I’m not one to make predictions, but I’m going to make one right now:  The Los Angeles Lakers will win the 2010 NBA championship.  Now, I’m certain that many of you will disagree with this statement.  Many of you believe that it is destined for LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers to hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy this June.  But in reality, that’s not going to happen.  The Cavaliers won’t even make it to the NBA Finals.   Even though LeBron James has been 40-years old since he was 12, the Cavaliers lack poise, maturity, and experience, which is why they’re going to lose to the old folks playing for the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference semi-finals.   This will leave the door open for the Orlando Magic, who will defeat the Celtics in a grueling and bloody series to win the Eastern Conference championship.  However, Orlando will lose the Finals in six games to Los Angeles.  The Lakers have a veritable superstar (Kobe Bryant), three “long” (as NBA analysts like to enthusiastically describe them) forward/centers (Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum, and Lamar Odom), and a thug (Ron Artest), whereas the Orlando Magic are just Dwight Howard and a bunch of guys.

But the real reason the Lakers will win the championship is back-up point guard Jordan Farmar, and it’s not because he’s highly skilled at making one of two free throws, thank you very much.  You see, Farmar is the entire essence of Los Angeles.  Not only did he play college basketball at UCLA, but before that he attended Taft High School in Woodland Hills.  He was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley, which, like most things to come out of the 818, makes him great.  Some of you may dismiss the Valley as being a cesspool of drugs, violence, Ke$ha, venereal disease, and suburban trash.   All of this is true.  But what is also true is that the Valley is also home to the pornography industry, which is one of the only American products that is still worth a dime in this global economy.  This is what makes the valley great, and anything associated with the Valley is a winner.  Just remember that the cockroach didn’t become Earth’s greatest and most surviving species by being clean and decent.

Go Lakers.

I work in an industry that allows me to have a relatively easy lifestyle.  Unfortunately, my job is over fifty miles away from my home, which means that every morning I’m faced with a lonely, hour-long, and congested commute through the meat of the Ventura Freeway.  Coupled with the return commute home, I spend at least 120 minutes each day alone in my car.  During these hours the world seems unreal to me, as my entire existence is contextualized by gridlock and FM radio.  And sometimes it’s not even good radio, and that’s partially because someone at Clear Channel Communications has allowed Ryan Seacrest to squawk into a microphone every work day for four hours.  Now, you’re probably going to say that I shouldn’t listen to that Haircut if I don’t think he constitutes good radio.  However, he works for the only hit music station in town.  I need to listen to KIIS-FM if I want my daily dose of popular music.  Where else am I going to get to hear country music by Taylor Swift followed by hiphop by someone called “Drake”?  This station might play shitty pop music, but at least it’s diverse, shitty pop music.  God bless America.

Even though the car radio is always on, most times I’m not listening to it at all.  Most times I’m just listening to me talk to myself.  I find myself pondering inconsequential things like why Blue Scholars’ Solstice Reintroduction is the best lead track of any rap album.   I make vain attempts to explain why I feel impending doom whenever KROQ-FM plays Guns-N-Roses and Nirvana back-to-back.  I wonder out loud if it’s possible to jump off the roof of the Forum and walk away uninjured, despite what Mack-10 says.  I wonder what Mitt Romney thinks of Ke$ha, and whether Ke$ha thinks at all.  I futilely attempt to decipher what the hell Modest Mouse sings about in 80% of their songs.  All of these are absurd thoughts, but we live in an absurd world.  How else can I explain why a guy like me has a girlfriend like mine?  She has outrageously good-looks.  I have big teeth. 

The world is unreal.

In an ideal world, a weirdo like myself wouldn’t be allowed to spend this much time alone trapped within the confines of his own mind.  But we don’t live in an ideal world.  I live in the San Fernando Valley:  The most debaucherous neighborhood in the most reprehensible city in the most decadent country on this godforsaken rock.  We live in a world where our minds wander when we’re stuck in the gridlock of traffic.  We’re all either going somewhere or nowhere at all.  The world is perfect, simply because it is not.

I’ll talk about nothing, but it might be what you’re looking for.

