Ladybug

I’m a little less confident in the artisan cheese scene than I was Friday. Thinking it is one thing. Writing it and realizing the audience may sit bewildered and bored unless you figure a way through it is another. I think I’ll write some back story instead.

Sunday night was one of those times that the American television universe brought a galaxy of far-flung random yet mostly inspired images into my living room (the smallest living room I have ever known), leading to my first-ever moment (and it was only a moment) of falling victim to image/information overload. A sampling: the scattered sometimes genius of “Arrested Development”; the subtle perfection of a “Monk” rerun; the sideshow party called the Grammy’s in which the hands across generations and genres became so crisscrossed that you had to weep (in joy) at the whole thing but why wasn’t Franz Ferdinand up for New Artist?; the amusement but slight disappointment with the second “Blue Collar Comedy Tour” special (I maintain the first one was a goldmine of laughs) in which only Ron White wasn’t in it for the paycheck; the sight of one of my co-workers presenting research findings to interested parties on a local access channel; and the crappiest “Family Guy” episode ever.

Have you ever taken your loved one to a restaurant to celebrate Valentine’s Day (a day early because I have to go to a ridiculous post-work community meeting tonight) and the host tells you it’ll be 10 minutes for a table and instead of asking your name he asks for a code word “because it’s more fun”? And Laurel, after a little deliberation, came up with a good code word. And we went to the new age bookstore next door, to wait for out code word to be called, and I read about the relationship between persistent infections and fatigue, while Laurel perused other sections. Nine minutes later we heard the quirky host call our code word and we proceeded to have one of my top 5 vegan meals ever. Has this ever happened to you?

The 2000s are halfway over and I plan on making some lists of my favorite things and I’ll likely post them here. However, lists take time and a certain amount of desperation, neither of which I have much of these days. But I do want to express that Morrissey’s “First of the Gang to Die” is the best song of the half-decade. About as transcendent as music gets. Not a wasted moment. Transporting lyrics, a jaunty melody, a perfect chorus, and one of the greatest single moments in the history of earth (the “bullet in his gullet" moment). Every decision Morrissey makes with this song is the right one: calling his hero Hector (great name!), taking the first-person-familiar of a gang member but still saying things like “such a silly lad,” and opening his heart to the universe. I recommend listening to this song over and over and over again while slowly driving the residential streets of Santa Monica looking for nothing but internal permission to keep driving and listening.