too.

The young man gets off the bus and waits on the sidewalk where everybody else is. He’s complaining about the blood on his shoes. Another young man says to him, “I feel you, my nigga. You did the right thing. But it’s gonna be different when the cops show up.”

The drunk guy and his social worker are the only two people left on the bus besides the driver, who is calling the cops.

It’s only about half a mile until my transfer spot, so I get walking. I don’t stick around to see what happens or to be a witness for whatever.

Besides, I’m going to see Inception for the second time and don’t have time for this nonsense.

I walk past one of the stops for this line, and there’s a woman standing patiently by the sign. I tell her, “It might be a while. I was on the bus you’re waiting for.” And I summarize the events for her.

She’s upset. She has places to be herself.

I keep walking. An ambulance turns down our street with its lights flashing, heading in the direction I’m coming from.

Learn a little something about Los Angeles: Ktown Cowboys

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…

…but seriously.

I survived my first year in Los Angeles, and to commemorate it I decided to write a completely positive blog post: I am going to list ten things that I love about this city, without a hint of irony or cynicism. Some of them are related, sure, or maybe even the same, but this is the list. Cheers.

Ten Things I Love About L.A.:

• Walking down the street and hearing languages other than English.
• Great food, especially Korean BBQ and Mexican.
• Koreatown.
• Olvera Street.
• Geographic diversity: the beach, the mountains, the desert, the urban jungle.
• Film-related events, like special screenings and free pre-screenings.
• Snobby film conversations about Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese.
• Community of writers, artists, and filmmakers.
• My church and everything related to it.
• Friends.

• [6/14/2010 Addition] KARAOKE!!! Both American and Korean style. That makes 11 things I love about L.A.

Today marks the one year anniversary of my living in Los Angeles. This is the longest I have lived in one place since starting college in 2003.

I feel like I should write some kind of retrospective, but it’s already 11 o’clock and I’m tired.

More to come.

[SPOILER ALERT]

It wasn’t as disappointing as I had feared it would be, but it wasn’t as awesome as I had hoped it would be.

Lost is one my top three favorite television shows, maybe even one of my top two; and were I to try to rate from a more objective standpoint all the TV shows from all time, I’m sure it would still make the top ten, maybe even the top five.

The first season remains my favorite. It focused more on the characters and their stories, while later seasons focused more on plot.

I liked the second season.

At first I had a tough time getting through the third season. Actually, the third season, probably more than any other, affected me on a personal level. I watched it during a very difficult time in my life, and it didn’t help much that I watched a show in which the characters in whom I had invested many hours of my life were constantly learning that a) they can’t trust anyone, and b) any decision they make will be the wrong one. The season finale, though, blew my mind.

I loved the fourth season. It’s my favorite season after the first. The story finally seemed to have some direction, and since at this point the producers declared that they would end the show after six seasons, it gave fans some hope that questions would be answered.

The fifth season was weird. It had its ups and downs, and time travel is always a tricky thing to play with.

And then there’s the sixth season. I have two big complaints about the sixth season. First, it made the smoke monster a main character. I always thought of the smoke monster as something the writers thought up under a time crunch and the influence of alcohol, an idea that seemed cool at first but looked stupid in hindsight. I always thought it was the worst thing about Lost. “Well, we’re stuck with it.” But it doesn’t mean you have to justify your mistake by giving it a bigger role.

Second, when they should be tying up loose ends and rounding off characters’ stories, the characters we’ve come to love after five seasons, they introduce a completely new plot line and a completely new character, and I never felt invested in either one. They reveal that the island is some sort of cork that keeps evil from pouring out into the world, and we’re just supposed to take their word for it. I never bought it. I mean, the world is a pretty crappy place with the island’s protection. They never showed us how Locke/Smoke Monster/Esau destroying the island would have doomed us all.

So I didn’t feel a lot of suspense about that, and while I understand that Jack’s sacrifice saved the world, I don’t feel like it did.

Which brings us to the final episode, about which I also have two big complaints. But first the positive: the final episode, in focusing on Jack’s character and growth, felt a lot like an episode from the first season. I love that he found his purpose, and I love that he gave himself up in such a Christlike way.  Also, I think it was the great fear of all Lost fans that the show would fail to answer all the questions it raised. Well, of course it failed in that respect. It had to, and I’m not that upset about it, and if I’m not that upset about it, Lost must have done something right.

On to the negative. First, the twist. Yeah, it was cool, but it completely negated any kind of suspense or investment I had in the flash-sideways-es. I wanted to see how those loose ends would be tied up. Instead, I learned that those loose ends were mostly meaningless.

I was convinced that Desmond – who may or may not have become Jacob – was going to bring the characters from the flash-sideways-es over to the island, kind of a trans-dimensional kind of thing. So the characters that died on the island (Sayid, the Kwons) would be resurrected in a way, and these characters would save the island. Does it make sense? Maybe not,  but it’s Lost. I think my ending was cooler.

Second, it really bothers me that that Ji Yeon Kwon, Jin and Sun’s daughter, remained an orphan at the end of the series. While Ji Yeon only made a couple of appearances (maybe just one that wasn’t a sonogram), her character was extremely important in Jin and Sun’s story. So what happens to her now? She gets raised by Sun’s Korean mob family? Yeah, that’s gonna turn out well. I wish that, while the submarine was going down, Sun would have said something like, “Our daughter!” and Jin, feeling awful about it, left her for the sake of their child. Even if Jin leaves Sun, no one will deny that they have reconciled and love each other deeply.

The final episode of Lost was sad, but it was positive. But leaving this poor girl without parents casts a dark shadow on an otherwise light picture. You could argue that such darkness is real, and I agree, but it doesn’t fit the tone that Lost ended on, the tone I believe Lost was going for.

Disagree? Then chime in. Convince me otherwise.

In conclusion, though, I liked the final episode more than I disliked it, if only by a little bit.

Farewell, Lost. You can and will never be replaced.

Favorite episode:

“The Moth” – Season 1, Episode 7

Best episode:

“Through the Looking Glass” – Season 3, Episode 22

A couple Lost moments that really got me:

“The Shape of Things to Come” – Season 4, Episode 9 – The last words Alex hears before she gets shot in the head are to the effect of, “Go ahead and kill her. She’s not even my daughter. She means nothing to me.”

“There’s No Place Like Home: Part 2″ – Season 4, Episode 13/14 – Sun loses it when she watches Jin’s ship explode.