A few years ago I attended the wedding of my good friend from junior high school through college.  The girl he was marrying someone we had both met while we were undergraduates at UC San Diego.  She was a couple of years younger than us, and the only reason I knew her was that she hung around the same circles of friends that my girlfriend hung around with.  The exact circumstances of how my friend met his girlfriend are unknown to me, although I do know that the following episode did happen:

One afternoon in the summer of 1999 I was in my bedroom using my computer after a long day of work.  I was enjoying our newly installed high-speed cable internet and trying to figure out how to use a music downloading software called “Napster”.  This was my very first experience downloading music from the internet, so I was thinking hard about which song would have the honor of being my very first pilfer.  I decided that it would be the pop/R&B song Where My Girls At? by 702.  I secretly liked this anthem to female supremacy, so I knew I had to download it covertly so no one could make fun of me.  1999 was a very pretentious era.  As soon as I hit “Search,” my friend (who was also one of my roommates) came into my room and said, “Dude, do you know Jessica Soriano?”

“Yes.  Why?”

“Oh, man, she’s cute!”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah!  I’ve never met her before.  I was in the Price Center with Irene Davis, and we had just finished eating lunch when Jessica came by.  She came over and started chatting with Irene and whatnot.  She and Irene are friends or something, or maybe they have a class together.  I don’t know.  Irene introduced us and Jessica said that she’s seen me around before.  I said Oh yeah? and I just played it off cool.  I was just hoping that she wasn’t turned off by my smoking.  Anyway, I know you know every person on campus.  Is she single?  What do you think she meant when she said that she’s “seen me around”?  Do you think she’s interested?  Do you have her number?  Do you talk to her?  Could you find out if she would go out with me?”

“Yeah, I know who she is.  As far as I know she’s single.  I don’t really talk to her.  I have her number, though.”

“Dude, call her and ask her if she’d go out with me. Is that creepy?”

“I don’t know.  Let’s see.”  I picked up my Panasonic 900 MHz cordless phone and dialed Jessica’s number.  “Good afternoon, this is Chris.  May I speak with Jessica, please? … Hey, how are you? … Good, good.  Do you have a minute? …  You met my friend today in the Price Center. … Yes, him … Yeah, listen.  Hypothetically speaking, if he were to ask you out on a date, would go out with him? … OK, that’s good to hear.  Thanks.  That’s perfect. … Yes. Yes.  … Thanks, Jessica.  … Bye.”

I turned to my friend and said, “You should ask her out.”

“OK, cool.  Thanks.  702?”  he asked after glancing at my computer monitor.

“Yeah,” I said confidently.

“Haha!  Good shit.  I like that song too.  Why is it a good song?”

“I don’t know.” 

They officially started dating the following year, shortly after I moved to Florida for professional school.  A few years went by and they decided to tie the knot.  My friend asked me to be a groomsman.  In the summer of 2003, I flew to Las Vegas to attend his bachelor party and their wedding.  Curiously, I was the only person from junior high school, high school and college to have been invited.  It was one of the most fun trips I had ever had, and I was honored to have been a part of the happiest moment of my friend’s life.  At the end of the reception, my friend and Jessica walked me to my rental car.  They thanked me for flying out from the east coast and being a part of their wedding.  They also assured me, because they knew that I was going through a patch of depression at that time, that everything would be OK.  I appreciated their concern, and I was thankful to have friends like them.  I asked them if they would attend my graduation next year, and they said that they would.

Seven years later I find myself planning my own wedding.  It will be on November 6, 2010.  My friend will not be there, simply because we are no longer friends.  The reason (or reasons) why we are not friends isn’t clear to me.  The last time I spoke with him was in the parking lot of the country club where their reception was held.  I never heard from him again.  Shortly after his wedding, all his contact information became invalid.  He changed his email address, phone numbers, and IM screen names.    Additionally, he made no attempt to contact me to inform me of any of these changes.  He did not attend my graduation.  It was as if he didn’t exist anymore, despite the fact that I have pictures to the contrary. 

Every time I recall this story, it makes me feel mixed emotions.  It makes me feel stupid and naïve.  It makes me feel unlikeable.  It reminds me that my perception of myself is rarely coincident with others’ perception of me.  But most importantly, this story makes me feel lonely and insignificant.  It reminds me of the one thing about me that I am embarrassed of and hate the most:  It tells me that I have very few good friends, and the ones that I do consider good friends probably don’t feel the same way.

