Friday, January 14, 2005

The Bank of America

I want to say a special thank you to Yoori, the nice and pleasant and helpful Bank of America employee that helped me out this afternoon with my checking account crisis. It's always nice to go to a bank (who likes going to a bank when you're 1) not cashing a check, or 2) not getting money from it?) and come away leaving with a smile on your face. I wish all bank visits were this pleasant.

There is snow on top of some of the mountains near where I live and the sight on a clear day such as today is literally breathtaking. When there's palm trees silhouetting mountains and other mountains behind them are covered in snow, you know you're in a special place.

I keep seeing signs advertising the L.A. baseball team that say: "LOS ANGELES: CITY OF ANGELS" and I think, "who came up with this?" Don't get me wrong, I like the idea. I like the idea of a city such as this being dubbed the 'city of angels.' I think it's fitting partially because it is the antithesis of what so many other smaller states out east think of when they speak of Los Angeles. To most people out there, it's a place they've never visited, a place they despise, a place they can't stand how fake and money-hungry everyone seems to be, yet, most of these people are the same people part of the millions of viewers every day to tune in and gorge themselves in TV show after TV show after realtity TV show after another spin-off of the 'The Bachelor' or 'My Wife's Boss is Fat and Ugly' and many many more which are from L.A., produced by L.A. people, and written, acted in by these flousy L.A. folk. I just find it ironic, that's all. And perhaps maybe a tad bit hypocritical. Because when everything is stripped away, the L.A. folks really aren't considerably more different than the people living behind the Muncie Mall or the Richland Harding's Friendly Market.

I think everyone just needs someone or some group of people or some place to point to and hiss at. And I'm serious about that. Wherever you go, people are creating this "enemy" or "target" and it's really quite amusing and scary at the same time. Out here, it's the "intolerant Republicans" or the "sheltered and ignorant uneducated southerner,"...and back east it's the "rowdy gay lobbyists" or the "liberal democrats." Call it whatever you want, just remember what you're doing when you're doing this.

After all, it's much easier to do this when you've never met such people isn't it? Or when you don't have any friends that fit into this 'category?' Then we don't care what we say, and we feel content in talking about how Mariah Carey is really very skanky and how Brad and Jennifer's recent split-up is really the most tragic thing going on in our lives. Or rather, the one we keep wanting someone else to talk about.

Oh brother.

Enough preaching for the day...I'm starting to convict myself which means, it's time to stop.

1 comment:

Chalupa said...

Call me a simpleton but it always made sense to me. Los Angeles => The Angels. Yeah, the snow covered mountains in the midst of 100+ degree weather is a cool thing when you think about. I was born in Phoenix and saw that all the time. Never really thought about it too much but it is a cool thing to see. Did I tell you I bought Good Bye Lenin! w/o seeing it? I'm excited. I've heard so many good things.