I’ve found myself remembering my friend more frequently lately.  This is the direct result of all the wedding planning that is slowly beginning to consume the majority of my waking hours.  As such, I have been feeling anxious and unsettled.  It’s not because I’m nervous about walking down the aisle.  I think getting married is easy.  The hard part is that all the planning makes you analyze and critique all of your life’s relationships.  Sadly, I’ve realized that my relationships are poor. The first two people I asked to be groomsmen declined.  Finding people to take part in other aspects of the ceremony has been difficult and frustrating as well.  This led my fiancée to directly ask me two days ago why I didn’t have any friends.  It came out harsher than she meant it to, but it’s a valid question.  The only answer I have for that is that I’m kind of boring.  This doesn’t necessarily make me sad, but it does make me feel uneasy, unsettled, and not good.  But gas makes me feel that way, too.  Sometimes I can’t tell the difference between anxiety and diarrhea.

I was once told by an ex-girlfriend that if you have only one good friend when you die, then you’ve had a successful life.  I don’t know if she said that because she was an unlikeable loner with no social skills or because she really meant it, but I’m starting to agree with her.  No one deserves friends, and only lucky people have good ones.  I have one person who I consider to be a good friend, and I know she feels the same way.  I suppose I’m one of those lucky guys. 

I’m looking forward to the rest of my life.

There is something that I have been wanting to write about lately, but before I do I need to be honest about a few things about me.  Coincidentally, this seems like an appropriate time to come clean because this appears to be a new trend in the blogosphere.  Every day, more and more bloggers are coming clean with who they are, what they do, what they are, and who they do.  I suppose after four years of blogging, it’s time for me to reveal who I really am. 

Most of you know me as Shane Varnet and that I’m a biochemist.  Actually, I have no idea what you think my name is or what I do for a living.  But anyhow, the truth is that my name is Chris DeGuzman and that I am an optometrist.  Here is my Facebook page and my Twitter page.  This is information that I know you will not remember, nor care about, because even my closest friends do not think my name is Chris, nor do they remember that I am an eye doctor (they think I’m a dentist).  But, in order for me to write the following entry, you will need to know that I am in the health care industry.  This is something that I almost never write about, but it’s something that I want to write about right now. 

I recently received an email that is currently being forwarded to various physicians throughout the country.  The email, which was allegedly written by a Florida ER doctor, was a call to action regarding this November’s midterm elections.  The body of the email is as follows:

I live and work in a state overrun with illegals. They make more money having kids than we earn working full-time. Today I had a 25-year old with 8 kids – that’s right 8; all illegal anchor babies and she had the nicest nails, cell phone, hand bag, clothing, etc. She makes about $1,500 monthly for each; you do the math. I used to say, “We are the dummest nation on earth.” Now I must say and sadly admit: WE are the dummest people on earth (that includes ME) for we elected the idiot idealogues who have passed the bills that allow this. Sorry, but we need a revolution.  Vote them all out in 2010. 

Now, I’m well aware that no one in the cyber realm can be trusted.  It’s very possible that this email is not authentic.  There is no hard evidence that this was actually written by a Florida physician, or any physician, or anyone Florida.  For all I know, this was written by someone only pretending to be a doctor, like a pre-med student, a chiropractor, or Prince’s former drummer Matt Fink.  (This might be true.  The subject line of the email was “Bring on the Revolution”.)  Furthermore, it’s hard for me to believe that this was actually written by someone with extensive post-graduate education.  There are inexcusable spelling errors, he is implausibly self-righteous and self-loathing, and he seems to believe that the current Congress (which is barely in its second year) is responsible for the decades-old health care system.  “You do the math.”

For those reasons I didn’t care too much for that email.  However, what astonished me was the number of replies it received from my colleagues who supported its sentiment.  In summary, the collective replies read something like this:   

“I see a lot of illegal immigrants in my practice.  They have nice phones, nice handbags, and nice cars, all of which are nicer than anything I have.  Also, they have hundreds children.   I don’t know how they pay for all those things because I know they don’t have jobs.  On second thought, I do know how they’re paying for everything.  My taxes are paying for it!  But what makes me the most upset is that they are very rude and ungrateful.  They always complain to me and my staff about my service and frame selection, even though we are providing everything at no cost to them.  Oh yeah, and why can’t they learn English already?  I blame Obama.”

(It should be noted that the real transcripts were laced with expletives and derogatory words.) 

Reading these responses was both amusing and disheartening.  First, I was pleased to see that doctors are current with postmodern slang, curse words, and racial slurs, despite how uptight some of them appear to be (I’m a fan of things that aren’t expected to go together, like Oasis).  However, I was disappointed that some of them are completely ambivalent to the ramifications of social politics to proper health care.  In this politically-charged era that we live in, it’s not uncommon for people to have strong and polarizing opinions on current events.  But these emails were not people simply expressing their ideological perspectives on the health care debate.  These were ignorant, racist, and hateful rants fueled by resentment and self-entitlement, which probably isn’t very becoming of professionals who sick people trust to take care of them.

Now, I find it hard to believe that these people are truly upset at the fact that “illegals” are using tax-sponsored health care benefits.  I mean, whether the people coming into their offices are illegal or naturalized citizens, these doctors will still get paid either way.  (I suppose you can even make the argument that illegal immigrants are increasing revenue to private practices.)  To me, it seems that the fundamental gripe that these doctors are obsessed with is the notion that these patients are rude and obnoxious, which, whether they realize it or not, makes them sound racist.  Why?  Because no one is going to believe that they are implying that illegal immigrants are rude and obnoxious just because they get free stuff.

It might be considered rude and preposterous of me to accuse people of racism because if you talk to any of my friends, they will tell you that no one is more racist than I am.  This is not entirely true.  I am not a racist.  I don’t have any deep-rooted hatred or disrespect for any particular cultures or ethnicities.  However, I have been known to laugh at a racist joke on more than one occasion, and I have been known to tell a racist joke on more than one hundred occasions.  Seeing two Mexicans playing basketball and calling it “Juan on Juan” is racist, but it’s kind of funny.  You have to be at least a little racist to recognize and celebrate our culture’s diversity, and sometimes our culture is funny.  Racism is wrong, but sometimes racism is funny.  Anyone who disagrees with that is a racist and/or George Lopez.

Speaking as a doctor myself, I know that there are a lot of flaws in the Medicare and Medicaid systems that allow them to be easily abused.  Perhaps my experience is different from others’, but I’ve learned that the system is abused by people of ALL nationalities, colors, and creeds.   To reduce it to one single population is weak and lazy, even if that one single population appears to be the most commonly seen.   That would be like saying all homosexuals like shitty music because everyone at a k.d. lang concert is a Lesbian.  The more ominous fact that these doctors fail to address is that for every rude and obnoxious welfare queen that is abusing the system, there is at least one crooked doctor abusing the system as well by ordering unnecessary tests and making fraudulent claims.  We all know how much money doctors make, so who’s ripping off taxpayers now?  Any discussion about insurance fraud must include doctors and patients.  The system fails both ways.

There’s a lot that needs to be fixed with our country and our government, and they can only be fixed with open and intelligent dialogue and discourse.  That’s the complicated part.  The simple part is to not be racist.

One of the major issues that figures prominently on many Americans’ choice on who to vote for in elections is taxes.  GENERALLY speaking, the LEFT favor taxes to fund public programs and the RIGHT favor lowering taxes to give money back to the wage earner.    The problem with voting LEFT is that people don’t really get to see what their money is being used for.  For example, a single, independent tax payer with no children pays taxes to fund public schools, despite the fact that he has no children to send to these schools.  Paradoxically, a married tax payer with dependents pays fewer taxes to fund these same public schools that he sends his kids to.  However, the problem with voting RIGHT is that conservatives tend to drive America into recessions.  So, while taxes will be lowered and the tax payer will see more of his earned money, the value of that money will suck.  Right now, the US dollar is pretty worthless compared to the Euro (and on par with the Canadian dollar!).

I don’t really understand the concept of taxation.  It’s generally said that, “The more you work, the more taxes you pay.”  But, the concept of taxation seems to be more like the government saying, “The more money you make (gross income), the more money we’ll let you have (net income).”  Furthermore, it seems to foster laziness.  If we consider a lazy person who doesn’t have a job and has no motivation to work, the government will leave him alone.  However, should he choose to try to get ahead in life, make something of himself, and get a job, then Uncle Sam will be knocking on his door every April 15.

So, be a bum if you don’t want the government on your back.  God bless Amerikkka!

Later this week thousands of people will flock to the Mojave Desert for the annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.  For three days in Indio, California, concert goers will endure the heat of the grueling California sun to experience live performances by over 100 bands from around the country.  Because Coachella features both up-and-coming and big-name bands from all musical genres, this is widely considered to be the world’s premier music extravaganza.

Ninety-five percent of the bands who play Coachella are probably bands that ninety-five percent of the attendees have never heard of.  I suppose that makes sense, as the spirit of the event is to showcase cutting-edge musicians.  Because of the sheer number of bands and attendees, it isn’t hard to assume that the majority of the people who go to Coachella couldn’t care less about the majority of the music that’s played there.  It’s likely that the minority of the attendees is familiar with more than fifty percent of the acts, and the minority of these people is who the majority of Coachella attendees would refer to as “music snobs.”  These are the people who play Hadouken! on their iPods and roll their eyes if someone says they’ve never heard of them.

Obviously, there is a lot of pretention in music because there are pompous people in anything that requires an opinion (art, home décor, food, mosquito farming, etc.).  These people think that their taste is superior to that of the general population and make fun of the things that the general population likes.  This is a phenomenon that I’ve never had the capacity to comprehend.  I can understand liking some things and disliking others, but I’ve never been able to understand why anyone would think that their opinion is better than that of the collective society.

At some point in time it became cool to hate things that are popular.  Self-fancied smart people and cultural enthusiasts make it a habit to turn their noses up at popular things.  While it’s true that there are a lot of good things that people have never heard of, that doesn’t mean that something is bad just because it’s popular.  No one will deny that, say, Madonna is a popular entertainer.  You might like her music and you might not, but just because she’s insanely popular doesn’t qualify her as a bad musician.  Music snobs will like a band like Arctic Monkeys, but they’ll hate them the minute they’re put in regular rotation on your local hit music radio station.  These people think that they’re above culture.

It doesn’t make you any better than the casual music fan if you like unheard-of bands like As Tall As Lions, and it doesn’t mean you’re a music imbecile if you listen to Justin Bieber twenty-four hours a day.  Just because you’ve read books about the Akashic records doesn’t mean you are a literature expert, and just because you’ve read and enjoyed the entire Twilight series in four days doesn’t mean you’re a total literature moron.  It doesn’t mean you like good food because you refuse to eat at chain restaurants, and it doesn’t mean that you’re a rabid animal because you like to eat at T.G.I. Fridays on Saturday nights.  If you hate popular things, that doesn’t make you any better than anyone else.  The people who think like this are the same as the ones who think that people who aren’t educated on political issues shouldn’t be allowed to vote in elections.

No one likes elitists.

There is nothing wrong with being unique and liking things that few people have never heard of.  It is these people that ultimately move the world forward.   However, in regards to everything in life, the majority of the people in the world doesn’t care about the majority of the things that you care about.  That’s just how culture works, and no one is above culture.  There is only one reason why popular things are popular:  It’s because people like them.

In the music festival of life, the majority might not always be right.  But, it’s never wrong, either.

(This post was inspired by Jay-Z’s 99 Problems.)

I don’t know exactly what the purpose of being in a relationship is, but I have an idea.  It’s nice to have someone to have dinner and go to weddings with.   It’s good to have someone to talk to and confide in, it’s great to connect with someone on emotional, intellectual, and spiritual levels, and it’s fantastic to have someone to hang out with when there’s nothing better to do.  But, regardless of what we want to believe, no one “deserves” to be in a relationship.  That’s why it’s especially rewarding when we’re lucky enough to find someone to be in one with. 

Relationships make life easier and more bearable, and this is why I’ve never understood why people put up with relationship problems.  Life is hard enough, and a relationship with problems just makes life more difficult.  The only thing worse than having relationship problems is seeking relationship advice.   Seeking relationship advice is a vain attempt at solving problems that shouldn’t exist in the first place.  These are attempts by insecure people to hold on to things that they want to feel they deserve.  Sometimes the security of companionship clouds the focus of what the purpose of a relationship should be, which is to make life easier.  If you are having problems in your relationship, then you don’t need advice.  You need a new relationship.

If you need to seek advice from your friends, I’m sure they’ll gladly listen, but they’d rather not hear it.  They’ll tell you what you want to hear, but this is what you need to hear: 

• If you need advice because you think your boyfriend doesn’t pay attention to you, then you need a new relationship. 
• If you need advice because your girlfriend keeps cheating on you, then you need a new relationship. 
• If you need advice because it bothers you that your boyfriend doesn’t care about things that you care about, then you need a new relationship. 
• If you need advice because you’re not satisfied that your girlfriend won’t perform the sexual acts you fantasize about, then you need a new relationship. 
• If you need advice because you’re addicted to drama, then you need a new relationship.

If you are having problems in your relationship, then you don’t need advice.  You need a new relationship.  And if you’re not ready to hear that, then you need to be alone.

Two weeks ago the Earth crossed the midpoint of its elliptical orbit, causing the planet’s climates to phase from one atmospheric condition to the next.  In the northern hemisphere, the cold temperatures of winter faded and gave way to the life-giving warmth of spring.  This change is seen annually in many places around the world, except where I live in southern California.  Here, this transition only takes place in theory.  The climate here is perennially moderate, which east coast people consider undistinctive and boring.  It’s true that there is dead weather in Los Angeles, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad.  Not according to Jack White, anyway.

Nevertheless, meteorologists and Expose insist that seasons change, and there are signs that spring is here.  The pollen count is climbing, the days are getting longer, and the leaves are turning greener.  There is a new sense of life in the air, as evidenced by things like Easter, the blooming flowers on my balcony plants and whatnot.  Courtney Love even crawled out of her Hole and released a new single.  (This may or may not resurrect her career, but I suppose it is the season to try.)  All in all, people like springtime.

I can’t say that I appreciate springtime as much as other people.  Perhaps it’s because I’m undistinctive and boring like the climate around me.  But, I can say that my seasons are changing.  Spring took many years to get to me.  I often find myself reading the archives of this blog, which oftentimes is a gut-tossing experience.  As someone who has a hard time looking at himself in a mirror, looking at himself in a picture, and listening to his voice on a speaker, reading what I’ve written on my blog makes me want to enucleate my eyeballs.  I don’t like who I was before and I never will.  I’ve trained myself to think that I’ll appreciate the present more if I despise the past.  This is probably a character flaw.

Recently someone said that they stopped reading my blog because I didn’t write with the same passion as I did a few years ago.  This is not true.  No matter what season it is, as long as there is Starbucks, Kate Beckinsale, modern music, girls out of my league, and Republicans I will always write with the same disgusting passion that I’ve been associated with.

The planets are aligned.  I’m happier about it.

Everyone says that the best years of your life are the ones that you spend in college.  This might be true.  For four years it seemed that my life’s primary objective was to have no objective at all, which resulted in me drinking copious amounts of alcohol and sleeping with beautiful women who were too young and naïve to know any better.  This is a lifestyle that I cannot live today, and that’s mostly because my liver and my looks won’t let me.  I’m certain that my college experience was similar to many others’, so I can understand why some people would consider those four years their best ever.  I don’t know if that notion completely applies to me, though.  I’m uncertain if my college years were indeed the best years of my life, or if they just seem to be.  I suppose I could dismiss this quandary because, in this case, the reality or the perception would seem to have no significant effect on my life today.    I mean, who cares, right?  However, that would be too easy, and only losers take the easy way out.  This is why I blame Lisa Loeb for all my college memories.

In 1994, Ben Stiller made his directorial debut in the quasi-romantic comedy Reality Bites.  The movie was about a group of recent college graduates and the trials and tribulations they face as their lives enter the post-college world.  Specifically, though, the plot was about an young girl, played by Winona Ryder, who’s trying to land her first job after college, all while being emotionally torn between two men:  1) The attractive and successful urban professional played by Ben Stiller and 2) the ruggedly handsome and artistic, yet headstrong, former boyfriend played by Ethan Hawke.   Themes of responsibility, independence, reality, and love were prevalent throughout the film and they culminated in the end when Winona’s character had to choose between the two men, who invariably represented a life of order (Stiller) or a life of uncertainty (Hawke).  Predictably, she ultimately decided that the unpredictable Hawke was too hunky and irresistible to give up, so she ended up choosing him. 

It wasn’t a great movie.

However, it was inexplicably redeemed in the end when the theme song, Stay (I Missed You) by singer/songwriter and Daria lookalike Lisa Loeb, played during the closing credits.  For some reason, many people seem to agree that this song captured the essence of the film.  For reasons I cannot explain, this simple ballad made me long for the days of keg parties, Boone’s malt liquor, and general Generation X college angst.  Regardless of its lyrics, this song made me both sentimental about my college friends and nervous about graduating and facing the real world.  When I hear this song today, it still makes me feel all of these things, but the shocking thing is that I felt all these same emotions when I first heard this song in 1994 when I was a junior in high school.  I don’t know who “Lisa Loeb” thinks she is, or whether she knows what kind of strange power she has, but she seemed to know what my college experience should be about (maybe it’s because she looks bookish).  As a 17 year old kid, this fucking song made me nostalgic about events that hadn’t happened to me, and today, as a 32-year-old sap, it makes me nostalgic about things that may or may not have happened. 

I don’t understand nostalgia, but I suppose that is what nostalgia is all about.

My work day typically looks something like this:

Get to work.  Work hard for 40 minutes straight.  Slow down and read internet news and sports sites for 10 minutes while listening (over the office’s sound system which is set to the local hit music station) to a new power ballad by a very popular pop artist (usually Kelly Clarkson).  Work hard for 45 minutes straight.  Slow down, update Facebook and the blog for 15 minutes while listening to the new power ballad (usually by Kelly Clarkson) again.  Work hard for 50 minutes straight.  Take a break, read internet news and sports sites for 15 minutes and begin to like the new power ballad (usually by Kelly Clarkson), which is playing again.  Work hard for 50 minutes straight.  Slow down, read my Facebook news feed, news and sports for 15 minutes, and use the restroom. 

Go to lunch for one hour.  Sing the new power ballad (usually by Kelly Clarkson) to myself while eating.

Return from lunch.  Work hard for 50 minutes straight.  Slow down, take 15 minutes to read comments from fans, stalkers, emo teenagers, and Jesus enthusiasts on the blog (and reject DearRicky’s friend request for the 48^th time).   Work hard for 50 minutes straight.  Slow down, read internet news and sports for 15 minutes and begin to love the new power ballad (usually by Kelly Clarkson), which is playing again.  Work hard for 40 minutes straight.  Take a coffee break and read news and sports for 10 minutes and begin to HATE the new power ballad that the fucking radio station won’t stop playing.  Work hard for 45 minutes.  Prepare to leave work while listening to that fucking stupid power ballad that is inexplicably on heavy rotation on the local hit music station.  Leave work and hate everything about that pop singer (usually Kelly Clarkson).

Reading that should have made one thing very evident about myself:  I like to read internet news and sports.  Being the case, I am probably more informed about what’s going on in current events and sports than the average Kelly Clarkson fan/hater.  And sometimes I get confused and start to think that politics and sports are intertwined.  Are they?  How the hell should I know?  I’m not Manny Pacquiao.

Lately, I’ve had my mind on something major that has been in the news, and it’s not the pending vote on health care reform.  This is a legislation that Democrats are championing as the salvation of this country and Republicans are preaching to be a socialist takeover of our government.  Now, I’m not here to talk about the good or bad aspects of socialism, thank you very much.  I’ll leave that to the experts, like Carrie Prejean and Sean Penn.  The thing that I’ve been thinking about lately is the other major legislation that went down earlier this month, which is the NFL’s decision to not have a salary cap for the 2010 football season. 

For the past two decades the NFL has been America’s most successful sports league in terms of the number of fans it attracts and in the amount of money it makes.  Why is that?   In a nutshell, the television deals provide most of the money that comes through the NFL.  The thirty-two franchises split this revenue equally, which they use to pay their players (within the salary cap), which creates parity between the teams, which makes games exciting to watch, which attracts fans to the games, which creates more and more money.  It is this formula of salary caps, taxes, and socialistic revenue-sharing that has afforded the NFL so much success over the past two decades.  The NFL has been the model for a successful American business.

Baseball, on the other hand, has no salary cap.  Baseball is a capitalist’s dream.  The teams can spend as much money as they want to hire the most talented players in the league.  This is why the New York Yankees always have an astronomical payroll, are in the playoffs virtually every year, and have won more World Series championships (27) than next three most decorated franchises (St. Louis Cardinals 10, Oakland Athletics 9, and Boston Red Sox 7) combined. This is also why baseball is perceived as America’s most boring sport and why no one watches it.

For some reason I have a feeling that I just talked about health care reform (or Kelly Clarkson).